Learn Akkadian Episode 1: Cuneiform 101: How to Read Cuneiform!

In this video I cover the basics of reading cuneiform script. Throughout this series I will be using Old Monumental Babylonian script.
Access PDF breakdowns of the lesson as well as additional exercises by supporting my channel on Patreon!
patreon.com/user?u=86906453

[@mikebibler6556]

The best Cuneiform 101 I've found. Had to learn Arabic 20 yrs ago. Now on to more fun and intellectual uses with Akkadian and Cuneiform.

[@11md]

Thank you for this great content, I'm an Iraqi from Babel and i really want to learn the Mesopotamian languages and you are helping me a lot with these great videos🙏🏼

[@aliahmed-kv5nt]

Thank you. knowing Arabic as mother tung makes it easy for me to understand Akkadian as you explains it.

[@shivmongoose3343]

Even the small amount of Arabic I learned in high school makes these lessons easier.

[@yoni10014]

Arabic and Akkadian are both semitic languages, which makes it more intuitive to those who speak it

[@KazuchijouNoDan]

I love it! I'll definitely follow along this series. Thank you a lot!

[@moroccandeepweb5880]

لإخواني الناطقين بالعربية: لفظ بِيتُم يقابله في العربية بَيتٌ، والميم التي في آخره تقابل التنوين الذي عندنا في العربية (بَيْتُن) وهي نونٌ تثبُت لفظًا لا خطّا، وقد نرمز لها بتَكرار حركة نهاية الاسم، وتفيد أن الاسم نكرة. وكما يختفي التنوين عند إضافة الاسم (بيتُ رجلٍ) فإن الميم تختفي أيضا في حال الإضافة في اللغة الأكدية (بِيت أَوِيلِم)، والكسرة الظاهرة على اللام هي علامة جر أَوِيل لأنه مضاف إليه. وقد نسمي إضافة الميم في الأكدية تَمْيِيمًا قياسًا على التنوين. والله تعالى أعلم.

[@shaobing_4172]

Very good introduction, it is very understandable and interesting. I'm looking forward to the next videos

[@SuspiciousFish538]

This series is so exciting and informative. I can’t wait to learn more!

[@katiehunt9472]

My brain feels like it's been working hard to understand this, but I've definitely gotten everything that you have said on this video! This is really opening my eyes to the complexity of the evolution of language, never mind JUST written language is. Goshhh, this is amazing, thank you SO much for this! :D

[@avestictradition]

Great stuff, Very well explained, will definitely follow your Akkadian lessons. Thanks

[@azharAD]

Thanks for the explaination

[@rainbs2nd957]

Loved the It's always sunny intro hahah! Great video

[@malpercio123]

This is so incredibly valuable. Thank you so much

[@user-bw8ld4rb9i]

Nice. Thanks

[@ryanshaw4250]

I recently went to the British museum in London and the cuneiform was the most exciting section for me. Hearing you teach her to read and all of that makes me realize how much of the other ancient languages that I've learned have a lot of similarities. I noticed a correlation between a lot of the native American languages especially north of Mexico fit into the Japanese alphabet pretty much perfectly but to be fair, so does cuneiform. It's not perfect but it's like 90 something percent the same way that you would read Japanese which is a very interesting set of letters like ra or mu or bi

[@wordfacts]

Great explanation. It is a good skill to explain the basic use of the system without getting bogged down in the form of word making or clay stylus as I've seen

[@learnakkadian]

Glad it was helpful!

[@roxanakamalnezhad9612]

Thank you so much for teaching us this amazing language 😭🙏😍

[@garrettalline7953]

Love this channel! Besides reading the tablets, and this being one of the coolest things ever done, the only other practical thing I think this could be used for is writing my olographic will in Akkadian just so the judge has to call an Assyriologist to put my heirs in possession 😂😂

[@kubok6589]

Thanks! Akkadian is very interesting, i needed video liike this, greetings from Poland!

[@riverstone100]

Very helpful lesson! Thank you so much for shedding light on the mystery of Cuneiform writing.

[@learnakkadian]

Glad it was helpful!

[@AtreidesIV]

This is lovely ! I always wanted to invest myself more in bronze-age cultures and mesopotamian empires.

[@gaapgoetia8953]

Excellent tutorial. I've been wanting to make proper Cuneiform tablets, and this is invaluable information on how to correctly read and write/indent

[@learnakkadian]

Glad it was helpful!

[@gaapgoetia8953]

@@learnakkadian My favorite writing system, just beautiful to look at. Honestly both surprised and glad to find such a concise series. Thanks!

[@grolash6219]

Very good video! I noticed you had less problems with your green screen, wich is good because it was distracting. It would be interesting, when you use a sumerogram, to have the corresponding sumerian pronunciation too!

[@ayeshakhan2615]

This is great!

[@Triassic_truefacts]

Ngl this is light work🔥🔥

[@eleanorerosanova7538]

Very interesting. Thank you

[@FernandoVinny]

So freaking difficult

[@Triassic_truefacts]

Light work

[@juliastrzyga2274]

Ha! I guessed the word before you started a transliteration. I really like your lessons! Great job! :)

[@dickon728]

Me too, once I figured out that the mu wasn't a ri. I'm more used to later scripts.

[@leftofright]

Thanks for this intro

[@l.t.7787]

Very impressive effort that you've put into this series, much appreciated! May I point out that in 10:50 when you give the cuneiform for bītum, it can never be written bi-it-um (the /t/ ending in /it/ cannot be the consonant for the next syllable) but rather bi-i-tum or bi-tum or bi-it-tum (rarely) or most often, É :)

[@learnakkadian]

Thank you so much for pointing this out! For anyone else curious why this is true I’m attaching an excerpt from Huehnergard’s grammar explaining the 3 essential rules of syllabification: “ (A) Every syllable has one, and only one, vowel. (b) With two exceptions, no syllable may begin with a vowel. The exceptions are: the beginning of a word; the second of two succes-sive vowels. (c) No syllable may begin or end with two consonants” -Akkadian Grammar pg 3

[@FEliXThisSIDE]

Thankyou sir

[@amr8457]

Thank you VERY much for making this video! I wish there was someplace I could learn Sumerian cuneiform. I would PAY to learn. I did find a you tube channel that taught Sumerian numerology. I found that VERY easy to learn. Counting and adding, etc. But the language.. Wow! I need basics. Alphabet first, then compounding. Just like we were in kindergarten again.

[@sweetykitty4427]

the youtube channel "digital hammurabi" has sumerian on it!

[@briefhistorybites]

I love it Thank you so much 😏🙏👌✍

[@farmerguy7406]

You are doing God's work, good sir!

[@Alice-gf4dd]

Please, continue! You are doing the Lord’s work. ❤

[@learnakkadian]

Thanks! Working on a new video now hopefully will be able to post soon.

[@user-ii5lj6vm1n]

How do we decipher dead languages to such an extent that we could propose sounds? I can understand studying and finding patterns for grammar, but then where do we find the vacabularly and the sounds? Thats so wild to me. Great video, im subscribing 💐

[@stellank450]

Very interesting.Thank you! Greetings from Italy. PS Where the hell are you? :)

[@CheLanguages]

How come the first a in Hammurabi is not written with a macron but the first i in Bitum is? Also Bitum is similar to the word we use in Hebrew, Bayit.

[@dickon728]

The first a (ah) in Hammurabi is a short a sound like the u in cut. If it had a macron on it it would be a long a sound. The i in bītum has a macron on it to indicate that it is a long ee sound as the ee in see.

[@neilyang3408]

Yes, the cuneiform text reads "Ha-am-mu-ra-bi". It's written in the Babylonian Monumental script! The one on top reads "a-na ilim" (to the god)

[@trevorhazell5778]

The double consonant thing being inferred is kind of like the shadda doubling the consonant in Arabic

[@SionSheva5756]

cHammu - rapi : “the kinsman of the Rephaim (Rephaite the healer)” ‎חַמּוּרָפִּי רְפָאִים Rephaim

[@thesqueedler]

It seems like in the word bītum, this violates a golden rule of normalization by effectively doubling the vowel. Even though it’s not written as double, it’s doubled in length. Is the normalization for writing or pronunciation or both and is the vowel actually ever doubled? Second question, what in your view are a couple of the most important/controversial existing interpretations of Akkadian, I mean where the incorrect reading would have the most profound impact on our understanding of that history, or even on how people at the time responded? There are similar issues in Sanskrit and a particularly famous one that caused a rift in early Buddhism.

[@learnakkadian]

Great questions! The combining of vowels in normalization affects the syllabification of the word where as long vowels only affect the way in which the vowel is pronounced (this does not change the syllable in which the vowel is pronounced). I will talk more about important differences in translations later in the series so please stay tuned.

[@mattorsie4421]

Thank you for a great introduction! What would you recommend as reference if I wanted to tell the difference between Akkadian and the Babylonian/Assyrian dialects of cuneiform? I'd like to get to the point of at least looking at a script and saying "This is most likely written by the .....". Thanks in advance.

[@learnakkadian]

Hey Matt I would recommend checking out R. Labat’s manuel d’epigraphie akkadienne

[@learnakkadian]

The on catch is that it’s in french, but it is by far the resource and since all you need is the Akkadian transliteration and the sign it won’t be a problem. Hope this helps!

[@mattorsie4421]

@@learnakkadian Thanks, I'm still waiting for the book to arrive. I do have a small 3x2 tablet and was wondering if you could point in the right direction as to whether it's Akkadian or perhaps a Babylonian/Assyrian dialect? It was label as Sumerian c.a 3000BC but based on my limited knowledge it doesn't seem to be Sumerian.

[@hackneyedstudios4699]

is there any difference between akkadian cuneiform script, and that of other cultures/time periods? i would have assumed, for example, that neoassyrian writings would have a very different dialect (at least, if not an altered alphabet) to that of the akkadians but it seems as if theyre entirely the same, even though the two civilizations have an entire bronze age collapse between them.

[@learnakkadian]

There are big differences in language and orthography between the different cultures which used cuneiform. In the case of the Babylonians and Assyrians, both used the Akkadian language although each had their own specific dialect. Additionally, the Assyrians and Babylonian used different sign forms. These sign forms as well as some aspects of grammar changed over time. For example, Old Babylonian cuneiform used completely different signs from Neo-Babylonian cuneiform. Also cuneiform signs sometimes varied based off context with monumental Old Babylonian signs used on royal inscriptions and Hammurabi's Code while personal documents used cursive Old Babylonian signs. Some cultures like the Hittites or Elamites also used cuneiform with completely different sign forms and languages.

[@hackneyedstudios4699]

@@learnakkadian can you see a more dramatic shift in cuneiform signs/dialects before and after the bronze age collapse? my understanding is that major centres like babylon survived through the period (whilst settlements like hattusa were largely abandoned); and if thats the case, was there some sort of ‘re-evolution’ and/or ‘re-transmission’ of cuneiform scripts. for instance, maybe there was a broader diversity in dialects etc pre-BAC, and then afterwards perhaps only babylonian cuneiform script was produced with other scripts dying out, before they re-evolved in line with the reemergence of major civilizations - like the neo-assyrians, urartu etc. - which are more closely derived from the babylonian script (in this case). i find this area of history (both the overall study of language, as well as early Mesopotamian civilisation and its developments toward literature) really interesting. i would love to be able to read texts like the epic of gilgamesh and the hymn to inana in their original cuneiform, because i understand that actually understanding the language’s intricacies can open up so much more meaning than is offered by a monocular translation. i very much doubt that i will be able to casually learn cuneiform though, i thought it was a much more simple language (especially since some translated texts ive read seemed to indicate that cuneiform scripts didnt even differentiate tense or anything).

[@user-ii5lj6vm1n]

​@learnakkadian so is it kind of like different european languages have Roman letter alphabets?

[@gaiaiulia]

And I thought the Devanagari script was difficult! Lol!

[@poupoupidoup.pictures1264]

Hello. Could you please help me in how to say / write : "Thank you, teacher" in Akkadian / Sumerian, plz?

[@learnakkadian]

I searched for this phrase for a while and there is no translation that captures what you want. The Babylonians did not have a word for teacher like we do but would have used a word that in English would be closer to master (Mulammidu). Bunna loosely translates to “thank to” but is more of an attributive word.

[@poupoupidoup.pictures1264]

@@learnakkadian thank you a million. I have been searching myself for possible equivalents (also in Sumerian, Urartian) since it is obvious we would not have those words in exact same senses we have them in today's English. I was thinking that for "thank you" something like this would go: "In the name of God Khaldi". Again thank you for your kind reply

[@user-iy2yx6cz4q]

Mar means snake in kurdish....impressive how similer to all the sounds in kurdish!

[@meemstar2333]

bitum sounds like it's cognate with arabic beit, also meaning house

[@moroccandeepweb5880]

It is in fact a cognate with Arabic بيت.

[@marmieRH]

Wow I just subscribed from Québec 😊 I hope you are helping Dr irving finkel with his 30,000 tablets? 😊 I wish I could ❤

[@srg25008]

I’m curious. In Berber you say išar/ishar for he steals. Is this a coincidence?

[@ProudMesopotamianGirl]

Omg this is difficult but I'm not giving up 😭

[@yoyofun1]

So, the macron “i” makes a sound similar to the English word “it” rather than the more drawn out sounding “ee” sound like the “bi” in your transliteration? Making the word bitum sound like “bit-um” rather than “beet-um”?

[@learnakkadian]

The macron makes the vowel sound longer so the sounds you have just described would be reversed. Bī gives a bee sound and bi would give a short i sound like pit.

[@martinhachler1733]

Isn't cuneiform written from right to left?

[@learnakkadian]

Akkadian is written predominantly left to right or from top to bottom if the inscription is oriented vertically.

[@creamrisesup]

The sounds have a striking resemblance with the Amharic language.

[@learnakkadian]

Interesting where is the Amharic language from?

[@creamrisesup]

@@learnakkadian it's the national language of Ethiopia.

[@hweiktomeyto]

Its not an alphabet. Its a logosyllabary.

[@ambientzoo6764]

An eye for an eye?

[@ZFlyingVLover]

How do they know what sounds akkadian had and didn't have?!

[@learnakkadian]

A lot of it is based off of more modern Near Eastern Languages

[@user-cj1un3je1t]

😂 they would use the back of throat when speaking making a drinking chugging g sound

[@CaptHandsome42]

cut that cut that cut that

[@darwinserillano4632]

wild guess: Hammurabi

[@alexs5744]

I bet Sumerian is even more challenging.

[@learnakkadian]

I think it definitely is. For anyone with a background in a semitic language Akkadian shouldn't be too hard to pick up.

[@justadog8248]

I've never learned from a ghost before.

[@jonpaul3868]

😂

[@learnakkadian]

👻

[@jespermynchau5580]

Its not pronounced ham, like Hamburg. Its pronounced ham, like "harm" Ham'murabi.

[@FernandoVinny]

4:58 pí reads like p ou like π?

[@learnakkadian]

The accent mark tells you about the cuneiform sign only. It doesn’t affect the sound at all. Like pi

[@Tailer777]

🇮🇷❤️

[@dickon728]

Please, "pí "or "pi" with any accent for that matter, or without an accent, is not pronounced "pie." It's pronounced "pea."

[@learnakkadian]

Very true good point!

[@chuzedaredbluepill8679]

ch'a mu ra bi (-pi)

[@user-ef1ls8xk1l]

Same as Gypsy language wtf

[@StudyWithParsi]

Thanks but I love the great Cyrus king ❤️ 😍 😘, he says :Not any kind of slavery 💯.

[@fc2790]

YOU ARE WAY TOO CUTE TO SPEND YOUR TIME ON LEARNING THIS DEAD LANGUAGE.