Akkadian dictionary

Dictionaries have existed in various forms for thousands of years. A dictionary is one of the most useful books in the understanding of a language and learning of new words. It is a collection of words used in one or more languages. A dictionary defines a word, gives examples of its usage, and its correct pronunciation. It may also contain phonetics and translations of such words. A dictionary may be general or specialized. Unlike the general dictionary which contains a wide range of words in a language, the specialized dictionary has only words used in a specific subject or field such as medicine and geography. Other common types of dictionaries include defining dictionaries, prescriptive and descriptive dictionaries, and satirical dictionaries, among others. The earliest known dictionary is linked to the period of Sumeria, while the orderly study of dictionaries is credited to Ladislav Zgussta in the 20th century. Oldest Dictionaries Although the systematic study of dictionary began in the 20th century, records of the earliest dictionaries exist in various parts of the world. The cuneiform tablets of the Akkadian Empire are considered the oldest dictionaries. The tablets contain a bilingual list of the Sumerian-Akkadian words and were discovered around 2300 BCE in Elba, which is now modern day Syria. The oldest known monolingual dictionary is the Chinese dictionary which traces its origin in the 3rd century BCE. However, other sources have argued that the Shizhoupian dictionary produced in the 800 BCE is the oldest monolingual dictionaries, in contrast to other sources which consider it a calligraphic compendium. The earliest known Homeric lexicon was produced by Apollonius the Sophist in the 1st century, while the Amarakosa, the work of the Amara Sinha in the 4th century CE, is considered the first Sanskrit dictionary. The Sanskrit dictionary has over 10,000 words written in verse form. The first dictionary in the Japanese language was produced around 850 BCE as a list of written Chinese. The earliest dictionaries written in the Arabic language were created in the period between 8th and 14th century CE, placing words in rhyming order or alphabetically. The Catholicon, published in 1287 by Johannes Balbus, was widely adopted and served as a reference for other bilingual dictionaries. The first monolingual Latin dictionary known as the Dictionarium was printed in 1502 by Ambrogio Calepino, and was improved in the 16th century to include a multilingual list. In Europe, the first monolingual

With over 7,000 known languages spoken around the world today, it may seem fruitless for scholars to have spent the past 90 years creating a dictionary for a language that has been extinct for nearly 2,000 years. Hold on; Let’s look at the reasons for the immense effort, and form our judgements afterwards.Originally modeled on the Oxford English Dictionary, the recently completed Chicago Assyrian Dictionary, or CAD, is a twenty-one-volume reference of ancient Mesopotamian dialects. Consisting of 28,000 words, the CAD offers an in depth study of the cuneiform script – one of the first known writing systems, with cuneiform deriving from the Latin cuneus, “wedge-shaped,” after the triangular shapes of the script (see the accompanying image for an example.)(In related news, a lost, legendary dictionary was recently discovered. Find out where, and what language it may help to revive, here.)When James Henry Breasted began compiling the dictionary’s content in 1921, all evidence, including preserved clay tablets and stone inscriptions, pointed to the Assyrian language as the common spoken word of the Sumerians. However, as further research proved, writing samples showed that the Akkadian language, part of the Afroasiatic language family, was probably more commonly spoken throughout the culture – deeming the dictionary’s name somewhat misleading.According to editor in charge, Martha T. Roth, “Every term, every word becomes a window into the culture.” Words such as kalu meaning “detain, keep in custody, hold back” and di’nu, “case,” suggest that the language was a vital tool for the formation of the first recorded laws and government — anywhere. In addition, repeated reference in written records to ardu, meaning “slave,” provides evidence that slavery was common in ancient civilizations.The language reflects the beginnings of land irrigation and the mass shipment of cultivated goods. One of the world’s earliest known works of literature, the Epic of Gilgamesh, is a series of Sumerian legends and poetry originally inscribed on clay tablets in the Akkadian language. In other words, if we understand the way that the world’s pioneers of literature, agriculture, and finance structured their thoughts, perhaps we can better understand ourselves. Do you agree? Let us know.

Assyrian Dictionary, Volume 10, Issue 1The CAD project was initiated in the early 1920s, not long after James Henry Breasted founded the Oriental Institute in 1919, and barely one hundred years after the decipherment of the cuneiform script. This initial decipherment, and the soon-to-follow achievements in understanding the languages in which the hundreds of thousands of clay tablets were inscribed, opened an unsuspected treasure-house for the study and appreciation of one of the world's oldest civilizations. The Chicago Assyrian Dictionary was conceived to provide more than lexical information alone, more than a one-to-one equivalent between Akkadian and English words. By presenting each word in a meaningful context, usually with a full and idiomatic translation, it recreates the cultural milieu and thus in many ways assumes the function of an encyclopedia. Its source material ranges in time from the third millennium b.c. to the first century a.d., and in geographic area from the Mediterranean Sea in the west to the Zagros Mountains in the east. With sixteen of the projected twenty-one volumes published and the remaining volumes in various stages of preparation, with close to two million file cards - a database which is continually updated and which is accessible to scholars and students who wish to consult it - the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary has become an invaluable source for the study of the civilizations of the ancient Near East, their political and cultural history, their achievements in the sciences of medicine, astronomy, mathematics, and linguistics, and not least the timeless beauty of their poetry. - Publisher.