How did the Akkadians adapt Sumerian cuneiform to write the Akkadian language?

When the Akkadians adopted the Sumerian writing system in the mid-3rd millennium BCE, they adapted it to fit their distinct Akkadian language through several key modifications:1

• Logograms: The Akkadians retained Sumerian logograms (signs representing words) but pronounced them as the corresponding Akkadian words.1
• Phonetic Expansion: They significantly expanded the script's phonographic properties. While they kept the original Sumerian phonetic values, they extended them to include more complex syllabic values (such as kan, mul, or bat).12
• Polyphony: The adaptation led to increased polyphony, where a single sign could represent multiple phonetic values. For example, a sign originally depicting "sun" could be read as ud, tam, tú, par, laḫ, or liš.1
• New Readings: Akkadian readings of logograms introduced additional complex values. For instance, the sign for "land" or "mountain range" retained the Sumerian value kur but added the Akkadian-derived values mat and šad.1

These changes created a more complex system where different "graphies" for the same sounds often existed simultaneously, a complication that persisted throughout the history of Akkadian cuneiform.1