Elamite

Also known as Elamite language, Hatamtite

ancient language in Mesopotamia

AI overview

Elamite was an ancient language spoken in the region of Elam, located in what is now southwestern Iran, and it was used for thousands of years in the ancient Mesopotamian world. Understanding Elamite matters because it provides important evidence about the civilizations and cultures of the ancient Middle East, including their interactions with other societies like the Babylonians and Assyrians.

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Image: Brick Shilhak-Inshushinak Louvre Sb11945.jpg

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Commons category: Elamite language
exact match: publications.europa.eu/resource/authority/language/ELX
P10369: Quebec
P8168: dual role

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Article

Elamite, also known as Hatamtite and formerly as Scythic, Median, Amardian, Anshanian and Susian, is an extinct language that was spoken by the ancient Elamites. It was recorded in what is now southwestern Iran from 2600 BC to 330 AD. Elamite is generally thought to have no demonstrable relatives and is usually considered a language isolate. The lack of established relatives makes its interpretation difficult.

A sizeable number of Elamite lexemes are known from the Achaemenid royal inscriptions – trilingual inscriptions of the Achaemenid Empire, in which Elamite was written using Elamite cuneiform (circa 5th century BC), which is fully deciphered. An important dictionary of the Elamite language, the Elamisches Wörterbuch was published in 1987 by W. Hinz and H. Koch. The Linear Elamite script however, one of the scripts used to write the Elamite language c. 2000 BC, had remained elusive until the 2010s.