Why the Sumerian language may have died.

I found this story while googling any recent archeological discoveries. Apparently there was a drought around 4,200 years ago in the area that is now Iraq. This drought lasted about 200 to 300 years and caused the percentage of inhabited areas and population to decrease drastically, and at the same time groups of nomads where attacking the region. I have the links here, and you can Google this for more details.

www.archaeologica.org...


www.livescience.com...

The Sumerian language didn't die, it evolved. It was a very primitive language, written in cuneiform, which went on to lay the foundations for many languages, including Latin if my memory serves me correctly. There are many similarities between ancient Sumerian and current languages in the region like Arabic and Farsi, but that's a given considering that's the location of the Fertile Crescent.

Hmm, never thought about it that way. I guess just because the civilization went away doesn't mean that the language did.

reply to post by ufohunter16


Not at all, the Sumerian language is likely the most influential language in history and plowed the way for the modern alphabet. The primary reason for this is that Sumer was a huge center for trade, merchants had to know Sumerian, allowing for the language to spread throughout the region.

You may find this instructive:

Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature

You can search Sumerian documents for key words, and there's links to follow for learning all about Sumerian and how it was gradually adapted, borrowed from and then swallowed by Akkadian.

Thanks for the help. This should come in handy.

reply to post by ufohunter16


There's also the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary known as the CAD
Chicago Assyrian Dictionary

The Chicago Assyrian Dictionary (CAD) or The Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago is a nine-decade project at the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute to compile a dictionary of the Akkadian language and its dialects, focusing on the New-Assyrian forms. Modeled on the Oxford English Dictionary, work on the project was initiated in 1921 by James Henry Breasted, the founder of the Oriental Institute, who had previously worked on the Berlin dictionary of Ancient Egyptian.

Since Babylonian Sumerian was swallowed by Akkadian, you'll find this dictionary handy.

Here is where you can download for FREE all 21 volumes of letters A - Z of the dictionary that's taken over 90 years to assemble. (note; you'll see prices listed, but that's for ordering a hard copy book. The PDF files are absolutely free to download.)

With all that fun material, combined with the resources linked previously, you could, if you wanted, be well on your way to learning how to speak a dead language.

Who knows, if those Ancient Aliens ever show up, you could be in a very advantageous position to translate?

Haha I could couldn't I.

The English language was created by the smart people as they knew the best way to topple Tribes with their own languages would be to create a new language and use tactics to get them all to start using it.

The Sumerian language was morphed for the same exact reason. To pull in people that society wouldn't have otherwise had added to them. Best way to defeat your enemy is start adding portions of his language to yours. You'll start pulling people on your outer Empire realms into you as they feel "belonging"....instead of feeling like an outsider or outcast.

Thanks for the input guys and especially the materials Druscilla

Originally posted by DestroyDestroyDestroy
The Sumerian language didn't die, it evolved. It was a very primitive language, written in cuneiform, which went on to lay the foundations for many languages, including Latin if my memory serves me correctly. There are many similarities between ancient Sumerian and current languages in the region like Arabic and Farsi, but that's a given considering that's the location of the Fertile Crescent.

Not quite correct, I think. The Sumerian language is a very strange one, until today no relation to other languages could be demonstrated. Other languages may have taken over single words from the Sumerian.

Originally posted by DestroyDestroyDestroy
The Sumerian language didn't die, it evolved. It was a very primitive language, written in cuneiform, which went on to lay the foundations for many languages, including Latin if my memory serves me correctly. There are many similarities between ancient Sumerian and current languages in the region like Arabic and Farsi, but that's a given considering that's the location of the Fertile Crescent.

This is what I was thinking. Just look at the differences between British English and American English, and these vast changes occurred in just 200 years.

Originally posted by jiggerj
Just look at the differences between British English and American English, and these vast changes occurred in just 200 years.

Ah well, but AE and BE are still both English, whereas the Sumerian language did not live in other peoples, so it died.

Originally posted by Pervius
The English language was created by the smart people as they knew the best way to topple Tribes with their own languages would be to create a new language and use tactics to get them all to start using it.

LOLWUT? Where does this come from? Do you have any understanding of the development of the English language at all? Angles, Saxons, Frisians, Jutes; simplification of verb endings through Scandinavian influence, vocabulary input from Danish and Norwegians, the Latin of the Church and then the Normans? The Great Vowel Shift that helped usher in Modern English? The standardisation that came about through dictionaries, mass printing and so on?

But you think "The English language was created by the smart people as they knew the best way to topple Tribes with their own languages would be to create a new language and use tactics to get them all to start using it"?

I hope to god English isn't your first language.

Originally posted by Pervius
The English language was created by the smart people as they knew the best way to topple Tribes with their own languages would be to create a new language and use tactics to get them all to start using it.

Which smart people? Which tribes? Where is the evidence? Any school books written by the "smart people" from ancient times available? :-)

No I think he's right , I mean it makes sense. When you think about it no languages really dies, they are just adapted or evolve.

Originally posted by ufohunter16
No I think he's right , I mean it makes sense. When you think about it no languages really dies, they are just adapted or evolve.

That is so not true, languages die out and become extinct for a myriad of reasons. The most common is cultural replacement, where a new culture replaces and older culture, or through conquest.
Literally dozens of native north American languages have become extinct,and more will become extinct in our lifetimes.
Off the top of my head, within a 200 mile radius from where I live, you have Esselen,Yanna ,Maiduan, Costoan, island chumashan,Obispoeno, Salinian, most of Yokutsan dialects, pomoan, saboban and many others, have all hereby lost in the last 150 years. The list of recently extinct languages is pretty large.

.

1. Adai: (late 19th century) 2. Aka-Bo: Boa Sr (2010) 3. Akkala Sami: Marja Sergina (2003) 4. Alsean family [Alsea: John Albert (1942); Yaquina: (1884)] 5. Apalachee: (early 18th century) 6. Arwi: (early 19th Century) 7. Aruá: (1877) 8. Atakapa: (early 20th century) 9. Atsugewi: (1988) 10. Beothuk: Shanawdithit (a.k.a. "Nancy April") (1829) 11. Black Isle dialect: Bobby Hogg (2012) [7]

12. Baybayin: (late 19 century) 13. Catawban family 1. Catawba: (before 1960) 2. Woccon 14. Cayuse: (ca. 1930's) 15. Chemakum: (ca. 1940's) 16. Chicomuceltec: (late 20th century) 17. Chimariko: (ca. 1930's) 18. Chitimacha: Benjamin Paul (1934) & Delphine Ducloux (1940) 19. Chumashan family: Barbareño language was last to become extinct. 1. Barbareño: Mary Yee (1965) 2. Ineseño 3. Island Chumash (Ethnologue ) 4. Obispeño 5. Purisimeño 6. Ventureño 20. Coahuilteco: (18th century) 21. Cochimí (a Yuman language): (early 19th century) 22. Comecrudan family 1. Comecrudo: recorded from children (Andrade, Emiterio, Joaquin, & others) of last speakers in (1886) 2. Garza: last recorded in (1828) 3. Mamulique: last recorded in (1828) 23. Coosan family 1. Hanis: Martha Johnson (1972) 2. Miluk: Annie Miner Peterson (1939) 24. Costanoan languages (a subfamily of the Utian family): (ca. 1940's) 1. Karkin 2. Mutsun 3. Northern Costanoan 1. Ramaytush 2. Chochenyo 3. Tamyen 4. Awaswas 4. Rumsen: last recorded speaker died in (1939) in Monterey, California 5. Chalon 25. Cotoname: last recorded from Santos Cavázos and Emiterio in (1886) 26. Crimean Gothic: language vanished by the (1800's) 27. Cuman: (early 17th century) 28. Dalmatian: Tuone Udaina, (June 10, 1898) 29. Esselen: report of a few speakers left in 1833, extinct before the end of the 19th century 30. Eyak (a Na-Dené language): Marie Smith Jones, January 21, 2008 [8]

31. Gabrielino (a Uto-Aztecan language): elderly speakers last recorded in 1933 32. Gafat (a South Ethiopian Semitic language): four speakers found in 1947 after much effort, no subsequent record 33. Galice-Applegate (an Athabaskan language) 1. Galice dialect: Hoxie Simmons (1963) 34. Greenlandic Norse: (by the late 15th century (16th century at the latest)) 35. Modern Gutnish: (by the 18th century) 36. Jassic: (17th century) 37. Juaneño (a Uto-Aztecan language): last recorded in (1934) 38. Kakadu (Gaagudju): Big Bill Neidjie (July 2002) 39. Kalapuyan family 1. Central Kalapuya 1. Ahantchuyuk, Luckimute, Mary's River, and Lower McKenzie River dialects: last speakers were about 6 persons who were all over 60 in (1937) 2. Santiam dialect: (ca. 1950's) 2. Northern Kalapuya 1. Tualatin dialect: Louis Kenoyer (1937) 2. Yamhill dialect: Louisa Selky (1915) 3. Yonkalla: last recorded in 1937 from Laura Blackery Albertson who only partly remembered it 40. Kamassian: last native speaker, Klavdiya Plotnikova, died in 1989 41. Karankawa: (1858) 42. Kathlamet (a Chinookan language): (ca. 1930's) 43. Kitanemuk (an Uto-Aztecan language): Marcelino Rivera, Isabella Gonzales, Refugia Duran last recorded (1937) 44. Kitsai (a Caddoan language): Kai Kai (ca. 1940) [9]

45. Kwalhioqua-Clatskanie (an Athabaskan language): children of the last speakers remembered a few words, recorded in (1935 & 1942) 1. Clatskanie dialect: father of Willie Andrew (ca. 1870) 2. Kwalhioqua dialect: mother of Lizzie Johnson (1910) 46. Lipan (Athabaskan): a few native speakers were living in the 1980s, now extinct 47. Mahican: last spoken in Wisconsin (ca. 1930's) 48. Manx: Ned Maddrell (December 1974) (but is being revived as a second language) 49. Mattole-Bear River (an Athabaskan language) 1. Bear River dialect: material from last elderly speaker recorded (ca. 1929) 2. Mattole dialect: material recorded (ca. 1930) 50. Mbabaram: Albert Bennett (1972) 51. Mesmes: (one of the West Gurage languages), material from last elderly speaker (who had not spoken it for 30 years) collected ca. 2000 52. Miami-Illinois: (1989) 53. Mochica: (ca. 1950's) 54. Mohegan: Fidelia Fielding (1908) 55. Molala: Fred Yelkes (1958) 56. Munichi: Victoria Huancho Icahuate (late 1990s) 57. Natchez: Watt Sam & Nancy Raven (early 1930s) 58. Negerhollands: Alice Stevenson (1987) 59. Nooksack: Sindick Jimmy (1977) 60. Northern Pomo: (1994) 61. Nottoway (an Iroquoian language): last recorded (before 1836) 62. Pentlatch (a Salishan language): Joe Nimnim (1940) 63. Pánobo (a Pano–Tacanan language): (1991) 64. Pochutec (Uto-Aztecan: last documented 1917 by Franz Boas 65. Polabian (a Slavic language): (late 18th century) 66. Sadlermiut: last speaker died in 1902 67. Salinan: (ca. 1960) 68. Shastan family 1. Konomihu 2. New River Shasta 3. Okwanuchu 4. Shasta: 3 elderly speakers in 1980, extinct by (1990) 69. Sirenik: last speaker died of old age in (1997) 70. Siuslaw: (ca. 1970's) 71. Slovincian (a Slavic language): (20th century) 72. Sowa: last fluent speaker died in (2000) 73. Susquehannock: all last speakers murdered in (1763) 74. Takelma: Molly Orton (or Molly Orcutt) & Willie Simmons (both not fully fluent) last recorded in (1934) 75. Tasmanian: (late 19th century) 76. Tataviam (an Uto-Aztecan language): Juan José Fustero who remembered only a few words of his grandparents' language recorded (1913) 77. Teteté (a Tucanoan language) 78. Tillamook (a Salishan language): (1970) 79. Tonkawa: 6 elderly people in (1931) 80. Tsetsaut (an Athabaskan language): last fluent speaker was elderly man recorded in (1894) 81. Tunica: Sesostrie Youchigant (ca. mid 20th century) 82. Ubykh: Tevfik Esenç (October 1992) 83. Most dialects of Upper Chinook (a Chinookan language) are extinct, except for the Wasco-Wishram dialect. The Clackamas dialect became extinct in the (1930's), other dialects have little documentation. (The Wasco-Wishram language is still spoken by five elders). [10]

84. Upper Umpqua: Wolverton Orton, last recorded in (1942) 85. Vegliot Dalmatian: Tuone Udaina (Italian: Antonio Udina) (10 June 1898) 86. Wappo : Laura Fish Somersal (1990) 87. Weyto: while attested as living in 1770, 18th century explorers could find no fluent speakers 88. Wiyot: Della Prince (1962) 89. Yana: Ishi (1916) 90. Yola related to English: (mid-19th century)