Elamite, also known asHatamtite and formerly asScythic,Median,Amardian,Anshanian andSusian, is anextinct language that was spoken by the ancientElamites. It was recorded in what is now southwesternIran from 2600 BC to 330 BC.[1] Elamite is generally thought to have no demonstrable relatives and is usually considered alanguage isolate. The lack of established relatives makes its interpretation difficult.[2]
The following scripts are known or assumed to have encoded Elamite:[7]
Proto-Elamite script is the oldest known writing system from Iran. It was used during a brief period of time (c. 3100–2900 BC); clay tablets with Proto-Elamite writing have been found at different sites across Iran. It is thought to have developed from earlycuneiform (proto-cuneiform) and consists of more than 1,000 signs. It is thought to be largely logographic and is not deciphered.
Linear Elamite is attested in a few monumental inscriptions. It has been described either as a syllabic or logosyllabic writing system. At least part of the script has been deciphered and it has been argued to have developed from Proto-Elamite, although the exact nature of the relationship between the two is disputed (see the main article). Linear Elamite was used for a very brief period of time during the last quarter of the third millennium BC.
Later,Elamite cuneiform, adapted fromAkkadian cuneiform, was used from c. 2500 BC on.[8] Elamite cuneiform was largely asyllabary of some 130 glyphs at any one time and retained only a fewlogograms from Akkadian but, over time, the number of logograms increased. The completecorpus of Elamite cuneiform consists of about 20,000 tablets and fragments. The majority belong to theAchaemenid era, and contain primarily economic records.
Elamite is anagglutinative language,[9] and itsgrammar was characterized by an extensive and pervasive nominal class system. Animate nouns have separate markers for first, second and third person. It can be said to display a kind ofSuffixaufnahme in that the nominal class markers of the head are also attached to any modifiers, including adjectives,noun adjuncts, possessor nouns and even entire clauses.
Middle Elamite is considered the "classical" period of Elamite. The best-attested variety is Achaemenid Elamite,[2] which was widely used by theAchaemenid Empire for official inscriptions as well as administrative records and displays significantOld Persian influence.
Persepolis Administrative Archives were found atPersepolis in the 1930s, and they are mostly in Elamite; the remains of more than 10,000 of these cuneiform documents have been uncovered. In comparison,Aramaic is represented by only 1,000 or so original records.[10] These documents represent administrative activity and data flow in Persepolis over more than fifty consecutive years (509 to 457 BC).
Documents from the Old Elamite and early Neo-Elamite stages are relatively scarce. Neo-Elamite is a transitional form in its structure between Middle and Achaemenid Elamite.
The Elamite language may have remained in widespread use after the Achaemenid period. Several rulers ofElymais bore the Elamite nameKamnaskires in the 2nd and 1st centuries BC. TheActs of the Apostles (c. 80–90 AD) mentions the language as if it was still current. There are no later direct references, but Elamite may be the local language in which, according to theTalmud, theBook of Esther was recited annually to theJews of Susa in theSasanian Empire (224–642).[11]
Between the 8th and 13th centuries AD, variousArabic authors refer to a language calledKhūzī orKhūz spoken inKhuzistan, which was unlike any other language known to those writers. It is possible that it was "a late variant of Elamite".[12] The last original report on theKhūz language was written circa 988 byal-Maqdisi, characterizing the Khuzi as bilingual in Arabic and Persian but also speaking an "incomprehensible" language inRamhormoz. The city had recently become prosperous again after the foundation of a market when it received an influx of foreigners and being a Khuzi was stigmatized at the time. The language probablywent extinct in the 11th century.[13] Later authors only mention the language when citing previous work.
Because of the limitations of the language's scripts, its phonology is not well understood.
Its consonants included at least stops/p/,/t/ and/k/, sibilants/s/,/ʃ/ and/z/ (with an uncertain pronunciation), nasals/m/ and/n/, liquids/l/ and/r/ and fricative/h/, which was lost in late Neo-Elamite. Some peculiarities of the spelling have been interpreted as suggesting that there was a contrast between two series of stops (/p/,/t/,/k/ as opposed to/b/,/d/,/ɡ/), but in general, such a distinction was not consistently indicated by written Elamite.[14]
Elamite had at least the vowels/a/,/i/, and/u/ and may also have had/e/, which was not generally expressed unambiguously.[15]
Roots were generally CV, (C)VC, (C)VCV or, more rarely, CVCCV[16] (the first C was usually a nasal).
The Elamite nominal system is thoroughly pervaded by anoun class distinction, which combines a gender distinction between animate and inanimate with a personal class distinction, corresponding to the three persons of verbal inflection (first, second, third, plural). The suffixes that express that system are as follows:[16] Animate:
The animate third-person suffix-r can serve as a nominalizing suffix and indicatenomen agentis or just members of a class. The inanimate third-person singular suffix-me forms abstracts.
Some examples of the use of the noun class suffixes above are the following:
sunki-k "a king (first person)" i.e. "I, a king"
sunki-r "a king (third person)"
nap-Ø ornap-ir "a god (third person)"
sunki-p "kings"
nap-ip "gods"
sunki-me "kingdom, kingship"
hal-Ø "town, land"
siya-n "temple"
hala-t "mud brick".
Modifiers follow their (nominal) heads. In noun phrases and pronoun phrases, the suffixes referring to the head are appended to the modifier, regardless of whether the modifier is another noun (such as a possessor) or an adjective. Sometimes the suffix is preserved on the head as well:
u šak X-k(i) = "I, the son of X"
X šak Y-r(i) = "X, the son of Y"
u sunki-k Hatamti-k = "I, the king of Elam"
sunki Hatamti-p (or, sometimes,sunki-p Hatamti-p) = "the kings of Elam"
temti riša-r = "great lord" (lit. "lord great")
riša-r nap-ip-ir = "greatest of the gods" (lit. "great of the gods")
nap-ir u-ri = "my god" (lit. "god of me")
hiya-n nap-ir u-ri-me = "the throne hall of my god"
takki-me puhu nika-me-me = "the life of our children"
sunki-p uri-p u-p(e) = "kings, my predecessors" (lit. "kings, predecessors of me")
This system, in which the noun class suffixes function as derivational morphemes as well as agreement markers and indirectly as subordinating morphemes, is best seen in Middle Elamite. It was, to a great extent, broken down in Achaemenid Elamite, where possession and, sometimes, attributive relationships are uniformly expressed with the "genitive case" suffix-na appended to the modifier: e.g.šak X-na "son of X". The suffix-na, which probably originated from the inanimate agreement suffix-n followed by the nominalizing particle-a (see below), appeared already in Neo-Elamite.[18]
The personal pronouns distinguish nominative and accusative case forms. They are as follows:[19]
Singular
Plural
Nominative
Accusative
Nominative
Accusative
1st person
u
un
nika/nuku
nukun
2nd person
ni/nu
nun
num/numi
numun
3rd person
i/hi
ir/in
ap/appi
appin
Inanimate
i/in
In general, no special possessive pronouns are needed in view of the construction with the noun class suffixes. Nevertheless, a set of separate third-person animate possessives-e (sing.) /appi-e (plur.) is occasionally used already in Middle Elamite:puhu-e "her children",hiš-api-e "their name".[19] The relative pronouns areakka "who" andappa "what, which".[19]
The verb base can be simple (ta- "put") or "reduplicated" (beti >bepti "rebel"). The pure verb base can function as a verbal noun, or "infinitive".[22]
The verb distinguishes three forms functioning asfinite verbs, known as"conjugations".[23] Conjugation I is the only one with special endings characteristic of finite verbs as such, as shown below. Its use is mostly associated with active voice, transitivity (or verbs of motion), neutral aspect and past tense meaning. Conjugations II and III can be regarded as periphrastic constructions with participles; they are formed by the addition of the nominal personal class suffixes to a passive perfective participle in-k and to an active imperfective participle in-n, respectively.[22] Accordingly, conjugation II expresses aperfective aspect, hence usually past tense, and an intransitive or passive voice, whereas conjugation III expresses animperfective non-past action.
The Middle Elamiteconjugation I is formed with the following suffixes:[23]
In Achaemenid Elamite, the loss of the /h/ reduces the transparency of the Conjugation I endings and leads to the merger of the singular and plural except in the first person; in addition, the first-person plural changes from-hu to-ut.
Theparticiples can be exemplified as follows: perfective participlehutta-k "done",kulla-k "something prayed", i.e. "a prayer"; imperfective participlehutta-n "doing" or "who will do", also serving as a non-past infinitive. The corresponding conjugations (conjugation II and III) are:
perfective (= conj. II)
imperfective (= conj. III)
1st person
singular
hutta-k-k
hutta-n-k
2nd person
singular
hutta-k-t
hutta-n-t
3rd person
singular
hutta-k-r
hutta-n-r
plural
hutta-k-p
hutta-n-p
In Achaemenid Elamite, the Conjugation 2 endings are somewhat changed:[24]
Conjugation II
1st person
singular
hutta-k-ut
2nd person
singular
hutta-k-t
3rd person
singular
hutta-k (hardly ever attested in predicative use)
plural
hutta-p
There is also aperiphrastic construction with anauxiliary verbma- following either Conjugation II and III stems (i.e. the perfective and imperfective participles), ornomina agentis in-r, or a verb base directly. In Achaemenid Elamite, only the third option exists. There is no consensus on the exact meaning of the periphrastic forms withma-, but durative, intensive or volitional interpretations have been suggested.[25]
Theoptative is expressed by the addition of the suffix-ni to Conjugations I and II.[25]
Theimperative is identical to the second person of Conjugation I in Middle Elamite. In Achaemenid Elamite, it is the third person that coincides with the imperative.[22]
Theprohibitative is formed by the particleanu/ani preceding Conjugation III.[22]
Verbal forms can be converted into the heads of subordinate clauses through the addition of thenominalising suffix-a, much as inSumerian:siyan in-me kuši-hš(i)-me-a "the temple which they did not build".-ti/-ta can be suffixed to verbs, chiefly of conjugation I, expressing possibly a meaning of anteriority (perfect and pluperfect tense).[26]
Thenegative particle isin-; it takes nominal class suffixes that agree with the subject of attention (which may or may not coincide with the grammatical subject): first-person singularin-ki, third-person singular animatein-ri, third-person singular inanimatein-ni/in-me. In Achaemenid Elamite, the inanimate formin-ni has been generalized to all persons, and concord has been lost.
Nominal heads are normally followed by their modifiers, but there are occasional inversions. Word order issubject–object–verb (SOV), with indirect objects preceding direct objects, but it becomes more flexible in Achaemenid Elamite.[27] There are often resumptive pronouns before the verb – often long sequences, especially in Middle Elamite (ap u in duni-h "to-them I it gave").[28]
The language usespostpositions such as-ma "in" and-na "of", but spatial and temporal relationships are generally expressed in Middle Elamite by means of "directional words" originating as nouns or verbs. They can precede or follow the governed nouns and tend to exhibit noun class agreement with whatever noun is described by the prepositional phrase:i-r pat-r u-r ta-t-ni "may you place him under me", lit. "him inferior of-me place-you-may". In Achaemenid Elamite, postpositions become more common and partly displace that type of construction.[27]
A common conjunction isak "and, or". Achaemenid Elamite also uses a number of subordinating conjunctions such asanka "if, when" andsap "as, when". Subordinate clauses usually precede the verb of the main clause. In Middle Elamite, the most common way to construct a relative clause is to attach a nominal class suffix to the clause-final verb, optionally followed by the relativizing suffix-a: thus,lika-me i-r hani-š-r(i) "whose reign he loves", or optionallylika-me i-r hani-š-r-a. The alternative construction by means of the relative pronounsakka "who" andappa "which" is uncommon in Middle Elamite, but gradually becomes dominant at the expense of the nominal class suffix construction in Achaemenid Elamite.[29]
(5)din-šu-ši-na-ak na-pír ú-ri in li-na te-la-ak-ni
Transcription:
U Šutruk-Nahhunte, šak Halluduš-Inšušinak-(i)k, sunki-k Anzan Šušun-k(a). Erientum tipu-h ak hiya-n Inšušinak nap-(i)r u-r(i)-me ahan hali-h-ma. hutta-k hali-k u-me Inšušinak nap-(i)r u-r(i) in lina tela-k-ni.
Translation:
I, Šutruk-Nahhunte, son of Halluduš-Inšušinak, king ofAnshan andSusa. I moulded bricks and made the throne hall of my godInšušinak with them. May my work come as an offering to my god Inšušinak.
(02) hi pè-iš-tá ak-ka4dki-ik hu-ip-pè pè-iš-tá ak-ka4DIŠ
(03) LÚ.MEŠ-ir-ra ir pè-iš-tá ak-ka4 ši-ia-ti-iš pè-iš-táDIŠ
(04) LÚ.MEŠ-ra-na ak-ka4DIŠik-še-ir-iš-šáDIŠEŠŠANA ir hu-ut-taš-
(05) tá ki-ir ir-še-ki-ip-in-naDIŠEŠŠANA ki-ir ir-še-ki-ip-
(06) in-na pír-ra-ma-ut-tá-ra-na-um
Transcription:
Nap irša-r(a) Auramasda, akka muru-n hi pe-š-ta, akka kik hupe pe-š-ta, akka ruh-(i)r(a) ir pe-š-ta, akka šiatiš pe-š-ta ruh-r(a)-na, akka Ikšerša sunki ir hutta-š-ta kir iršeki-p-na sunki, kir iršeki-p-na piramataram.
Translation:
A great god isAhura Mazda, who created this earth, who created that sky, who created man, who created happiness of man, who madeXerxes king, one king of many, one lord of many.
AnElamo-Dravidian family connecting Elamite with theBrahui language of Pakistan andDravidian languages of India was suggested in 1967 byIgor M. Diakonoff[32] and later, in 1974, defended byDavid McAlpin and others.[33][34] In 2012, Southworth proposed that Elamite forms the "Zagrosian family" along withBrahui and, further down the cladogram, the remaining Dravidian languages; this family would have originated in Southwest Asia (southern Iran) and was widely distributed in South Asia and parts of eastern West Asia before the Indo-Aryan migration.[35] Recent discoveries regarding early population migration based on ancient DNA analysis have revived interest in the possible connection between proto-Elamite and proto-Dravidian.[36][37][38][39] A critical reassessment of the Elamo-Dravidian hypothesis has been published byFilippo Pedron in 2023.[40]
The study of Elamite language goes back to the first publications of Achaemenid royal inscriptions in Europe in the first half of the 19th century AD. A great step forward was the publication of the Elamite version of the Bisotun inscription in the name ofDarius I, entrusted byHenry Rawlinson toEdwin Norris and appeared in 1855. At that time, Elamite was believed to be Scythic, whose Indoeuropean affiliation was not still established. The first grammar was published byJules Oppert in 1879. The first to use the glottonym Elamite is considered to beArchibald Henry Sayce in 1874, even if already in 1850Isidore Löwenstern advanced this identification. The publication of pre-Achaemenid inscriptions fromSusa is due along the first three decades of the 20th century by fatherVincent Scheil. Then in 1933 thePersepolis Fortification Tablets were discovered, being the first administrative corpus in this language, even if published byRichard T. Hallock much later (1969). Another administrative corpus was discovered in the 1970s atTall-i Malyan, the ancient city of Anshan, and published in 1984 byMatthew W. Stolper. In the meantime (1967), the Middle Elamite inscriptions fromChogha Zanbil were published by fatherMarie-Joseph Steve. In the fourth quarter of the 20th century the French school was led byFrançois Vallat, with relevant studies by Françoise Grillot(-Susini) and Florence Malbran-Labat, while the American school of scholars, inaugurated byGeorge G. Cameron andHerbert H. Paper, focused on the administrative corpora with Stolper. Elamite studies have been revived in the 2000s byWouter F.M. Henkelman with several contributions and a monograph focused on the Persepolis Fortification tablets. Elamite language is currently taught in three universities in Europe, by Henkelman at theÉcole pratique des hautes études,Gian Pietro Basello at theUniversity of Naples "L'Orientale" andJan Tavernier at theUCLouvain.[43]
^Zvelebil 1985: I admit that this [reconstruction] is somewhat farfetched. but so is a number of McAlpin's reconstructions. [...] There is no obvious systematic relationship between the morphologies of Elamite and Dravidian, apparent at first sight. Only after a hypothetical reinterpretation, three morphological patterns emerge as cognate systems: the basic cases, the personal pronouns, and the appellative endings. [...] I am also convinced that much additional work is to be done and many changes will be made to remove the genetic cognation in question from the realm of hypothesis and establish it as a fact acceptable to all.
^Krishnamurti 2003, pp. 44–45: Many of the rules formulated by McAlpin lack intrinsic phonetic/phonological motivation and appear ad hoc, invented to fit the proposed correspondences: e.g. Proto-Elamo-Dravidian *i, *e > Ø Elamite, when followed by t, n, which are again followed by a; but these remain undisturbed in Dravidian (1974: 93). How does a language develop that kind of sound change? This rule was dropped a few years later, because the etymologies were abandoned (see 1979: 184). [...] We need more cognates of an atypical kind to rule out the possibility of chance.
^Basello, Gian Pietro (2004). "Elam between Assyriology and Iranian Studies". In Panaino, Antonio (ed.).Melammu Symposia IV(PDF). Università di Bologna & IsIAO. pp. 1–40.ISBN978-8884831071.
Blench, Roger; Spriggs, Matthew, eds. (1997).Theoretical and Methodological Orientations. Archaeology and Language. Vol. 1. London: Routledge.ISBN9780415117609.
Gragg, Gene B. (2009). "Elamite". In Brown, Edward Keith; Ogilvie, Sarah (eds.).Concise encyclopedia of languages of the world. Amsterdam/Oxford: Elsevier. pp. 316–317.ISBN978-0-08-087774-7.
Gnanadesikan, Amalia Elisabeth (2009).The writing revolution: cuneiform to the internet. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.ISBN978-1-405-15406-2.
Potts, Daniel T. (1999).The archaeology of Elam: formation and transformation of an ancient Iranian state. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.ISBN9780511489617..
Basello, Gian Pietro (2011). "Elamite as Administrative Language: From Susa to Persepolis". In Álvarez-Mon, Javier; Garrison, Mark B. (eds.).Elam and Persia. University Park: Penn State University Press. pp. 61–88.doi:10.1515/9781575066127-008.ISBN9781575066127.JSTOR10.5325/j.ctv18r6qxh.
Дьяконов, Игорь Михайлович (1967).Языки древней Передней Азии [The Languages of Ancient Asia Minor] (in Russian). Moskow: Наука.
Khačikjan, Margaret (1998).The Elamite Language. Documenta Asiana. Vol. IV. Rome: Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche Istituto per gli Studi Micenei ed Egeo-Anatolici.ISBN88-87345-01-5.
Paper, Herbert H. (1955).The phonology and morphology of Royal Achaemenid Elamite. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.LCCN55-10983.
Stolper, Matthew W. (2004). "Elamite". In Woodard, Roger D. (ed.).The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Ancient Languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 60–95.ISBN978-0-521-56256-0.
Republished inWoodard, Roger D., ed. (2008).The Ancient Languages of Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Aksum. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 60–95.ISBN9780521684972.
Tavernier, Jan (2020). "Elamite". In Hasselbach-Andee, Rebecca (ed.).A companion to ancient Near Eastern languages. Hoboken: Wiley Blackwell. pp. 163–184.ISBN9781119193296.
McAlpin, David W. (1975). "Elamite and Dravidian, Further Evidence of Relationships".Current Anthropology.16 (1).doi:10.1086/201521.
McAlpin, David W. (1979). "Linguistic prehistory: the Dravidian situation". In Deshpande, Madhav M.; Hook, Peter Edwin (eds.).Aryan and Non-Aryan in India. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. pp. 175–190.doi:10.3998/mpub.19419.ISBN978-0-472-90168-5.JSTOR10.3998/mpub.19419.10.
McAlpin, David W. (1981). "Proto-Elamo-Dravidian: The Evidence and Its Implications".Transactions of the American Philosophical Society.71 (3):1–155.doi:10.2307/1006352.JSTOR1006352.
Pedron, Filippo (2023).Elamite and Dravidian: A Reassessment. Thiruvananthapuram, India: International School of Dravidian Linguistics.ISBN9788196007546.
Starostin, George (2002). "On the genetic affiliation of the Elamite language".Mother Tongue.VII:147–217.ISSN1087-0326.
Zvelebil, Kamil V. (1985). "Review of Proto-Elamo-Dravidian: The Evidence and Its Implications".Journal of the American Oriental Society.105 (2):364–372.doi:10.2307/601741.ISSN0003-0279.JSTOR601741.
Achaemenid Royal Inscriptions project (the project is discontinued, but the texts, the translations and the glossaries remain accessible on theInternet Archive through the options "Corpus Catalogue" and "Browse Lexicon")
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