Sumerian language
Sumerian was the language of ancient Sumer. It is one of the oldest attested languages, dating back to at least 2900 BC. It is a local language isolate that was spoken in ancient Mesopotamia, in the area that is now modern-day Iraq.
Sumerian is read from left to right, from the top; however early inscriptions were read top to bottom from the right.
Akkadian, a Semitic language, gradually replaced Sumerian as the primary spoken language in the area , but Sumerian continued to be used as a sacred, ceremonial, literary, and scientific language in Akkadian-speaking Mesopotamian states, such as Assyria and Babylonia, until the 1st century AD. Thereafter, it seems to have fallen into obscurity until the 19th century, when Assyriologists began deciphering the cuneiform inscriptions and excavated tablets that had been left by its speakers.
In spite of its extinction, Sumerian exerted a significant influence on the languages of the area. The cuneiform script, originally used for Sumerian, was widely adopted by numerous regional languages such as Akkadian, Elamite, Eblaite, Hittite, Hurrian, Luwian and Urartian; it similarly inspired the Old Persian alphabet which was used to write the eponymous language. The influence was perhaps the greatest on Akkadian, whose grammar and vocabulary were significantly influenced by Sumerian.
Stages
The history of written Sumerian can be divided into several periods:- Proto-literate period – c. 3100 BC to c. 3000 BC
- Archaic Sumerian – to
- Old or Classical Sumerian – to
- Old Akkadian Sumerian – c. 2350 – 2200 BC
- Neo-Sumerian – to, further divided into:
- *Early Neo-Sumerian – c. 2200 BC to c. 2100 BC
- *Late Neo-Sumerian – c. 2100 BC to c. 2000 BC
- Old Babylonian Sumerian – c. 2000 BC to c. 1600 BC
- Post-Old Babylonian Sumerian – after.
The next period, Archaic Sumerian, is the first stage of inscriptions that indicate grammatical elements, so the identification of the language is certain. It includes some administrative texts and sign lists from Ur. Texts from Shuruppak and Abu Salabikh from 2600 to 2500 BC are the first to span a greater variety of genres, including not only administrative texts and sign lists, but also incantations, legal and literary texts. However, the spelling of grammatical elements remains optional, making the interpretation and linguistic analysis of these texts difficult.
The Old Sumerian period is the first one from which well-understood texts survive. It corresponds mostly to the last part of the Early Dynastic period and specifically to the First Dynasty of Lagash, from where the overwhelming majority of surviving texts come. The sources include important royal inscriptions with historical content as well as extensive administrative records. Sometimes included in the Old Sumerian stage is also the Old Akkadian period, during which Mesopotamia, including Sumer, was united under the rule of the Akkadian Empire. At this time Akkadian functioned as the primary official language, but texts in Sumerian did continue to be produced as well.
The first phase of the Neo-Sumerian period corresponds to the time of Gutian rule in Mesopotamia; the most important sources come from the autonomous Second Dynasty of Lagash, especially from the rule of Gudea, which has produced extensive royal inscriptions. The second phase corresponds to the unification of Mesopotamia under the Third Dynasty of Ur, which oversaw a "renaissance" in the use of Sumerian throughout Mesopotamia, using it as its sole official written language. There is a wealth of texts greater than from any preceding time – besides the extremely detailed and meticulous administrative records, there are numerous royal inscriptions, legal documents, letters and incantations. In spite of the dominant position of written Sumerian during the Ur III dynasty, it is controversial to what extent it was actually spoken or had already gone extinct in most parts of its empire. Some facts have been interpreted as suggesting that many scribes and even the royal court actually used Akkadian as their main spoken and native language. On the other hand, evidence has been adduced to the effect that Sumerian continued to be spoken natively and even remained dominant as an everyday language in Southern Babylonia, including Nippur and the area to its south.
By the Old Babylonian period, Akkadian had clearly supplanted Sumerian as a spoken language in nearly all of its original territory, whereas Sumerian continued its existence as a liturgical and classical language for religious, artistic and scholarly purposes. In addition, it has been argued that Sumerian persisted as a spoken language at least in a small part of Southern Mesopotamia at least until about 1900 BC and possibly until as late as 1700 BC. Nonetheless, it seems clear that by far the majority of scribes writing in Sumerian in this point were not native speakers and errors resulting from their Akkadian mother tongue become apparent. For this reason, this period as well as the remaining time during which Sumerian was written are sometimes referred to as the "Post-Sumerian" period. The written language of administration, law and royal inscriptions continued to be Sumerian in the undoubtedly Semitic-speaking successor states of Ur III during the so-called Isin-Larsa period. The Old Babylonian Empire, however, mostly used Akkadian in inscriptions, sometimes adding Sumerian versions.
The Old Babylonian period, especially its early part, has produced extremely numerous and varied Sumerian literary texts: myths, epics, hymns, prayers, wisdom literature and letters. In fact, nearly all preserved Sumerian religious and wisdom literature and the overwhelming majority of surviving manuscripts of Sumerian literary texts in general can be dated to that time, and it is often seen as the "classical age" of Sumerian literature. Conversely, far more literary texts on tablets surviving from the Old Babylonian period are in Sumerian than in Akkadian, even though that time is viewed as the classical period of Babylonian culture and language. However, it has sometimes been suggested that many or most of these "Old Babylonian Sumerian" texts may be copies of works that were originally composed in the preceding Ur III period or earlier, and some copies or fragments of known compositions or literary genres have indeed been found in tablets of Neo-Sumerian and Old Sumerian provenance. In addition, some of the first bilingual Sumerian–Akkadian lexical lists are preserved from that time and there are also grammatical textsessentially bilingual paradigms listing Sumerian grammatical forms and their postulated Akkadian equivalents.
After the Old Babylonian period or, according to some, as early as 1700 BC, the active use of Sumerian declined. Scribes did continue to produce texts in Sumerian at a more modest scale, but generally with interlinear Akkadian translations and only part of the literature known in the Old Babylonian period continued to be copied after its end around 1600 BC. During the Middle Babylonian period, approximately from 1600 to 1000 BC, the Kassite rulers continued to use Sumerian in many of their inscriptions, but Akkadian seems to have taken the place of Sumerian as the primary language of texts used for the training of scribes and their Sumerian itself acquires an increasingly artificial and Akkadian-influenced form. In some cases a text may not even have been meant to be read in Sumerian; instead, it may have functioned as a prestigious way of "encoding" Akkadian via Sumerograms. Nonetheless, the study of Sumerian and copying of Sumerian texts remained an integral part of scribal education and literary culture of Mesopotamia and surrounding societies influenced by it and it retained that role until the eclipse of the tradition of cuneiform literacy itself in the beginning of the Common Era. The most popular genres for Sumerian texts after the Old Babylonian period were incantations, liturgical texts and proverbs; among longer texts, the classics Lugal-e and An-gim were most commonly copied.
Of the 29 royal inscriptions of the late second millennium BC Second Dynasty of Isin about half were in Sumerian, described as "hypersophisticated classroom Sumerian".
Classification
Sumerian is a language isolate. At one time it was widely held to be an Indo-European language, but that view has been almost universally rejected. Since decipherment began in the early 20th century, scholars have tried to relate Sumerian to a wide variety of languages. Because of its prestige as the first attested written language, proposals for linguistic affinity often have a nationalistic flavour. Attempts have been made without success to link Sumerian with a range of widely disparate groups such as Indo-European, Austroasiatic, Dravidian, Uralic, Sino-Tibetan, Bolgar and Turkic. Additionally, long-range proposals have attempted to include Sumerian in broad macrofamilies, often including other notable isolates like Basque or small families like Koreanic. Such proposals enjoy virtually no support among modern linguists, Sumerologists, or Assyriologists, and are typically seen as fringe theories due to their unverifiability.It has also been suggested that the Sumerian language descended from a late prehistoric creole language. However, no conclusive evidence beyond a handful of typological features can be found to support this view. A more widespread hypothesis posits a Proto-Euphratean language family that preceded Sumerian in Mesopotamia and exerted an areal influence on it, especially in the form of polysyllabic words that appear "un-Sumerian"—making them suspect of being loanwords—and are not traceable to any other known language family. There is little speculation as to the affinities of this hypothetical substratum language, or these languages, and Sumerian is thus best treated as unclassified. Other researchers disagree with the assumption of a single substratum language and argue that several languages are involved. A related proposal by Gordon Whittaker is that the language of the proto-literary texts from the Late Uruk period is really an early extinct branch of Indo-European language which he terms "Euphratic" which somehow emerged long before the accepted timeline for the spread of Indo-European into West Asia, though this is rejected by mainstream opinion which accepts Sumerian as a language isolate.