ABSTRACT
The creation of the script can be explained as a reaction against the centuries-old cultural and occasionally political domination of Elam by Mesopotamia. The Linear Elamite script developed from the Proto-Elamite script, known from around 1,400 inscriptions relating to economic transactions found especially in Susa. The language of the Proto-Elamite script is not known, but there is no reason to suppose it is any language other than Elamitic. It played an intermediary role connecting Elam, cultural centres in Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and the Indus valley. Among Elamite personal names the last two syllables are frequently repeated: Silhaha, Kunene, Hilulu, Kinunu, and Nabubu. More controversially, the Nostratic hypothesis proposes a genetic relationship between many of the language phyla of the Old World. A modified version is presented by Greenberg, who postulates a Eurasiatic macrophylum consisting of the same language families as Nostratic minus Afroasiatic, Kartvelian, Dravidian and Elamite.
