Akkadian is written in cuneiform, a type of writing formed by impress-ing a stylus on wet clay. The resultimpress-ing wedge-shaped indentations are what gave rise to the term “cuneiform,” from Latin cuneus “wedge.” Akkadian employs a logo-syllabic script that consists of a combination of logograms (see below) and syllables. Syllables can be of three types: (1) a vowel (a,
2For more details on the early discoveries and the decipherment of Akkadian, see E. A. Wallis Budge, The Rise and Progress of Assyriology (London: Martin Hop-kinson, 1925); Johannes Friedrich, Extinct Languages (New York: Philosophical Library, 1957); Samuel Noah Kramer, The Sumerians: Their History, Culture, and Character (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963), 7–19.
e, i, u); (2) a consonant plus a vowel or a vowel plus a consonant (da, ab, nu, un); (3) a consonant plus a vowel plus a consonant (dan, pal, bir).
Thus, without stressing the vowels, a word such as dannum could be writ-ten as dan-num, dan-nu-um, da-an-num, or da-an-nu-um. Cuneiform signs have undergone significant evolution in different time periods. They are organized in sign lists according to standard conventions so that signs made up of one horizontal wedge come first, then signs made up of two horizontal wedges, then angular, triangular, and vertical signs.3
Homophonous signs are signs that represent the same sound. For example, there are two signs in Akk to represent the sounds ur, su, and ssa.
To distinguish them, signs are numbered according to their frequency. A sign that most frequently has a certain value does not have any special indi-cation; for example, the sign that represents the most frequent value of u is represented simply as u. The sign that represents the next most frequent value of u is represented by u with an acute mark (ú). A third sign also hav-ing the value u is indicated with a grave mark (ù). Should there be a fourth or more signs having the same values, these are indicated by Arabic numer-als attached in subscript (e.g., the fourth value of u is indicated as u4).
A polyphonous sign is one that represents a number of different val-ues. For example, the sign be can represent bat and til; the sign ur can represent lik and tass; and the sign ud can represent per and tam. Polyphony arises because in many cases, in addition to its own equivalents, Akk has preserved the original Sumerian values of the cuneiform signs.
Sample Text: Law One of the Code of Hammurabi (= CH) Transliteration: ssum-ma a-wi-lum a-wi-lam ú-ub-bi-ir-ma ne-er-tam e-li-ssu id-di-ma la uk-ti-in-ssu mu-ub-bi-ir-ssu id-da-ak
Normalization: ssumma awıilum awıilam ubbîrma neertam elıissu iddıima laa uktînssu mubbirssu iddâk
Translation: “If a man accuses (another) man and has brought against him a charge of murder, but has not convicted him, his accuser shall be executed.”
Akkadian is traditionally cited by transliteration, presenting the cuneiform signs in their Latin equivalents (e.g., bi, dan). In many syllables there is no distinction between voiced, voiceless, and emphatic conso-nants so that a sign such as AZ serves for az, as, and, asß, or a sign such
3On the evolution and shape of the cuneiform signs, see René Labat, Manuel d’épigraphie Akkadienne (rev. and corr. by Florence Malbran-Labat; Paris: Librairie Orientaliste Paul Geuthner, 1976); Wolfram von Soden and Wolfgang Röllig, Das akkadische Syllabar (3d rev. and enl. ed.; AnOr 42; Rome: Pontifical Biblical Insti-tute, 1976); Cooper, “Sumerian and Akkadian,” 37–57.
as IG serves for ig, ik, and iq. But only one of these values may be selected for the transliteration. Likewise, many signs ending in e can also designate i (e.g., de and di, ke and ki), but only one value can be chosen for the transliteration.
Normalization is the putting together of the transliterated syllables to make Akk words in accordance with the rules of Akk grammar. Thus the syllables a-wi-lum are normalized as awıilum (“a man”), and id-da-ak is normalized as iddâk (“he shall be executed”). In this stage the transliter-ated consonants are always indictransliter-ated but the vowels coalesce. Thus the word mu-ub-bi-ir-ssu is normalized mubbirssu (“his accuser”), since all the consonants are written but only one u and i vowel.
Interpretation of the signs is assisted by the fact that the scribes prac-ticed vowel and consonant harmony so that there is agreement in normalization between the final vowel or consonant of one sign and the initial vowel or consonant of the following sign. For example, in the word id-di-ma from the text above the first cuneiform sign has the values id, it, and it†. The sign that follows it can be read di or t†i but not ti, which is rep-resented by a different sign. Consonantal harmony necessitates that the reading be either id-di or it†-t†i (not id-t†i or it†-di), and lexical considerations point to id-di to be the correct reading. Similarly, in the word ne-er-tam the second cuneiform sign could be read er or ir, but the sign that pre-cedes it can only be read ne (and not ni, which is represented by a different sign), so the correct reading is er. Where the principle of harmony leads to more than one possibility, knowledge of the grammar and lexicon determines the correct reading (as with id-di-ma above). It has been shown that a combination of three signs in cuneiform could theoretically have over five thousand possible readings, but phonological, morphologi-cal, and lexical clues lead to only one correct reading.4
A logogram is the term used to describe a Sumerian word that is bor-rowed into Akk. It is represented by one sign in the case of a simple logogram or by two in the case of a composite logogram. A logogram indicates meaning rather than a syllable or a sound.5 Thus the logogram É indicates the word for house (Akk bıitum) not the syllable é, and the log-ogram GAL indicates the word for “big” (Akk rabûm) and not the syllable gal. When read together as a composite logogram, the two signs É.GAL
4Erica Reiner, “Akkadian,” in Linguistics in South West Asian and North Africa (ed. T. A. Sebeok; Current Trends in Linguistics 6; The Hague: Mouton, 1970), 293–94.
5 Peter T. Daniels, “Semitic Scripts,” in Introduction to the Semitic Languages:
Text Specimens and Grammatical Sketches (ed. G. Bergsträsser; trans. P. T. Daniels;
Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1983), 251.
represent not the syllables é-gal but the word “temple” or “palace” (Akk eekallum [lit. “big house”] = Hebrew hêkaal ). Logograms tend to be used mostly for common nouns such as “king,” “field,” “silver,” and “barley”
and are recognizable in a cuneiform text usually because a syllabic read-ing of the sign makes no sense in context. In addition, cuneiform scribes often add signs that act as logogram identifiers. Thus some logograms are preceded by determinatives that indicate into which class the following logogram belongs. For example, the determinative GISS “wood” is placed before words indicating trees or items made of wood, and the determina-tive DINGIR “god” is placed before names of gods. Occasionally, phonetic complements (syllabic signs) are added after logograms to indicate that the logogram should have the same ending as the phonetic complement.
For example, if the logogram GAL is followed by the syllabic sign ti (GAL-ti), the syllable ti serves as a phonetic complement and indicates that the Akk word rabûm “great” should be normalized with an ending of ti, for example, as rabîti (feminine singular genitive).
Akkadian belongs to the Semitic family of languages whose chief char-acteristic is that nearly all verbs and nouns can be traced to an original triliteral root. Although written in cuneiform, Akk has retained the standard Semitic consonants, including hh (Heb. h˙êt), t† ( t†êt), sß ( sßaadê), and ss (ssîn). It has an )aalep that can represent an etymological )aalep (e.g., abum “father”
= Heb. )aab; agaarum “to hire” = Heb. )aagar) or a glottal stop between vow-els (e.g., sse)um “grain”). Some Akk consonants undergo assimilation before other consonants. Here are three examples: (1) the letter n at the end of a syllable assimilates to the following consonant (e.g., indin > iddin “he gave”; like Hebrew yinteen > yitteen); (2) a t-infix (see below) in verbs with initial sß, t†, or z will produce the following changes sßt > sßsß (isßtabat > isßsßa-bat), t†t > t†t† (it†tarad > it†t†arad), zt > zz (iztakar > izzakar); (3) when a sibilant or a dental precedes the third-person suffixes (ssu or ssunu), both the sibilant or dental and the ss of the suffix will assimilate to s (bitssu >
bissu “his house”).
Over the course of time, the language lost the Semitic laryngeals (Hebrew hê, h˙êt, and (ayin), though reflections of these lost laryngeals are visible in the later language. Thus the presence of the e vowel is often a clue that an original laryngeal has dropped out. For example, Akk ezeebum
“to leave” corresponds to Hebrew (aazab and Akk enûm “to change” cor-responds to late Hebrew (aanâ. In addition to the e vowel, Akk has the standard three Semitic vowels of a, i, and u, which can be short or long depending on the grammar and the lexicon. In transliteration, short vow-els have no special identifying mark (e.g., abnum “stone” = Heb. )eben;
ilum “god” = Heb. )eel ), but long vowels are identified either by a macron (aa) or by a circumflex (â ). Vowel length is determined by the grammar and lexicon, while the circumflex is mainly used for vowels that have
contracted together (e.g., banûm < banaa)um “to build”; iddâk < iddaa)ak
“he shall be executed”).