SumerianGrammar

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
THE SUMERO-AKKADIAN LINGUISTIC AREA
Sumerian and Akkadian coexisted in a region of about the size of
modern Belgium during most of the 3 rd millennium B.C. and during
the first quarter of the 2 nd millennium. Many speakers of the two
languages then lived in closest proximity. The final result of mutual
contacts was—apart from extensive borrowing of vocabulary—a considerable
divergence of Akkadian from the traditional “Semitic” language
type; and—on the other hand—non-Sumerian, “Semitic”, traits
in Sumerian. These have often been interpreted as faulty treatment
of “classical” Sumerian by scribes who—allegedly—no longer would
have been used to, and aware of, the typical grammatical categories
of Sumerian. Consequently, some scholars have maintained that
Sumerian had already ceased to be a living spoken language as early
as the time of the Third Dynasty of Ur.
But what actually happened was the building up of a “linguistic
area” or “convergence area” where “speakers can switch from one
code to another with a minimum of additional learning” (Gumperz/
Wilson 1971, 154). Seen in such a context, many features of both
Sumerian and Akkadian may be easily explained.
17.1.
The following diagram tries to demonstrate what happens when languages
A and B enter such a “convergence area”. A here stands for
Sumerian and B for Akkadian. The example illustrated is the common
Semitic conjunction [wa], borrowed by Sumerian as [u] (ù).