Introduction
Languages serve not only as a means of communication but also as a source of learning about earlier civilizations. There are many languages that are extinct, meaning that no living person uses them, such as Atakapa, Tunica, Gaulish, Aka-Bo, and others. Some of them are less well-known and some are more, but the important thing is that at some point, each of them was useful for the people speaking and/or writing it.
There are languages like Latin, which are not spoken yet but remain a crucial element of scientific nomenclature and legal terminology. Each language contains visual and audio elements that help people to speak or write, as well as hear and read in them (Anderson et al. Chapter 1). This paper will focus on the Sumerian language, which is considered to have been the first language written (Cunningham 95). Even though Sumerian is no longer used, it contributed to the development of the earliest known ancient civilization, Mesopotamia, and, as a result, to the development of other languages and civilizations.
Origins and Development
The Sumerian language developed in Sumer, the southern part of Mesopotamia. The language is considered to have emerged around 2900 BC. Its written form appeared between 2500 BC and 1600 BC (Thomsen 15). Kenanidis and Papakitsosstate that there was a proto-literate period for the Sumerian language since 3500 BC (31). It is considered that from 2000 BC to 100 AD, post-Sumerian was used only as a classical language by non-native speakers, such as Babylonians and Assyrians, for scholarly purposes (Kenanidis and Papakitsos31). Such a use may be compared to the use of the Latin of Renaissance for scholarly purposes.
Another extinct language from the ancient Middle East that is extensively recorded is the Akkadian, which is frequently researched together with the Sumerian language. As Diakonoffsaid, “There are as many Sumerian languages as there are Sumerologists” (qtd. in Thomsen 11). Indeed, due to the language being so ancient and already extinct, it is impossible to comprehensively answer all of the questions concerning it. However, due to extensive evidence and remaining artifacts, scholars were able to come up with almost unanimous conclusions concerning the Sumerian language’s development.
The first contact between the Sumerians and the Akkadians is considered to have occurred in ca. 3000 BC (Thomsen 16). There was a lengthy and productive contact between the two civilizations, which led to some changes in both languages, including the adoption of loanwords. The Sumerian language is believed to have influenced the word order of Akkadian, making the sequence subject-object-verb, which is uncommon for a Semitic language (Thomsen 16). The Sumerian was and is still regarded as a language isolate (Kenanidis and Papakitsos 32). Still, even though not related to any language family, the Sumerian is considered an agglutinative language.
There were attempts to relate the Sumerian language with the northern language family. Judging from the geographic location, such assumptions were reasonable since the Sumerians were in close contact with the Samarra civilization (Kenanidisand Papakitsos 32). Other affiliations include Dené-Caucasian, Nostratic, Tibeto-Burman, and Uralic languages (Kenanidis and Papakitsos 32). However, the scholars agree that the most vivid connections of the Sumerian language were those with the Akkadian. Michalowski and Arbor emphasize that the structure of the Akkadian language is attributed to the impact of Sumerian (182). This fact indicates a lengthy period of the two languages’ co-existence, if not “bilingualism in Sumer” (Michalowski and Arbor 182). Loan words and loan morphemes are other factors that influence the Sumerian language of Akkadian.
The Sumerian language is known to scholars only in written form. This makes it difficult to disentangle its linguistic features from anything else (Michalowski and Arbor 187). Since scholars read the language backward, it is evident that the earliest texts (the ones analyzed the last) contain many words that cannot be translated. Frequently, this fact is associated with the words having gone out of use or having been replaced by others (Michalowski and Arbor 188).
The most important reforms in the Sumerian language are considered to have occurred in the times of Naram-Sin’s reign in Akkad (2254-2218 BC) and during the reign of the kings of Ur (2112-2004 BC) (Michalowski and Arbor 188). Although the exact history and prehistory of the Sumerian language are difficult to reconstruct, the main stages of its development were traced by scholars in the spheres of linguistics and archeology.
The General Syntactic Structure
Typological Classification
Any language can be classified in two ways: typologically (including grammatical features) and genetically (in terms of related languages). The Sumerian language is considered to be genetically unrelated to any other (Cunningham 95). Typologically, the Sumerian is classified as an agglutinative, verb-final, and ergative language. Agglutination is a term used in the analysis of word structure. Words consist of at least one morpheme, which is called a base or free morpheme, and can function as a word by itself (Cunningham 96). On the other hand, words can combine the free morpheme with one or more bound morphemes. The Sumerian language is agglutinative, meaning that it forms complex words by combining several morphemes that are easily identifiable to the unchanging, typically monosyllabic, base.
One of the uses of bound morphemes is the distinction between the subject and object of the verb. In this regard, the Sumerian language uses the ergative-absolutive system. The subject of an intransitive verb is marked the same as the object of a transitive verb – in the absolutive, while the subject of the transitive verb is marked in the ergative (Cunningham 96). An ergative-absolutive system reflects the semantics of the verbal element. In this regard, Sumerian cannot be classified as purely generative since it uses a nominative-accusative system to emphasize the role of the subject as a performer.
Another core typological classification is connected with word order, in the context of which Sumerian is a subject-object-verb language or a verb-final language. In Sumerian, the verb is the governing element in the clause, whereas in other grammatical instances, it is head-final. In the Sumerian language, the functional equivalent to the English ‘that’ occurs on the final position of the clause it subordinates (Cunningham 96). Instead of using prepositions like ‘to,’ Sumerian utilizes postpositional morphemes. Meanwhile, Sumerian possessive morphemes occur at the end of the phrase rather than at the beginning (Cunningham 96). At the same time, it is necessary to mention one crucial exception: in Sumerian, the modification of the noun is head-initial, with adjectives following the noun. For instance, ‘Eme-gir,’ meaning ‘native language,’ consists of the noun ‘me’ followed by the adjective ‘gir’ (Cunningham 96). There is some evidence that Sumerians used to have head-final noun modification, which was changed under the influence of Akkadian.
Genetic Classification
While the Sumerian language is easy to classify typologically, there are many disputes regarding its genetic relation to other languages. The prevailing opinion among scholars is that it is unrelated to any other language (Cunningham 96). Still, some efforts have been made recently to “find a home” within a language family or a superfamily (Cunningham 96-97). Some researchers’ findings in 1977 indicated that the Sumerian language had relatives, but scholars did not come to a conclusion as to which ones.
The American linguist Allan Bomhard argued that Sumerians belonged to the Nostratic superfamily, which was distributed throughout parts of Asia, Europe, and North Africa. The Nostratic superfamily was considered to include the Indo-European family of languages (such as English), the Semitic languages (such as Akkadian), the Uralic languages (such as Finnish), and the Sumerian language in isolation (Cunningham 97). There were also attempts to group the Sumerian language within the Uralic family of languages. However, due to considerable methodological problems with genetic classification, the isolationist position of the Sumerian language remains prevalent.
Word Classes
Sumerians had two types of word classes: content words (nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs) and function words (pronouns, determiners, conjunctions, numbers, and interjections. Concerning function words, Sumerians had a variety of pronoun types: personal, reflexive, demonstrative, interrogative, nominal relative, and indefinite (Thomsen 49). Meanwhile, Sumerian numbers functioned as determiners when qualifying a number and as pronouns when substituting a noun.
Sumerian interjections included expressions, directives, and mimetics (Cunningham 102). Concerning content words, Sumerian adjectives represented a tiny class, while nouns were subcategorized into human and non-human classes (Thomsen 49). Sumerian verbs were subcategorized depending on their semantic and syntactic requirements. This diversity of classes and classifications further signifies the elaborate nature of this ancient language.
The History of the Spread of the Sumerian Language
The spread of the Sumerian language is closely tied to the history of the Sumerian civilization. The language is considered to have originated around 3500 BC since the earliest written records in Sumerian date from this period. During the close interaction with the Akkadians, which occurred in ca. 2400 BC, Sumerian affected Akkadian in terms of loan words, simultaneously borrowing some from the Akkadian language(Poo 30). While Akkadian remained a dominant language in administration and diplomacy, Sumerian was primarily used for religious and literary purposes.
During the Old Babylonian (ca. 2000-1600) period, Sumerian maintained its status as a language of religion and culture. The literary tradition flourished, producing prominent works like the Epic of Gilgamesh (Brisch 117). When the people of Hittites gained control over some parts of Mesopotamia in ca.1600-1200 BC, the Sumerian language played an important role in transmitting knowledge between the two cultures. By the late period (ca. 1200-0 BC), Sumerian was no longer spoken as a vernacular language (Michalowski and Arbor 191). The influence of Akkadian continued to grow, gradually making Sumerian disappear.
Conclusion
Sumerian was the first written language primarily significant in the development of Mesopotamia, one of the cradles of human civilization. Sumerian literature was rich and diverse, giving the world such prominent works as The Epic of Gilgamesh. Although the Sumerian language lost its dominance under the impact of Akkadian, it continued to influence culture and religion for centuries, leaving behind a rich heritage that remains studied and appreciated.
Works Cited
Anderson, Catherine, et al. Essentials of Linguistics. 2nd ed., eCampusOntario, 2022.
Brisch, Nicole. “History and Chronology. The Sumerian World, edited by Harriet Crawford, Routledge, 2013, pp. 111-127.
Cunningham, Graham. “The Sumerian Language.” The Sumerian World, edited by Harriet Crawford, Routledge, 2013, pp. 95-110.
Kenanidis, Ioannis, and Evangelos C. Papakitsos. “Yet Another Suggestion about the Origins of the Sumerian Language.” International Journal of Linguistics, vol. 5, no. 5, 2013, pp. 30-44.
Michalowski, Piotr, and Ann Arbor. “The Life and Death of the Sumerian Language in Comparative Perspective.” Acta Sumerologica, no. 22, 2005, pp. 177-202.
Poo, Mu-chou. Enemies of Civilization: Attitudes toward Foreigners in Ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, and China. State University of New York Press, 2005.
Thomsen, Marie-Louise. The Sumerian Language: An Introduction to Its History and Grammatical Structure. AKademisk Forlag, 1984.
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