Sumerian language
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What is the Sumerian language?
The Sumerian language is a language isolate and the oldest written language. It was first attested around 3100 BCE in southern Mesopotamia. Sumerian flourished during the 3rd millennium BCE but was replaced as a spoken language by Semitic Akkadian around 2000 BCE. However, it continued in written usage almost to the end of the Akkadian language, around the beginning of the Christian era.
Four periods of Sumerian can be distinguished:
* Archaic Sumerian
* Old or Classical Sumerian
* New Sumerian
* Post-SumerianThe linguistic affinity of Sumerian has not yet been successfully established. Around the time of Christ, all knowledge of the Sumerian language disappeared along with that of cuneiform writing.
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Where and when was the Sumerian language spoken?
The Sumerian language, a language isolate, was spoken in southern Mesopotamia, in the area that later became Babylonia and is now southern Iraq. It was first attested around 3100 BCE and flourished during the 3rd millennium BCE. Around 2000 BCE, the Semitic Akkadian language replaced Sumerian as a spoken language, but Sumerian continued in written usage almost to the end of the Akkadian language, around the beginning of the Christian era. Sumerian never extended much beyond its original boundaries in southern Mesopotamia.
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Why is the Sumerian language important in history?
The Sumerian language holds significant historical importance as the oldest written language, first appearing around 3100 BCE in southern Mesopotamia. Although it was replaced as a spoken language by Akkadian around 2000 BCE, Sumerian continued in written form almost to the end of Akkadian's existence.
Sumerian's impact extends far beyond its limited geographic use, influencing the development of Mesopotamian and other ancient civilizations. The Sumerians developed cuneiform, the first system of writing. They also created the first codes of law and established the earliest city-states. These innovations mark the Sumerian language and its speakers as central to the history of human civilization.
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What kind of writing did the Sumerians use for their language?
The Sumerians used cuneiform, the most historically significant writing system in the ancient Middle East, for their language. The earliest traces of cuneiform can be traced back to the end of the 4th millennium BCE. The earliest writings were pictographic tablets from Uruk, used as lists of commodities with drawings, numerals, and personal names.
Over time, the writing evolved to be more cursive, and the pictographs developed into linear drawings. Due to the use of clay tablets, the strokes acquired a wedge shape when pressed into the clay, giving cuneiform its name and distinctive appearance.
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What are some unique features of the Sumerian language?
The Sumerian language, first recorded around 3100 BCE, stands out with several unique features. It is a language isolate, meaning it has no established linguistic relatives, though some link it to Ural-Altaic languages like Turkish.
Sumerian is an agglutinative language, preserving word roots while adding prefixes, infixes, and suffixes to indicate grammatical changes. Uniquely, it does not distinguish between nouns and verbs in the same way Indo-European or Semitic languages do; the word dug can mean both "speech" and "to speak," differentiated by syntax and affixes.
Written in cuneiform, Sumerian sounds comprised four vowels and sixteen consonants. Several dialects existed, including eme-gir (the official dialect) and eme-SAL (used in hymns and incantations).
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How did the Sumerian language influence later languages and writing systems?
The Sumerian language, the oldest known written language, significantly influenced later languages and writing systems despite its limited spread. Around 3100 BCE, Sumerian flourished in southern Mesopotamia. Although replaced as a spoken language by Akkadian around 2000 BCE, Sumerian continued in written form almost to the Christian era.
The Sumerian writing system, known as cuneiform, was adopted by the Akkadians, who adapted it to their Semitic language. The Akkadians retained Sumerian logograms but pronounced them as Akkadian words. They also expanded the phonetic values of the signs. Elam, in southwestern Iran, adopted cuneiform in the 3rd millennium BCE, and it potentially influenced the creation of a simplified cuneiform for the Old Persian language. By the second millennium, Akkadian, written in cuneiform, became a lingua franca in the Middle East.
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Sumerian language, language isolate and the oldest written language in existence. First attested about 3100 bce in southern Mesopotamia, it flourished during the 3rd millennium bce. About 2000 bce, Sumerian was replaced as a spoken language by Semitic Akkadian (Assyro-Babylonian) but continued in written usage almost to the end of the life of the Akkadian language, around the beginning of the Christian era. Sumerian never extended much beyond its original boundaries in southern Mesopotamia; the small number of its native speakers was entirely out of proportion to the tremendous importance and influence Sumerian exercised on the development of the Mesopotamian and other ancient civilizations in all their stages. (See also Mesopotamia, history of.)
History
Four periods of Sumerian can be distinguished: Archaic Sumerian, Old or Classical Sumerian, New Sumerian, and Post-Sumerian.
Archaic Sumerian covered a period from about 3100 bce, when the first Sumerian records make their appearance, down to about 2500 bce. The earliest Sumerian writing is almost exclusively represented by texts of business and administrative character. There are also school texts in the form of simple exercises in writing signs and words. The Archaic Sumerian language is still very poorly understood, partly because of the difficulties surrounding the reading and interpretation of early Sumerian writing and partly because of the meagreness of sources.
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The Old, or Classical, period of Sumerian lasted from about 2500 to 2300 bce and is represented mainly by records of the early rulers of Lagash. The records are business, legal, and administrative texts, as well as royal and private inscriptions, mostly of votive character; letters, both private and official; and incantations. These sources are much more numerous than those of the preceding period, and the writing is explicit enough to make possible an adequate reconstruction of Sumerian grammar and vocabulary.
During the period of the Sargonic dynasty, the Semitic Akkadians took over the political hegemony of Babylonia, marking a definite setback in the progress of the Sumerian language. At this time the Akkadian language was used extensively throughout the entire area of the Akkadian empire, while the use of Sumerian gradually was limited to a small area in Sumer proper. After a brief revival during the 3rd dynasty of Ur, the New Sumerian period came to an end about 2000 bce, when new inroads of the Semitic peoples from the desert succeeded in destroying the 3rd dynasty of Ur and in establishing the Semitic dynasties of Isin, Larsa, and Babylon.
The period of the dynasties of Isin, Larsa, and Babylon is called the Old Babylonian period, after Babylon, which became the capital and the most important city in the country. During this time the Sumerians lost their political identity, and Sumerian gradually disappeared as a spoken language. It did, however, continue to be written to the very end of the use of cuneiform writing. This is the last stage of the Sumerian language, called Post-Sumerian.
In the early stages of the Post-Sumerian period the use of written Sumerian is extensively attested in legal and administrative texts, as well as in royal inscriptions, which are often bilingual, in Sumerian and Babylonian. Many Sumerian literary compositions, which came down from the older Sumerian periods by way of oral tradition, were recorded in writing for the first time in the Old Babylonian period. Many more were copied by industrious scribes from originals now lost. The rich Sumerian literature is represented by texts of varied nature, such as myths and epics, hymns and lamentations, rituals and incantations, and proverbs and the so-called wisdom compositions. For many centuries after the Old Babylonian period, the study of Sumerian continued in the Babylonian schools. As late as the 7th century bce, Ashurbanipal, one of the last rulers of Assyria, boasted of being able to read the difficult Sumerian language, and from an even later period, in Hellenistic times, there are some cuneiform tablets that show Sumerian words transcribed in Greek letters.
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Rediscovery
Around the time of Christ, all knowledge of the Sumerian language disappeared along with that of cuneiform writing, and in the succeeding centuries even the name Sumer vanished from memory.
Unlike Assyria, Babylonia, and Egypt, whose histories and traditions are amply documented in biblical and classical sources, there was nothing to be found in non-Mesopotamian sources to make one even suspect the existence of the Sumerians in antiquity, let alone fully appreciate their important role in the history of early civilizations.
When the decipherment of cuneiform writing was achieved in the early decades of the 19th century, three languages written in cuneiform were discovered: Semitic Babylonian, Indo-European Persian, and Elamite, of unknown linguistic affiliation. Only after the texts written in Babylonian had become better understood did scholars become aware of the existence of texts written in a language different from Babylonian. When the new language was discovered it was variously designated as Scythian, or even Akkadian (that is, by the very name now given to the Semitic language spoken in Babylonia and Assyria). It was only after knowledge of the new language had grown that it was given the correct name of Sumerian.