• Mediterranean Akkadian Lexicon 3rd Edition – 2022

    Author(s):
    David Olmsted (see profile)
    Date:
    2022
    Group(s):
    Alphabetic Akkadian, Classical Philology and Linguistics
    Subject(s):
    Akkadians, Mediterranean Region, History, Bronze age
    Item Type:
    Online publication
    Tag(s):
    Ancient Alphabetic inscriptions, Ancient Mediterranean, Akkadian, Late Bronze Age Mediterranean, Ancient languages
    Permanent URL:
    http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/nbb6-wg16
    Abstract:
    This third edition of Mediterranean Akkadian is bigger and better with more words and more refined word definitions based upon a larger number of translations. Linear (letter-like) Akkadian writing first appeared in the Mediterranean at the start of the Bronze Age on Minoan Crete around 1800 BCE. This first writing was used by temple/palace complexes for organizing economic activity brought about by the expanding international trade which characterized the Bronze Age. Such commercial level trade would not have been possible without a common means of communication such as that provided by a common written language. Priests also quickly adopted writing to preserve their religious debates. The Minoans borrowed Akkadian writing from Assyrian traders then active in Anatolia but they simplified the writing from the syllabic used in cuneiform (like “dab, da, d”) to phonetic (“da” and “d”). During the Bronze Age the demands of trade further simplified the script to alphabetic in which consonants could be followed by any vowel (Like “d*” and “d”). The users of linear writing were working people like traders, mercenaries, and entrepreneurial priests and not professional scribes. Consequently, its grammar is simple and based mostly on word placement in a way similar to English. Akkadian thus became the common written language of both Mesopotamia and the Mediterranean prior to the rise of Latin and Greek. The idea that the Bronze Age consisted of many isolated written languages is false. Texts labeled as Etruscan, Early Greek, Philistine, Phoenician, Paleo-Hebrew, and Punic are all really Alphabetic Akkadian.
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    Published
    Last Updated:
    2 years ago
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