Etymological Dictionary of Akkadian (EDA)

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Akkadian (Babylonian-Assyrian), written in the cuneiform script, is the earliest Semitic language attested and at the same time the most important Ancient Near Eastern language with regard to the duration and size of its documentation. Furthermore, it is one of the best attested languages of antiqitity. The size of the Akkadian text corpus approximately corresponds to the corpus of Latin up to 300 AD. The written documentation of Akkadian starts in Southern Mesopotamia about 2600 BC. For several centuries, Akkadian stood there in close contact with Sumerian, the earliest cuneiform language. Around 2000 BC, Akkadian replaced Sumerian as a spoken vernacular. From the beginning of the 2d millennium on, Akkadian was adopted (at least as a written language) in the neighbouring kingdom of Elam to the East of Babylonia where Elamite, an indigenous language, was spoken. Several ethnic groups entering Mesoptamia such as Guteans, Amorites, Hurrians and Kassites also adopted Akkadian as a written language. As the vernacular of powerful Mesopotamian empires (Babylonia, Assyria), Akkadian gained international significance during the 2d millennium BC. Thus it was used by the Hittite kings of Asia Minor and by the Egyptian pharaos as a lingua franca for their international diplomatic correspondance. In the course of the 1st millennium BC, Akkadian was increasingly replaced by Aramaic, a northwest Semitic language, which itself became superseded by Arabic, another Semitic language, after the spread of Islam.Therefore, Akkadian is of extraordinary importance not only for the reconstruction of the early history of Semitic languages but also as the source, receptor and transmitter of loanwords and foreign words of Semitic and non-Semitic origin, part of which still survive in modern languages. Except for the texts from Ebla (Syria) unearthed since 1974/5, the Akkadian lexicon is actually relatively well accessible through two large dictionaries, AHw. and CAD. As a huge reservoir for the history of Near Eastern languages and cultures, however, it is still almost unexploited. This is the main goal of the project proposed.