Changes

While Akkadian might be a very old language, it is also one of the first written languages, along with Sumerian, Elamite, and ancient Egyptian. <ref> For a discussion on Akkadian, see: Deutscher, Guy. 2000. Syntactic Change in Akkadian the Evolution of Sentential Complementation. New York: Oxford University Press. http://site.ebrary.com/id/10229911.</ref> However, unlike these other languages, Akkadian spread in use throughout the Near East, Egypt, and even reached Cyprus by the 2nd millennium BC. Written Akkadian utilized cuneiform writing, a system of wedge-shaped writing (Figure 1), that was primarily a syllabic and logogramic written language. As the Akkadian Empire and other Mesopotamia states spread their influence in the 3rd millennium BC, very likely the Akkadian language spread to different regions of the ancient Near East, including Anatolia, Western Syria, Western Iran, the Levantine coast, and even reached Egypt and Cyprus by the 2nd millennium BC. The apex of use for the Akkadian language came in the Late Bronze Age (1600-1200 BC), when widespread trade and interaction between states in the eastern Mediterranean and the Near East became well established. <ref>For a discussion on the role of Akkadian during the Late Bronze Age, see: Bryce, Trevor. 2003. ''Letters of the Great Kings of the Ancient Near East: The Royal Correspondence of the Late Bronze Age''. London ; New York: Routledge.</ref>

In fact, it was not just trade but also diplomatic correspondences that Akkadian influenced. In the court of Amarna, under the rule of Akhenaten (c. 1353-1336 BC), a large find of cuneiform Akkadian tablets had been found. These tablets demonstrate that Akkadian began to be used by royal courts in Cyprus, Egypt, Elamite Iran, Hittite Anatolia, the Mitanni in Syria and the Levant, the Assyrians in northern Mesopotamia, the Kassites in southern Mesopotamia, and many small semi-independent states in the southern Levant (modern Israel and Jordan).<ref> For more on the Amarna correspondences, see: Moran, William L. 1992. The Amarna letters. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.</ref> In addition, we know Akkadian began to be utilized in the Persian Gulf, such as in Bahrain and along the coastal regions, with the Kassites (from Babylon) controlling parts of this region and corresponding with it in Akkadian. <ref>For more information on the Kassite and their presence in the Persian Gulf, see: Potter, Lawrence G. 2010. ''The Persian Gulf in History''. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, page 35.</ref> By the late 2nd millennium BC, we see the language of Akkadian economically uniting a very wide area, while allowing common communication between very disparate people groups and states.