Exploring Sumerian-Akkadian Traces in the Iraqi-Arabic Lexicon
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31185/eduj.Vol49.Iss1.3262Keywords:
Semantic change, Sumerian, Akkadian, languages, socio-culturalAbstract
Change is one law of life along the history of man. The conditions of an individual’s life, his customs, traditions, and values are constantly changing, and consequently the referents of many words in language and the contexts in which they are used are subject to change in the course of time. Semantic change is an evitable process which many people find the most interesting. The interest stems from its connection with life, literature, and culture of communities.
This study investigates the semantic change that had occurred in the languages of Mesopotamia by following the changes from the ancient eras of Sumer and Akkad till the contemporary time. To do that, a lexicon of 100 words in the Sumerian and Akkadian languages has been created. The semantic change in these words have been linguistically and socioculturally examined and evaluated both quantitatively and qualitatively.
The study has come up with the conclusions that the Sumerian and Akkadian vocabularies investigated in the lexicon (80%) are still used in the Iraqi dialect though with different meanings. The study also proves that only few Sumerian and Akkadian vocabularies surpassed Arabic and reappear in Iraqi dialect (4%).
Downloads
References
• Abu-Haidar, Farida 2004. “The Arabic of Rabiʕa: A qeltu dialect of Northwestern Iraq. Approaches to Arabic dialects” . A collection of articles presented to Manfred Woidich on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday, edited by Martine Haak, Rudolf de Jong and Kees Versteegh, pp. 1-12. Leiden: Brill.
• Al- Bazi, M. (2006). Iraqi Dialect Versus Standard Arabic. California. USA
• Blanc, H. (1964). Communal Dialects in Baghdad. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
• Blank, Andreas (1999), "Why Do New Meanings Occur? A Cognitive Typology of the Motivations for Lexical Semantic Change", in Blank, Andreas; Koch, Peter
(eds.), Historical Semantics and Cognition, Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 61–90
• Diakonoff (1975). “Ancient writing and ancient written language: Pitfalls and peculiarities in the study of Sumerian” in Stephen J. Lieberman (ed.), Sumerological studies in honor of Thorkild Jacobsen on his seventieth birthday, June 7, 1974, pp. 99-
Assyriological Studies, No. 20. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Dye, G. (2017). “Traces of Bilingualism/Multilingualism in Qurʾā nic Arabic.” In Ahmad al-Jallad (ed.), Arabic in Context: Celebrating 400 Years of Arabic at Leiden University. Leiden: Brill, 337–371.
• Falkenstein A. (1974). The Sumerian Temple City. Undena Publications.
• Frahm, Eckart (2017). "The Neo-Assyrian Period (ca. 1000–609 BCE)". In E. Frahm (ed.). A Companion to Assyria. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons.
• George Aaron Barton (1918). Miscellaneous Babylonian Inscriptions, p. 45. Yale University Press.
• Halloran, J. A. (2006). Sumerian Lexicon: A Dictionary Guide to the Ancient Sumerian Language. Los Angeles: Logogram Publishing.
• Hess, Jonathan M. "Johann David Michaelis and the Colonial Imaginary: Orientalism and the Emergence of Racial Antisemitism in Eighteenth-Century Germany." Jewish Social Studies, vol. 6 no. 2, 2000, p. 56-101.
• Holes, C. (2007). “Colloquial Iraqi Arabic” in Postgate N. (ed.) Languages of Iraq, Ancient and Modern. British School of Archaeology in Iraq, pp. 123-134.
• Huehnergard, J. (2011). A Grammar of Akkadian. Winona Lake, Ind. : Eisenbrauns.
• Humphreys, R. (1999). Between Memory and Desire. University of California Press.
• Kramer, S. (1956). History Begins at Sumer: Thirty-Nine Firsts in Man's Recorded History. Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press.
• Landsberger, B. (1974). “Three Essays on the Sumerians” in Sources and Monographs on the Ancient Near East 1/2. Malibu: Undena Publications.
• Lipiński E. (1997). Semitic Languages: Outline of a Comparative Grammar. Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 80. Leuven: Peeters.
• Ludtke H. (1999). Diachronic semantics: towards a unified theory of language change? in Blank, Andreas; Koch, Peter (eds.), Historical Semantics and Cognition, Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 49–60.
• Maloney, J. F. (1982). The t-perfect in the Akkadian of Old-Babylonian letters: With a supplement on verbal usage in the code of Hammurapi and the laws of Eshnunna. Ph.D. Diss. Harvard Univ.
• Mark, J. J. (2011, April 28). “Uruk”. World History Encyclopedia. Retrieved from https://www.worldhistory.org/uruk/.
• Messo, J. (2017). Arameans and the Making of Assyrians: The Last Aramaic-speaking Christians of the Middle East. Aramaic Press.
• Moscati, S. et. al. (1964). An Introduction to the Comparative Grammar of the Semitic languages: Phonology and Morphology. Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 December 2009.
• Murray, Stuart A.P. (2009). The Library: An Illustrated History. Chicago, IL: Skyhorse Publishing.
• Owens, J. (2006). A Linguistic History of Arabic. Oxford: OUP.
• Prochazka, S. (2018). “The Northern Fertile Crescent”. In Clive Holes (ed.), Arabic Historical Dialectology: Linguistic and Sociolinguistic Approaches, 256-291. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Rawlinson, C.B. (1852). Outline of The History of Assyria. London: John W. Parker and Son, West Strand.
• Thakur (1999). Linguistics Simplified Semantics. Bharati Bhawan publishers & distributors.
• Ullmann S (1957). Principles of Semantics. Oxford. Oxford University Press
• Ullmann S (1962). Semantics: An Introduction to the Science of Meaning. Barnes & Noble: New York.
• Woods C. (2006). "Bilingualism, Scribal Learning, and the Death of Sumerian". In S. L. Sanders (ed) Margins of Writing, Origins of Culture: 91–120 Chicago (Archive).
• Wooly C. L. (1900). “The Royal Cemetery” in Ur Excavations. Wooly Joint Expedition of the British Museum Pub. for the Trustees of the Two Museums by the aid of a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York
• Zettler, Richard L. (2003). "Reconstructing the World of Ancient Mesopotamia: Divided Beginnings and Holistic History". Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient. 46 (1): 3–45.
• Zólyomi, G. (2016). An Introduction to the Grammar of Sumerian. Budapest: Eötvös University Press.
Arabic References
• Al- Dani, Abu Omer ( d.1053 A.D.) (1997). Al- Aḥruf alsebʿə lil qur’an. Edited by abdulselam tahan. Jedda: Dar Al-Menara.
• Al-Ahmed. S. (1981). Al-Medẖel ila tarῑẖ alḥeḍerᾱt aljazriya. Baghda: Itiḥad almu’ryẖeen alʿreb.
• Al-Andulisy, Bin Hazm (d. 1064 A.D.) (1983). Al-iḥkᾱm fi usöl alḥkᾱm. Edited by Shaiẖ Ahmed šakir. Beirut: Dar Al-ᾱfaq aljadeeda
• Al-Farahidi Al-Khalil (d.786 A.D.) (2003). Kitab al-ʿayn. Edited by Abdulhameed Hindawi. Beirut: Dar Alkutib alelmiya
• Ali, J. (1954-2016). Al-Mufesel fi tarῑẖ alʿreb qebl alislam. Beirut. Dar Iḥya’ alturaṯ alʿerebi.
• Al-Simawi, Y. (2006). Tamahi. A Poem published online https://diwandb.com/.
• Badawi, Asayid (1973). Musteweyat Alʿrabia Almuʿasira fi Misr. Cairo: Dar Alme3arif
• Baʿlebaki, R. (1999). Fiqh Alluġə Almuqaren. Beirut. Dar alʿilm lil melayeen.
• Baqer, T. (1973-2012). Muqedemə fi tarῑẖ alḥeḍerᾱt al qadimə. Baghdad: Dar Al waraq.
• Sulaiman Y. (2005). Al-Luġa Al-Akkidiya. Mosul. Dar Ibn Al-Aṯeer.
• Sῑbawayh, Abi bišr (d. 796 A.D.) (2009). Al-kitᾱb. Edited and explained by Abdulselam Haroon. Beirut: Dar aljameel.
• Ṯuwaini, A. (2013). Al-Alsuniya alʿraqiyə. Baghdad. Mesopotamia Publishing.
Published
Versions
- 2022-11-21 (2)
- 2022-11-01 (1)
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2022 Muayyad Juma Juma
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
