Akkadica
Assyriological Center
Georges Dossin
Georges Dossin
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Akkadica Assyriological Center
Georges Dossin |
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Conspectus Librorum - Book Review: REBECCA HASSELBACH, Sargonic Akkadian. A Historical and Comparative Study of the Syllabic Texts., Wiesbaden (Harrassowitz Verlag) 2005, Pp. xiv, 292 pages, Hardcover, ISBN 3-447-05172-8. List price EUR 78,00/sFr 132,-. Orders: service@harrassowitz.de. For a complete catalogue of titles see also: www.harrassowitz.de The present study is a revised version of a Ph.D. Thesis submitted to the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilisations at the Harvard University. "Sargonic Akkadian" is undoubtedly a welcome addition to I.J. Gelb's "Old Akkadian Writing and Grammar", published in 1952 with a second edition in 1961, and still considered as the standard grammar of Old Akkadian. In the past decennia an important number of additional Sargonic texts have been discovered, while interesting improvements concerning the analysis of Old Akkadian and Early Semitic grammar have been made. The main purpose of Hasselbach's study is to enhance and to shed new light on our understanding of the syllabically written textual material from the Sargonic Period, i.e. from the reigns of Sargon, Rimuš, Maništušu, Naram-Sîn and Šar-kali-Šarri. Following a general, but comprehensive introduction, three chapters investigate successively the Sargonic Akkadian syllabary (p.27-97); the phonology (p.99-145) and morphology (p.147-228). Although the author concentrates on geographical and dialectical variations, they still need to be examined in detail. In the conclusion specific linguistic features of the Sargonic Period are compared with Babylonian and Assyrian, two Akkadian dialects. The volume ends with a bibliography, a corpus of Sargonic Akkadian texts and an index listing the Sargonic Akkadian words of syllabically written texts quoted in this study. Ingrid Swinnen Vrije Universiteit Brussel |