ABSTRACT
Akkadian is the oldest attested Semitic language (with Eblaite, which several Assyriologists consider a branch of Akkadian, though it is treated separately in this volume). The earliest period, known as Old Akkadian, dates to between 2350 and 2200: the major textual evidence consists of royal inscriptions. After a Sumerian resurgence, from which fewer Akkadian texts are found, the documentation resumes shortly after 2000 BeE and continues unbroken until about the time of Christ, with all major types of texts attested for most periods. It is also from that date that begins the distinction between Babylonian in the South and Assyrian in the northeast. Four periods may be distinguished, corresponding roughly to cycles lasting about five centuries each: Old Babylonian and Old Assyrian in the first half, Middle Babylonian and Middle Assyrian in the second half of the second millennium; Neo-Babylonian and Neo-Assyrian in the first half and Late Babylonian in the second half of the first millennium. It is generally assumed that Akkadian came to be no longer spoken sometime in the first half of the first millennium, when it was effectively replaced by Aramaic. In addition, Assyriologists speak at times of Classic Babylonian, referring to the Old Babylonian dialect and its survivals. The most important such survival is also known as Standard Babylonian, which describes the language used in the literary texts copied and in some cases written in the first half of the first millennium.
