SUMERIAN LANGUAGE

language isolate and the oldest written language in existence. First attested about 3100 BC in southern Mesopotamia, it flourished during the 3rd millennium BC. About 2000 BC, Sumerian was replaced as a spoken language by Semitic Akkadian (Assyro-Babylonian) but continued in written usage almost to the end of the life of the Akkadian language, around the beginning of the Christian era. Sumerian never extended much beyond its original boundaries in southern Mesopotamia; the small number of its native speakers was entirely out of proportion to the tremendous importance and influence Sumerian exercised on the development of the Mesopotamian and other ancient civilizations in all their stages. (See also Mesopotamia, history of.) Additional reading Arno Poebel, Grundzge der sumerischen Grammatik (1923), partly out of date, but still the only full grammar of Sumerian in all its stages; Adam Falkenstein, Grammatik der Sprache Gudeas von Laga, 2 vol. (194950), a very thorough grammar of the New Sumerian dialect, and Das Sumerische (1959), a very brief but comprehensive survey of the Sumerian language; Cyril J. Gadd, Sumerian Reading Book (1924), outdated but the only grammatical tool in English; Samuel N. Kramer, The Sumerians (1963), provides a general introduction to Sumerian civilization. Ignace J. Gelb