The Obituary
Akkadian was the East Semitic language of Assyria and Babylonia, named for the city of Akkad. Adopting the cuneiform script from Sumerian, it became the dominant tongue of Mesopotamia and, for much of the second millennium BCE, the diplomatic lingua franca of the entire Near East. Its Babylonian and Assyrian dialects carried literature, law, and astronomy. From the 8th century BCE, the rise of Aramaic steadily displaced it in everyday speech, and the last cuneiform texts were written around the first century CE.
Worth remembering
- It was the language of the Epic of Gilgamesh and the diplomatic letters found at Amarna in Egypt.
- Akkadian split into the famous Babylonian and Assyrian dialects of the great Mesopotamian empires.
Sources
- Akkadian was the East Semitic language of Assyria and Babylonia, written in cuneiform and gradually replaced by Aramaic. Wikipedia
- Akkadian served as a diplomatic lingua franca across the ancient Near East before its decline. Encyclopaedia Britannica
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