Akkadian Linguistics

History of the discipline: introduction

Giorgio Buccellati – March 2022

UNDER CONSTRUCTION FOLLOWING IS A STUB FOR ENTIRE SECTION

For intro to history of d. see https://www.4banks.net/4b/history-d.htm

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1. Decypherment and decoding

1855-66 Hincks, Oppert, Menant, Rawlinson

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2. First systematization: the Semitic template

1890 Delitzsch

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3. Consolidation (coming into its own)

1910 Ungnad - insight, OB, syntax.

“Shyness”: mass of material, appearance of dialects.

Bohl, Dhorme on Amarna.

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4. The philological build-up

Berkooz, Gordon on Nuzi.

Labat on Boghaz-koi.

Studies on topics: Stamm 1939.

1952 Von Soden - reference grammar, faces materials, dialects.

Dialectal grammars as philological lists of forms sorted according to von Soden.

Unevenness of treatment: either just abnormal forms, or all forsm, see e. g. Salonen.

Simplistic use of terms: “phoneme ” to mean phonetic realization (De Meyer).

“Descriptive ” to mean philological filling-in of established slots (e. g. Finet).

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5. Linguistic re-thinking

1939 Stamm as semiotics.

1951 Gelb.

1966 Reiner – experimentation with linguistics, perhaps too experimental.

1969 Gelb.

General linguists begin to use Akkadian, e.g. Anderson 1980.

More room in general Semitics for Akkadian, e.g. Kurilowicz.

V/
r

Most recent dialectal grammars as proper linguisticstudies: Huehnergard, Groeneberg.

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