Introduction#
- Akkadian is
- the oldest Semitic language.
- the lingua franca of the ANE from about 2000-500 BC
- aka Assyrian and Babylonian
- Material culture
- written on clay tablets (good because virtually indestructible)
- vary in size from 1in square to 18in square
- most are hand-sized rectangles
- written on the face, but also the edges (often so could be read on a shelf)
- written with wedge-shaped stylus
- hundreds of thousands of extant texts (more than classical Latin)
- Cuneiform
- “wedge shaped”
- writing system of Akkadian
- syllable based
- adapted from Sumerian (a non-related but geographically close language)
- each character called a “sign”
- thousands of signs
- varies based on time and geography
- transliteration involves use of sign list
Dialects#
- Assyrian (in the north)
- Babylonian (in the south)
- Old Babylonian becomes the classical standard
- Standard Babylonian is the later imitation of Old Babylonian
- Peripheral Akkadian is the term for the Akkadian dialects of futher reaches (often mixed with the grammar and vocabulary of the native language.)
| Akkadian Dialects by Time and Geography |
|---|
| Old Akkadian (OAkk) | 2500-2000 |
| Assyrian | | Babylonian |
|---|
| Old Assyrian (OA) | 2000–1500 | Old Babylonian (OB) |
| Middle Assyrian (MA) | 1500–1000 | Middle Babylonian (MB) |
| Neo-Assyrian (NA) | 1000–600 | Neo-Babylonian (NB) |
| — | 600–100 CE | Late Babylonian (LB) |
- Learning Old Babylonian in this course
Research Tools and Context#
- Assyriologist is a person who studies and prepares texts of Akkadian.
- Massive field with lots of opportunity.
- Hundreds of thousands of texts (not all inventoried)
- More discovered every year
- Preparation of a text
- photography
- autograph copy a hand-drawn representation of a text
- transliteration a Latin-character representation of a text
- translation
- Tools
- sign list a “dictionary” of cuneiform signs and thier values
- dictionary
- dialect grammar
Download Anki Deck