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Babylonian anyone? | ||
Tags: Dead Languages | Press Article | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Mooby Senior Member Scotland Joined 6106 days ago 707 posts - 1220 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Polish | Message 1 of 14 30 September 2010 at 2:43pm | IP Logged |
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I read in 'The Times' newspaper today:
'The ancient Babylonian language can be heard for the first time in almost 2000 years after scholars from Cambridge University posted readings and poems online. The project, accessible at www.speechisfire.com is the brainchild of Dr.Martin Worthington, who described his efforts as "detective work"'. I heard him give a reading in the language on BBC radio, quite fascinating. An extinct Semitic language written in cuneiform...hmm, think I'll leave it to the boffins! Edited by Mooby on 30 September 2010 at 2:44pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| BiaHuda Triglot Groupie Vietnam Joined 5364 days ago 97 posts - 127 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Vietnamese Studies: Cantonese | Message 2 of 14 01 October 2010 at 7:25am | IP Logged |
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Interesting. How on earth could you correctly pronounce a launguge that has been dead for 2000 years? Do you think a "Native Babylonian" would understand?
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| Mooby Senior Member Scotland Joined 6106 days ago 707 posts - 1220 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Polish | Message 3 of 14 01 October 2010 at 11:49am | IP Logged |
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Yes, that's a question the scholars themselves posed (extract from speechisfire):
Given they are dead, how can one tell how Babylonian and Assyrian were pronounced? The main things to work with are: comparison with related languages (e.g. Arabic, Hebrew, Ethiopic); sources in which Babylonian and Assyrian words are written in the Greek or Aramaic alphabets; sources in which Greek and other foreign words are written in Babylonian and Assyrian script; patterns within the spellings of Babylonian and Assyrian words. Much about their pronunciations is still being discovered, though for obvious reasons much else is lost forever. I listened to several readings and was impressed by their beauty, complexity and, well, 'naturalness'. Visit the site here: http://people.pwf.cam.ac.uk/mjw65/BAPLAR/Homepage It's an inflected language with two genders (masculine and feminine) and 3 cases (nominative, accusative and genetive). Similarities to Hebrew and Arabic. More information here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akkadian_language It's almost the linguistic equivalent of finding a fossilised insect trapped in amber, and then coaxing it back into life. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |
| LanguageSponge Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5767 days ago 1197 posts - 1487 votes Speaks: English*, German, French Studies: Welsh, Russian, Japanese, Slovenian, Greek, Italian | Message 4 of 14 01 October 2010 at 1:59pm | IP Logged |
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Thank you for the links; I find the truly dead languages very interesting, and yet at the same time, pretty frustrating because of the obvious lack of learning materials and major lack of modern vocabulary. I am very interested in the history of the empires which spoke ancient languages like Assyrian, Babylonian, Phoenician and Hittite, so this is really fantastic for me, thanks.
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| Nudimmud Groupie United States Joined 5193 days ago 87 posts - 161 votes Studies: Greek, Korean | Message 5 of 14 01 October 2010 at 7:21pm | IP Logged |
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A bit of a pedantic point, but Babylonian is not really a language. The written languages of the Babylonian empire(s) were Sumerian (the granddaddy of all written languages and also a language isolate), Akkadian (a Semitic language) and Hittite, the oldest attested Indo-European language, among some other related languages. All, however, were written in the cuneiform script. Edited by Nudimmud on 01 October 2010 at 7:27pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| LanguageSponge Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5767 days ago 1197 posts - 1487 votes Speaks: English*, German, French Studies: Welsh, Russian, Japanese, Slovenian, Greek, Italian | Message 6 of 14 01 October 2010 at 7:48pm | IP Logged |
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I don't find that to be pedantic at all - that's just my being careless. Thanks. I find these cultures fascinating - for example, the Hittites were one of the first cultures to successfully smelt iron and the Sumerians were one of the first cultures, if not the first, to govern using some kind of monarchy :]
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| Icaria909 Senior Member United States Joined 5592 days ago 201 posts - 346 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 7 of 14 04 October 2010 at 2:27am | IP Logged |
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Believe it or not, there is quite a lot of books on Akkadian, even if few take the time to learn it. But to get the most of these materials it really helps to know french and/or German. In my university library there's a bookcase full of books on the topic, and at least 3/4 of them are in french or German.
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| OneEye Diglot Senior Member Japan Joined 6851 days ago 518 posts - 784 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin Studies: Japanese, Taiwanese, German, French | Message 8 of 14 04 October 2010 at 7:28am | IP Logged |
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There is speculation among some scholars that Sumerian may have influenced Chinese writing, but that idea is far from having been proven. So no, Sumerian is not the "granddaddy of all written languages." And that's just sticking with the Eurasian landmass and modern writing systems. I'd be surprised to find, for example, anyone that would assert that Mayan descended from cuneiform.
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