extinct Semitic language, the oldest known member of the SEMITIC LANGUAGES, (q.v.), written and spoken in Mesopotamia (now Iraq) from the 3d to the 1st millennium bc. Also known as Akkadian, it displaced Sumerian, the earlier, unrelated language of Mesopotamia, after the Semitic ruler Sargon the Great (r. about 2335–2279 bc), founder of the dynasty of Akkad, conquered the region (see also SUMER; SUMERIAN LANGUAGE,).

About 2400 bc Akkadian was first written down in the CUNEIFORM (q.v.) script borrowed from the Sumerians. This script was not well adapted to writing the Akkadian (Semitic) sounds. Many of the difficulties were eventually solved, however, by orthographic reforms, particularly in the time of the Babylonian king Hammurabi. The language, deciphered in the 19th century, was written with about 600 word or syllable signs. It had 20 consonant and 8 vowel sounds. Verbs had two tenses, past and present-future. Nouns were feminine or masculine; were singular, dual, or plural in number; and were declined in the nominative, genitive, and accusative cases.

At the time of the breakup of the empire of Sumer and Akkad, about 2000 bc, the Akkadian language was in general use throughout Mesopotamia and had already begun to replace Sumerian as the spoken language in Sumer (southern Mesopotamia) itself. It appears also to have been adopted as a political and religious language by the Elamites to the east and by the Guti, Lullians, and Hurrians to the north and northeast.

After 1950 bc the Akkadian language broke up into two major dialects, Babylonian in the south and Assyrian (see ASSYRIA) in the north, each of which gradually underwent a number of changes. Babylonian became the dominant form and, even in Assyria, was used for literary purposes and, in certain periods, for historical and religious inscriptions; the Assyrian dialect was used for economic and legal documents.

The history of the Babylonian dialect is usually divided into four periods: Old Babylonian (c. 1950–1500 bc), Middle Babylonian (c. 1500–1000 bc), Neo-Babylonian (c. 1000–600 bc), and Late Babylonian (c. 600 bc–ad 75).

During the Old Babylonian period the use of the Babylonian dialect spread over most of Syria as the diplomatic and commercial lingua franca. Later, after 1500 bc, during the period of the bitter clashes among the rival empires of Egypt, the Hittites in Asia Minor, and Babylonia and Mitanni to the north and northwest, Middle Babylonian was the language of almost all diplomatic correspondence and of treaties between the great powers.

After 1200 bc, when all of Syria and Anatolia (Asia Minor) was overrun by various waves of Sea Peoples (maritime nations), Aramaeans, and others, the cultural and linguistic continuity in the western areas seems to have been radically disturbed, but within Mesopotamia itself it continued unbroken. Little by little, however, after 900 bc, when the expanding Assyrian Empire came to include large numbers of Aramaeans, the Aramaic language began to supplant Assyrian as the spoken language, even in Assyria. Meanwhile Aramaic-speaking tribes, including the Chaldeans, had infiltrated Babylonia. Although these tribes soon assimilated Babylonian culture and religion, they gradually made Aramaic the language of a large segment of the population. By the 4th century bc, during the time of Alexander the Great, Babylonian had been replaced almost completely by Aramaic as the spoken language. Nevertheless, it was retained as the language of law, religion, literature, and science, and even for some historical writing, much as Latin was used in Europe after the breakup of the Roman Empire. This situation prevailed through the Hellenistic period (323–146 bc) into the period of Parthian rule, when, at least in the cities of Babylon and Erech, Babylonian was still used by the priesthood and by the Chaldean astronomers. The last known text in the Babylonian language is an astronomical tablet from Babylon that dates from ad 75.        E.I.G., EDMUND I. GORDON, Ph.D.

For further information on this topic, see the Bibliography, sections 354. Paleography, 880. Babylonia–881. Ancient writing.