Akkadian

A name sometimes given to the language used on the earliest Babylonian bricks, especially those found at Mugheir (Ur), Warka (Erech), Senkareh, Niffer, and other very ancient Me so pot am i an cities. The general character of the language is Turanian ; but its vocabulary connects it with the dialects of Southern Arabia and Aby in i a, more especially with the Mahra, Galla, and Wolaitsa. The writing is a rude and very complicated cuneiform. It is supposed that the language was spoken in Babylonia from a very early age ( B.C. 2500?) to the date of the A yrian conquest, about B.C. 1300. By that time it had become the language of an extensive literature, and as such, continued to be studied by the more learned A yrians down to the close of the Empire, B.C. 624. The later A yrian tablets are to a great extent translations from it. See Rawlinson’s “Ancient Monarchies,” vol. i., pp. 61-69, 2nd ed.     G. R.