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Sumerian (Sumerian: 𒅴𒂠, romanized: eme-gir 15 [a], lit. ''native language'' [1]) 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 modern-day Iraq.
Aug 14, 2024 · Sumerian language, language isolate and the oldest written language in existence. First attested about 3100 BCE in southern Mesopotamia, it flourished during the 3rd millennium BCE. About 2000 BCE, Sumerian was replaced as a spoken language by Semitic Akkadian (Assyro-Babylonian).
Sumerian was spoken in Sumer in southern Mesopotamia (part of modern Iraq) from perhaps the 4th millennium BC until about 2,000 BC, when it was replaced by Akkadian as a spoken language, though continued to be used in writing for religious, artistic and scholarly purposes until about the 1st century AD. Sumerian is not related to any other ...
Nov 7, 2015 · The Sumerian Language was spoken in southern Mesopotamia before the 2nd millennium BCE and was the first language to be written in the cuneiform script. It is an isolate language meaning we know of no other languages that relate to it ancestrally.
Mar 22, 2018 · Sumerian is the oldest language that we can read that has come to us from antiquity, with clay tablets surviving from as far back as roughly 3200 BCE. As a spoken language, it likely died out around the middle of the second millennium, but continued to be used as a literary language for at least another 900 years.
Aug 14, 2024 · Sumerian is clearly an agglutinative language in that it preserves the word root intact while expressing various grammatical changes by adding on prefixes, infixes, and suffixes. The difference between nouns and verbs, as it exists in the Indo-European or Semitic languages, is unknown to Sumerian.
May 9, 2019 · The Sumerian language was developed in ancient Mesopotamia and is the oldest known written language. This language was written in a script known as cuneiform, which was later adapted by other languages that emerged in Mesopotamia and its neighboring regions, including Akkadian, Elamite, and Hittite.
The principal languages of ancient Mesopotamia were Sumerian, Babylonian and Assyrian (together sometimes known as 'Akkadian'), Amorite, and - later - Aramaic. They have come down to us in the "cuneiform" (i.e. wedge-shaped) script, deciphered by Henry Rawlinson and other scholars in the 1850s.
May 20, 2019 · Despite the fact that the city states of Sumer shared the same culture and language, they were never unified and were constantly at war with each other. The oldest known historical document is from the Sumerian civilization and has warfare as its subject matter.
Sumerian was spoken in the most southern part of ancient Mesopotamia. With its oldest texts dating to no later than 3000 BCE, it has the distinction of being the first attested language known to us. After its death as a spoken language, about 2000 BCE, it continued to be studied in the Mesopotamian school system for another thousand years.
