Next pivotal stage in the history of cuneiform decipherment and Mesopotamian languages. The key points about Akkadian dominance and the initial suspicion/discovery of Sumerian as a separate non-Semitic language.Slide Title: The Next Turning Point – Akkadian Dominance & the Suspicion of a Preceding Non-Semitic Language (Mid-19th Century)
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→ This breakthrough opened the door to understanding Sumerian as a language isolate with agglutinative grammar—via bilinguals—and revealed Mesopotamia's deep linguistic layering: Sumerian → Akkadian dominance → later Aramaic influence.This slide builds directly on prior stages (e.g., Behistun trilingual decipherment) and sets up further discussion of full Sumerian decipherment in the later 19th/early 20th centuries. Let me know if you'd like additional slides, more details, visuals suggestions, or expansions!
- Background image of cuneiform tablets from Assyrian/Babylonian sites (e.g., Nineveh library) alongside early Sumerian bricks or inscriptions.
- Timeline marker: ~1840s–1850s.
- Akkadian Texts Dominate the Archaeological Finds
- The vast majority of excavated clay tablets are in Akkadian (an East Semitic language).
- This made Akkadian the primary focus of early decipherment efforts after Old Persian and Babylonian/Assyrian cuneiform were cracked (via trilinguals like Behistun).
- Akkadian served as the lingua franca of the Ancient Near East for centuries (especially 2nd–1st millennium BCE).
- Babylonian and Assyrian as Dialectal Variants
- By the 20th century BCE, Akkadian split into two main regional variants:
- Babylonian (southern Mesopotamia, e.g., Babylonia).
- Assyrian (northern Mesopotamia, e.g., Assyria).
- These are not separate languages but dialects/variants of the same Akkadian language—often used interchangeably in texts.
- Differences appear in phonology, vocabulary, and some grammar, but scribes treated them fluidly.
- By the 20th century BCE, Akkadian split into two main regional variants:
- Cross-Translations via Bilingual Texts
- Many tablets are bilingual (Sumerian-Akkadian), with interlinear translations or parallel versions.
- These bilinguals (especially lexical lists, literary works, and royal inscriptions) allowed Akkadian to serve as a "key" for understanding older material.
- Akkadian scribes preserved and translated Sumerian texts long after Sumerian ceased as a spoken language (~18th century BCE), using it for religious, literary, and scholarly purposes.
- Discovery and Initial Decipherment of Sumerian (Late 19th Century – Key 1850 Milestone)
- 1850: Edward Hincks suspects a non-Semitic ("Turanic" or agglutinative) language underlying some inscriptions—predating and influencing Akkadian.
- He noted that Akkadian cuneiform seemed poorly suited to Semitic structure, hinting at an older origin.
- Henry Rawlinson publishes non-Semitic texts from southern Mesopotamia (e.g., bricks and tablets from sites like Larsa, Nippur, Uruk).
- These southern finds revealed inscriptions that didn't fit Semitic patterns—marking the first clear evidence of a separate language.
- This stage shifted focus: Akkadian was no longer seen as the "original" language of cuneiform; scholars began recognizing Sumerian as the earlier, non-Semitic source (later fully identified and named by Jules Oppert in the 1860s–1870s).
- 1850: Edward Hincks suspects a non-Semitic ("Turanic" or agglutinative) language underlying some inscriptions—predating and influencing Akkadian.
→ This breakthrough opened the door to understanding Sumerian as a language isolate with agglutinative grammar—via bilinguals—and revealed Mesopotamia's deep linguistic layering: Sumerian → Akkadian dominance → later Aramaic influence.This slide builds directly on prior stages (e.g., Behistun trilingual decipherment) and sets up further discussion of full Sumerian decipherment in the later 19th/early 20th centuries. Let me know if you'd like additional slides, more details, visuals suggestions, or expansions!
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