- A native or inhabitant of ancient Akkad.
- The Semitic language of Mesopotamia. Also called Assyrian.
Dictionary:
Ak·ka·di·an (ə-kā'dē-ən) ![]() |
| Archaeology Dictionary: Akkadian |
A cultural grouping named after an archaeologically unlocated site in the northern part of Sumer (possibly Babylon, Iraq) that became the capital city of the Akkadian state founded by Sargon in c.2370 bc. Under Sargon and his grandson Naram-Sin the dynasty extended the city-state into a larger empire covering northern and southern Mesopotamia as well as the neighbouring area of Elam. The Semitic language that was associated with the Akkadian empire is also called Akkadian and replaced Sumerian as the official language of the region. It was also written in cuneiform script which had originally been devised to record the unrelated and quite different Sumerian language. Through the later 3rd millennium bc the Akkadian language became extensively used throughout the Near East and into Anatolia and Egypt, in the 2nd and 1st millennia bc becoming Assyrian and Babylonian.
| Columbia Encyclopedia: Akkadian |
Old Akkadian is the earliest period of the language and can be dated from its appearance in Mesopotamia c.3000 B.C. to c.1950 B.C., when the 3d dynasty of Ur fell. Thereafter, Akkadian evolved into two dialects, Assyrian, the tongue of ancient Assyria, and Babylonian, the language of ancient Babylonia. The history of both Assyrian and Babylonian can be roughly divided into three successive periods designated as Old (beginning c.1950 B.C.), Middle (c.1500-c.1000 B.C.), and New or Late (after c.1000 B.C.). Around 1500 B.C., Babylonian began to be widely used, both in the Middle East and in international diplomacy. As time went on, Babylonian even replaced Assyrian to a large extent in the written records and literature of the Assyrian civilization. By the beginning of the Christian era, however, Babylonian had died out, and it remained a lost language until modern times, when it was deciphered during the first half of the 19th cent.
Unlike the other Semitic languages, which employed an alphabetic writing system, Akkadian and its later forms, Assyrian and Babylonian, were written in cuneiform. The Akkadians adopted cuneiform c.2500 B.C. from the Sumerians, a non-Semitic people who are believed to have invented it.
See also Akkad.
Bibliography
See I. J. Gelb, Old Akkadian Writing and Grammar (2d ed. 1961); E. Reiner, A Linguistic Analysis of Akkadian (1966); D. Marcus, A Manual of Addadian (1978).
| WordNet: Akkadian |
The noun has one meaning:
Meaning #1:
an ancient branch of the Semitic languages
| Wikipedia: Akkadian |
Akkadian may refer to:
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