Coolest Quote Ever

**Ibrahim** · 02-02-2010, 00:51

it also, once again, proves that the Akkadian language never seems to have evolved all that much-at least in comparison to other languages

seriously, I learned old Babylonian/Assyrian, and mos of the words I recognize in exactly the same form as from then.

**Tudhaliya** · 02-02-2010, 02:52

Dude, tell me about that. I asked in class about it, and apparently they really loved to write conservatively. Of course, what they wrote probably sound nothing like what they spoke (which at that time was definitely Aramaic), but even when there were Neo-Assyrian speakers alive, they rarely wrote in their "barbaric" dialect.

**Ibrahim** · 02-02-2010, 05:02

Originally Posted by Tudhaliya

Dude, tell me about that. I asked in class about it, and apparently they really loved to write conservatively. Of course, what they wrote probably sound nothing like what they spoke (which at that time was definitely Aramaic), but even when there were Neo-Assyrian speakers alive, they rarely wrote in their "barbaric" dialect.

indeed. Aramaic ended up replacing Akkadian as the lingua franca of the area in the 7th and 6th centuries BC. however, even when it was spoken regularly in the region, there is in fact surprisingly little change or divergeance between the dialaects of the language over its 2000 year existance. the main features that have changed are as follows:

1-loss of the final -m in declined and conjugated words
2-loss of the dual (already evident in old akkadian, but completed by its decendants)
3-the loss of weak consonants, and the contraction of most glottal stops. its where the circumflex sign on rabu originated; it used to be raba'u, but the glottal stop was contrated, and the succeeding vowel (the u here) became a long vowel.
4-a few vocab changes, between the dialects and thei ancestors; that's only natural

otherwise, Babylonian and assyrian, the two major dialects, remained both mutually intelligeable to each other, and partly with their past counterparts.

**ziegenpeter** · 02-02-2010, 09:57

Wow! Cool quote. But since I don't know much about ancient oriental languages, I wonder why a greek king hat this written in Akkadian...? And Akkadian is related to Assyrian?

**Mulceber** · 02-02-2010, 10:19

I don't know oriental languages either, but it probably was because he was a Seleucid King and thus was ruling over eastern people - similar to how Roman governors in the east often chose to speak Greek. -M

**Tudhaliya** · 02-02-2010, 13:52

Originally Posted by ziegenpeter

Wow! Cool quote. But since I don't know much about ancient oriental languages, I wonder why a greek king hat this written in Akkadian...? And Akkadian is related to Assyrian?

It sure is. They're kinda the same. Akkadian is the oldest form of the language, spoken by Sargon of Akkad. Fast forward a few hundred years, and there's two dialects: Babylonian in the south, and Assyrian in the north. Like Ibrahim said, they were dialects (of Akkadian) that were probably mutually intelligible.

As for the reason Seleukus had this written, the shortest answer is because Alexander did it! We indeed have a few cylinders with his name on it (see the link in the original post). As for why Alexander did it, it's because the Persians did it. Back when the Persians took power from Nabonidus, the last Babylonian king, Babylonian culture was very strong compared to the Persians. They continued a lot of the Babylonian traditions, and even claimed to restore them to their rightful glory.

**ziegenpeter** · 02-02-2010, 17:57

Ok, so its the old story: You take over a declining power and implement parts of its culture to legitimate your rule...
Since there are some experts around: How were Akkads, Sumers, Babylonians, Assyrians and Arameans related?

**AncientFanTR** · 02-02-2010, 21:33

Originally Posted by ziegenpeter

Ok, so its the old story: You take over a declining power and implement parts of its culture to legitimate your rule...
Since there are some experts around: How were Akkads, Sumers, Babylonians, Assyrians and Arameans related?

They were all semitic I think? Related to modern day jews and arabs. Further back they were related to persian and then latin, greek, celtic, and finally sanskrit, which nearly all european languages (exceptTurkish, Hungarian, Estonian, Finnish and Basque) originally derived from.

**Tudhaliya** · 02-02-2010, 22:15

First there were the Sumerians in the very south of Iraq, right on the gulf (ca. 4,000-3,000 BC). They spoke a weird language that has no recorded relatives, living or dead. They figured out how to use irrigation canals to make their formerly crappy land into a rich agricultural breadbasket.

Along came the Akkadians, who were the eastern-brach of the Semites. They worked their way into the north and center of Iraq coming through Syria (think Palmyra in the game). The settled down with the Sumerians and their new irrigation system, and got along fine for a while.

before the mid-24th century BC, all of the settled parts of Iraq were city-states. Then Sargon of Akkad unified the lands into a (very) short-lived "empire."

Then the Sumerians were got kinda pissed that their culture was dying, so the 3rd Dynasty of Ur took over, and wrote down a lot of Sumerian literature and stuff. But it was too late. By ~1,700 BC, Sumerian was dead, and every spoke Akkadian.

In the wild, arid north of Iraq, the people who spoke a dialect of Akkadian called Assyrian, named after the city Assur. The Assyrians were much more warlike than their soft, bookish brothers to the south, in the remnants of the Sumerian heartland, who spoke the Babylonian dialect of Akkadian. The Babylonians valued Sumerian literature highly, and studied it and wrote down their own poems and epics.

Then the Arameans came along. They were a West Semitic group of people, who moved in to Iraq via Syria, just like their eastern cousins the Akkadians did a few thousand years earlier. The Arameans spread all over the place and integrated rather seamlessly into Assyrian and Babylonian culture. Due to massive population influx and intermarriage of the Arameans, Akkadian became the language of the (white-collar) workplace and the elite. When the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian Empires collapsed, and the elites were either killed or moved on, everyone left just decided to speak Aramaic.

So in sum, the Sumerians invented large-scale agriculture, were colonized by tent-dwelling Eastern Semites, who settled down, and who then themselves were colonized by tent-dwelling Western Semites. Fast-foward a 1,000 years and you have the same story: the same settled area of Iraq was invaded and colonized by another group of tent-dwelling Semites: in this case the Arabs.