Language Contact between Akkadian and Northwest Semitic Languages in Syria-Palestine in the Late Bronze Age

Abstract

IntroductionAkkadian, a native language of Mesopotamia, "is by far the best attested Semitic language in the ancient world prior to the appearance of Arabic in the historical record" (Kouwenberg 2011: 330). 1 The oldest traces of Akkadian can be dated to the middle of the third millennium B.C., and the last text is datable to the first century A.D. (Kouwenberg 2011: 330-332). During the second millennium B.C. this language was used as a lingua franca in the ancient Near East by a large number of States, reaching its peak as the language of diplomacy in the Middle Babylonian period (ca. 1500-1000). 2 As Akkadian expanded beyond the geographical area where it was spoken, it came into contact with both Semitic (e.g., Amorite, Ugaritic, Canaanite) and non-Semitic languages (e.g., Hittite, Hurrian). These languages were often spoken by societies who had not previously developed a script system for their native languages. Given the new situation, extra-Mesopotamian scribes adopted at times Mesopotamian cuneiform script to write texts only in Akkadian. On other occasions, they used the Mesopotamian script to write texts both in Akkadian and in the local language. In both cases Akkadian became imbued, to various degrees, with the diverse local languages it came into direct contact with. 3 A significant result of this process was that, quite often, Akkadian acted as a sort of "contrast medium," bringing to light languages (Semitic and non-Semitic, such as Amorite and Kassite respectively) which had not been recorded in writing up until that moment and which would otherwise have probably gone totally unnoticed.Within the aforementioned framework, this chapter shall exclusively focus on the contact between Akkadian and three other three Semitic languages. This contact therefore involves genetically related 1 This chapter is one result of the research project 'Native Languages, linguae francae,