Elamite language
Elamite, also known as Hatamtite and formerly as Scythic, Median, Amardian, Anshanian and Susian, is an extinct language that was spoken by the ancient Elamites. It was recorded in what is now southwestern Iran from 2600 BC to 330 BC. Elamite is generally thought to have no demonstrable relatives and is usually considered a language isolate. The lack of established relatives makes its interpretation difficult.
A sizeable number of Elamite lexemes are known from the Achaemenid royal inscriptions – trilingual inscriptions of the Achaemenid Empire, in which Elamite was written using Elamite cuneiform, which is fully deciphered. An important dictionary of the Elamite language, the Elamisches Wörterbuch was published in 1987 by W. Hinz and H. Koch. The Linear Elamite script however, one of the scripts used to write the Elamite language, has remained elusive until the 2010s.
Writing system
The following scripts are known or assumed to have encoded Elamite:- Proto-Elamite script is the oldest known writing system from Iran. It was used during a brief period of time ; clay tablets with Proto-Elamite writing have been found at different sites across Iran. It is thought to have developed from early cuneiform and consists of more than 1,000 signs. It is thought to be largely logographic and is not deciphered.
- Linear Elamite is attested in a few monumental inscriptions. It has been described either as a syllabic or logosyllabic writing system. At least part of the script has been deciphered and it has been argued to have developed from Proto-Elamite, although the exact nature of the relationship between the two is disputed. Linear Elamite was used for a very brief period of time during the last quarter of the third millennium BC.
Linguistic typology
Elamite is an agglutinative language, and its grammar was characterized by an extensive and pervasive nominal class system. Animate nouns have separate markers for first, second and third person. It can be said to display a kind of Suffixaufnahme in that the nominal class markers of the head are also attached to any modifiers, including adjectives, noun adjuncts, possessor nouns and even entire clauses.History
The history of Elamite is periodised as follows:- Old Elamite
- Middle Elamite
- Neo-Elamite
- Achaemenid Elamite
- Late Elamite?
- Khuzi?
Persepolis Administrative Archives were found at Persepolis in the 1930s, and they are mostly in Elamite; the remains of more than 10,000 of these cuneiform documents have been uncovered. In comparison, Aramaic is represented by only 1,000 or so original records. These documents represent administrative activity and data flow in Persepolis over more than fifty consecutive years.
Documents from the Old Elamite and early Neo-Elamite stages are relatively scarce. Neo-Elamite is a transitional form in its structure between Middle and Achaemenid Elamite.
The Elamite language may have remained in widespread use after the Achaemenid period. Several rulers of Elymais bore the Elamite name Kamnaskires in the 2nd and 1st centuries BC. The Acts of the Apostles mentions the language as if it was still current. There are no later direct references, but Elamite may be the local language in which, according to the Talmud, the Book of Esther was recited annually to the Jews of Susa in the Sasanian Empire.
Between the 8th and 13th centuries AD, various Arabic authors refer to a language called Khūzī or Khūz spoken in Khuzistan, which was unlike any other language known to those writers. It is possible that it was "a late variant of Elamite". The last original report on the Khūz language was written circa 988 by al-Maqdisi, characterizing the Khuzi as bilingual in Arabic and Persian but also speaking an "incomprehensible" language in Ramhormoz. The city had recently become prosperous again after the foundation of a market when it received an influx of foreigners and being a Khuzi was stigmatized at the time. The language probably went extinct in the 11th century. Later authors only mention the language when citing previous work.
Phonology
Because of the limitations of the language's scripts, its phonology is not well understood.Its consonants included at least stops, and, sibilants, and , nasals and, liquids and and fricative, which was lost in late Neo-Elamite. Some peculiarities of the spelling have been interpreted as suggesting that there was a contrast between two series of stops, but in general, such a distinction was not consistently indicated by written Elamite.
Elamite had at least the vowels,, and and may also have had, which was not generally expressed unambiguously.
Roots were generally CV, VC, VCV or, more rarely, CVCCV.
Desset's reconstruction
Below is phonological system interpretation suggested by Desset.Vowels
Probably there were also long vowels and diphthongs, though written occurrences are rare.Consonants
Transcription is given in brackets ⟨⟩, while non-verified consonants are in parenthesis.| Labial | Alveolar | Postalveolar | Velar | |
| Nasal | ||||
| Plosive | ||||
| Affricate? | ⟨z⟩1 | |||
| Fricative | ⟨s⟩ | ⟨š⟩ | ⟨h⟩2 | |
| Approximant | ||||
| Rhotic | ⟨r⟩ | |||
| Lateral |
- Either or.
- Described as velar fricative by Desset. Two identified ⟨h⟩ signs possibly expressed two different /h/ phonemes.
Morphology
Nouns
The Elamite nominal system is thoroughly pervaded by a noun class distinction, which combines a gender distinction between animate and inanimate with a personal class distinction, corresponding to the three persons of verbal inflection.The suffixes that express that system are as follows:
Animate:
Inanimate:
The animate third-person suffix -r can serve as a nominalizing suffix and indicate nomen agentis or just members of a class. The inanimate third-person singular suffix -me forms abstracts.
Some examples of the use of the noun class suffixes above are the following:
Modifiers follow their heads. In noun phrases and pronoun phrases, the suffixes referring to the head are appended to the modifier, regardless of whether the modifier is another noun or an adjective. Sometimes the suffix is preserved on the head as well:
This system, in which the noun class suffixes function as derivational morphemes as well as agreement markers and indirectly as subordinating morphemes, is best seen in Middle Elamite. It was, to a great extent, broken down in Achaemenid Elamite, where possession and, sometimes, attributive relationships are uniformly expressed with the "genitive case" suffix -na appended to the modifier: e.g. šak X-na "son of X". The suffix -na, which probably originated from the inanimate agreement suffix -n followed by the nominalizing particle -a, appeared already in Neo-Elamite.
The personal pronouns distinguish nominative and accusative case forms. They are as follows:
In general, no special possessive pronouns are needed in view of the construction with the noun class suffixes. Nevertheless, a set of separate third-person animate possessives -e / appi-e is occasionally used already in Middle Elamite: puhu-e "her children", hiš-api-e "their name". The relative pronouns are akka "who" and appa "what, which".
Verbs
The verb base can be simple or "reduplicated". The pure verb base can function as a verbal noun, or "infinitive".The verb distinguishes three forms functioning as finite verbs, known as "conjugations". Conjugation I is the only one with special endings characteristic of finite verbs as such, as shown below. Its use is mostly associated with active voice, transitivity, neutral aspect and past tense meaning. Conjugations II and III can be regarded as periphrastic constructions with participles; they are formed by the addition of the nominal personal class suffixes to a passive perfective participle in -k and to an active imperfective participle in -n, respectively. Accordingly, conjugation II expresses a perfective aspect, hence usually past tense, and an intransitive or passive voice, whereas conjugation III expresses an imperfective non-past action.
The Middle Elamite conjugation I is formed with the following suffixes:
| singular | plural | |
| 1st person | -h | -hu |
| 2nd person | -t | -h-t |
| 3rd person | -š | -h-š |
In Achaemenid Elamite, the loss of the /h/ reduces the transparency of the Conjugation I endings and leads to the merger of the singular and plural except in the first person; in addition, the first-person plural changes from -hu to -ut.
The participles can be exemplified as follows: perfective participle hutta-k "done", kulla-k "something prayed", i.e. "a prayer"; imperfective participle hutta-n "doing" or "who will do", also serving as a non-past infinitive. The corresponding conjugations are:
In Achaemenid Elamite, the Conjugation 2 endings are somewhat changed:
| 1st person | singular | hutta-k-ut |
| 2nd person | singular | hutta-k-t |
| 3rd person | singular | hutta-k |
| 3rd person | plural | hutta-p |
There is also a periphrastic construction with an auxiliary verb ma- following either Conjugation II and III stems, or nomina agentis in -r, or a verb base directly. In Achaemenid Elamite, only the third option exists. There is no consensus on the exact meaning of the periphrastic forms with ma-, but durative, intensive or volitional interpretations have been suggested.
The optative is expressed by the addition of the suffix -ni to Conjugations I and II.
The imperative is identical to the second person of Conjugation I in Middle Elamite. In Achaemenid Elamite, it is the third person that coincides with the imperative.
The prohibitative is formed by the particle anu/ani preceding Conjugation III.
Verbal forms can be converted into the heads of subordinate clauses through the addition of the nominalising suffix -a, much as in Sumerian: siyan in-me kuši-hš-me-a "the temple which they did not build". -ti/''-ta can be suffixed to verbs, chiefly of conjugation I, expressing possibly a meaning of anteriority.
The negative particle is in-; it takes nominal class suffixes that agree with the subject of attention : first-person singular in-ki, third-person singular animate in-ri, third-person singular inanimate in-ni/in-me. In Achaemenid Elamite, the inanimate form in-ni'' has been generalized to all persons, and concord has been lost.