Learn to Read Ancient Akkadian: R. Caplice (2002), Prolegomena

Introduction

This post is the first in a series that provides a resource to review the contents of Richard Caplice’s Introduction to Akkadian (4th ed.; 2002). Each blog, covering a single chapter in Caplice, will be structured in the following way: (1) grammatical highlights; (2) vocabulary; and (3) select answer key. These blog posts can be used by someone already experienced in Akkadian as a review of Akkadian grammar and vocabulary, as well as for the beginner who wants to check her/his work with the answer key provided here. While more detailed grammars exist (such as Huehnergard’s teaching grammar or W. von Soden’s Grundriss der akkadischen Grammatik [=GAG]), Caplice provides a good overview of the language in just over 100 pages. This first blog covers only his introductory material, what I call here ‘Prolegomena’.

Prolegomena

Before beginning with Lesson One, Caplice provides some introductory material about the language in sections 1-4. The highlights are presented here:

§1 – Preface:

• Caplice’s Introduction “is intended as a tool in offering a twelve-lesson or one semester course in essential Akkadian grammar… The exercises are chosen from Old Babylonian, but signs are introduced, as is customary, in their Neo-Assyrian form” (p. 1)

§2 – Tools

• The standard reference grammar is von Soden’s Grundriss [GAG; 1995].
• The standard dictionaries are von Soden’s Akkadisches Handwörterbuch [=AHw] and the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary [=CAD]. A shorter dictionary, based on AHw, is Black, George, and Postgate’s A Concise Dictionary of Akkadian [=CDA].

§3 – Geography and Language

• Akkadian was the language of a dominant culture for some 2500 years.
• The earliest written records preserved from the area are in Sumerian (the language from which Akkadian borrowed its cuneiform script).
• Akkadian is a member of the Semitic language family.
  • My note: Caplice’s “traditional classification” of the Semitic languages based on their geographical location is wrong. He says Akkadian is “northeastern” Semitic; Canaanite (including possibly Ugaritic and Eblaite) as well as Aramaic are “northwest” Semitic; and Arabic, ancient South Arabic, and Ethiopic are all “southern” Semitic. This old model has been entirely overturned in the last 50 years through the work of linguists working in Semitics such as Robert Hetzron and John Huehnergard. See a very nice summary of the issues in Aaron Butts’s review of L. Kogan’s Genealogical Classification of Semitic). In short, there are two major divisions of Semitic: East and West Semitic. West Semitic is further divided into Central Semitic and so-called South Semitic. The following languages make up each branch: (1) Akkadian and Eblaite are distinct East Semitic languages; (2) Central Semitic comprises Northwest Semitic (Aramaic; Ugaritic; and Canaanite) as well as Arabic (including Ancient North Arabian) and Old South Arabian; and (3) so-called South Semitic is only Ethiopian Semitic (e.g. Ge’ez; Amharic) and Modern South Arabian (e.g. Mehri, etc.). It’s unclear (in the current state of Comparative Semitic linguistics) whether Ethiopian Semitic and Modern South Arabian share any morphological innovations, so these might derive from entirely separate West Semitic branches of the language (hence they’re called here ‘so-called South Semitic’).
• There are different periods and dialects of the Akkadian language:
  • Old Akkadian (OAkk.) = 2500-1950 BCE
  • Old Babylonian (OB) = 1950-1530 BCE
  • Old Assyrian (OA) = 1950-1750 BCE
  • Middle Babylonian (MB) = 1530-1000 BCE
  • Middle Assyrian (MA) = 1500-1000 BCE
  • Standard Babylonian (SB) = 1500 BCE – 0
    • A standard, literary dialect which imitated older, classical forms (i.e. OB) 
  • Neo-Babylonian (NB) = 1000-625 BCE
  • Neo-Assyrian (NA) = 1000-600 BCE
  • Late Babylonian (LB) = 625 BCE – 0

• In addition to these major periods, there are ‘peripheral dialects’ in which Akkadian was influenced by the local languages, including Susa, Boghazköy, Alalaḫ, Nuzi, Ugarit, and various local types in the Amarna texts.
• For the many different genres of Akkadian texts, e.g. from administrative to divination reports, see §3d.

§4 – The Writing System

• “Most Akkadian texts were written with a reed stylus on a clay tablet” which was subsequently sun-baked or fire-baked to harden the tablet (p. 4).
• Signs can have different values, such as logographic, phonetic, determinative, or phonetic complement.
  • Each sign is polyvalent, thus only context can determine the correct reading.
• Transliteration is the process of providing a correspondence of the Akk. cuneiform into the Latin alphabet, generally at the syllabic/morphemic level. Transliterations are generally written in one of three ways: italics if phonetic; majuscule (capital) if logographic; and superscript if determinative.
  1. Example: a phonetic reading of ‘man’ (in the nominative case) would be as follows: a-wi-lum (see Lesson One)
  2. Example: a logographic reading of ‘silver’ would be as follows: KÙ.BABBAR (see Lesson Three)
• Normalization is the process of providing a readable correspondence of the Akk. into the Latin alphabet at the word level.
  1. Example: a normalization of a-wi-lum (‘man’ in the nominative case) would be as follows: awīlum (see Lesson One vocabulary)
  2. Example: a normalization of KÙ.BABBAR (‘silver’; case undefined) would be as follows: kaspum (or kaspim, kaspam, etc.) (see Lesson Three vocabulary)

Conclusion

In just nine pages, Caplice provides a good (albeit imperfect) overview of the prolegomena necessary for studying the Akkadian language, including relevant tools for language study, the geographical and linguistic division of Akkadian, and an introduction to the writing system. Over the next several blog posts, we will explore Caplice’s 12 lessons for learning the Akkadian language, beginning next time with the first of the nominal declensions, the so-called ‘Status Rectus’. Lesson one explores issues of nominal inflection (nominative, genitive, and accusative), gender (masculine and feminine), number (singular, dual, and plural), and adjectives. Happy researching!