The sacred and scholarly language of ancient Mesopotamia, preserved in cuneiform long after it ceased to be spoken.
Sumerian, unrelated to any known language, was the first written tongue of Mesopotamia. Long after it ceased to be spoken it remained the scholarly and liturgical language of Babylonian and Assyrian temples and schools, the Latin of the ancient Near East.
Key Texts
Learning and Reference Resources
- ETCSL — Sumerian literature in translation Free / open access
Provenance
Classification follows Ethnologue; Sumerian is a recognised language isolate.