Attested from c. 2900 BC. Went out of vernacular use around 1700 BC; used as a classical language until about 100 AD.[1]
Language family
Language isolate
Dialects
Emesal
Emesisa[2]
Emetena[2]
Emesukudda[2]
Emesuha[2]
Emesidi[2]
Emeku[3]
Writing system
Sumero-Akkadian cuneiform
Language codes
ISO 639-2
sux
ISO 639-3
sux
Linguist List
uga
Glottolog
sume1241
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Sumerian (Sumerian: 𒅴𒂠, romanized: Emeg̃ir, lit. ''native tongue'') is the language of ancient Sumer. It is one of the oldest attested languages, dating back to at least 2900 BC. It is accepted to be a local language isolate and to have been spoken in ancient Mesopotamia, in the area that is modern-day Iraq.
Akkadian, a Semitic language, gradually replaced Sumerian as a spoken language in the area c. 2000 BC (the exact date is debated),[4] 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.[5][6] 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.
^"Sumerian". Archived from the original on 27 June 2013. Retrieved 2024-04-07.
^ abcdePrince, J. Dyneley (1919). "Phonetic Relations in Sumerian". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 39: 265–279. doi:10.2307/592740. JSTOR 592740. Retrieved 2023-05-09.
^Prince, J. Dyneley (1904). "The Vocabulary of Sumerian" (PDF). Journal of the American Oriental Society. 25: 49–67. doi:10.2307/592549. JSTOR 592549.
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Sumerian (Sumerian: 𒅴𒂠, romanized: Emeg̃ir, lit. ''native tongue'') is the language of ancient Sumer. It is one of the oldest attested languages, dating...
+ "noble''), and their language "Emegir" (Sumerian: 𒅴𒂠, romanized: eme-g̃ir or 𒅴𒄀 eme-gi15). The origin of the Sumerians is not known, but the people...
Look up Sumerian in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. Sumerian or Sumerians may refer to: Sumer, an ancient civilization SumerianlanguageSumerian art Sumerian...
the Sumerian civilization and largely preserved by the later Akkadian and Babylonian empires. These records were written in the Sumerianlanguage in the...
The Sumerian disputation or Sumerian debate is a topical short story created in the middle-to-late 3rd millennium BC. Seven major debates are known, with...
The Sumerian King List (abbreviated SKL) or Chronicle of the One Monarchy is an ancient literary composition written in Sumerian that was likely created...
the Sumerianlanguage of southern Mesopotamia (modern Iraq). Over the course of its history, cuneiform was adapted to write a number of languages in addition...
by the non-Semitic Sumerianlanguage and adopted cuneiform writing. East Semitic languages stand apart from other Semitic languages, which are traditionally...
between Sumerian and Akkadian had led scholars to describe the languages as a Sprachbund. Akkadian proper names are first attested in Sumerian texts in...
been identified: Elamite Hattic Kassite Lullubi Sumerianlanguage Some well known constructed languages are agglutinative, such as Black Speech, Esperanto...
other languages official if a majority of the population approves in a general referendum. The oldest recorded languages of Iraq were Sumerianlanguage and...
Eridu Genesis, also called the Sumerian Creation Myth, Sumerian Flood Story and the Sumerian Deluge Myth, offers a description of the story surrounding...
Afroasiatic), Kartvelian, Dravidian, a group comprising Sumerian, Elamitic, and some other extinct languages of the ancient Near East, Eurasiatic (a proposal...
boxes, or other symbols instead of cuneiform script. Enki (Sumerian: 𒀭𒂗𒆠 DEN-KI) is the Sumerian god of water, knowledge (gestú), crafts (gašam), and creation...
Sumerian place-names being replaced with Akkadian translations. He deduced that it later transformed into Akkadian Bāb-ili(m), and that the Sumerian name...
involving ancient astronauts. Sitchin attributed the creation of the ancient Sumerian culture to the Anunnaki, which he stated was a race of extraterrestrials...
Dynasty of Ur, also called the Neo-Sumerian Empire, refers to a 22nd to 21st century BC (middle chronology) Sumerian ruling dynasty based in the city of...
usually either written in Sumerian or Akkadian. Some Babylonian texts were even translations into Akkadian from the Sumerianlanguage of earlier texts, although...
air, earth, and storms. He is first attested as the chief deity of the Sumerian pantheon, but he was later worshipped by the Akkadians, Babylonians, Assyrians...
(/ˈækæd/) and its surrounding region, the empire would unite Akkadian and Sumerian speakers under one rule and exercised significant influence across Mesopotamia...
The view that there was a Proto-Euphratean substrate language in Southern Iraq before Sumerian is not widely accepted by modern Assyriologists. The name...
(/ˈɡɪlɡəmɛʃ/, /ɡɪlˈɡɑːmɛʃ/; Akkadian: 𒀭𒄑𒂆𒈦, romanized: Gilgameš; originally Sumerian: 𒀭𒄑𒉋𒂵𒎌, romanized: Bilgames) was a hero in ancient Mesopotamian mythology...
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