Middle Babylonian

E195345

Middle Babylonian is a historical dialect of the Akkadian language used in Mesopotamia during the late second millennium BCE, notable from literary, administrative, and scholarly texts.

All labels observed (2)

Label Occurrences
Middle Babylonian canonical 1
Middle Babylonian period 1

How this entity was disambiguated

Statements (49)

Predicate Object
instanceOf Akkadian dialect
historical language variety
ancestor Old Babylonian
associatedWithCulture Babylonians
surface form: Babylonian civilization
associatedWithEmpire Kassite period
surface form: Kassite dynasty of Babylonia
attestedIn Middle Babylonian literary manuscripts
archives of Kassite Babylonia
cuneiform tablets from Mesopotamia
descendant Neo-Babylonian Empire
surface form: Neo-Babylonian

Standard Babylonian
extinctionDate by the end of the first millennium BCE
followedBy Neo-Babylonian Empire
surface form: Neo-Babylonian
geopoliticalContext Kassite rule in Babylonia
ISO639-3 none
languageFamily Afro-Asiatic languages
lexicalFeature increased use of Sumerian loanwords in scholarly texts
linguisticStageOf Babylonian language continuum
morphologicalFeature simplification of verbal system compared to Old Babylonian
partOf East Semitic
surface form: East Semitic languages

Semitic languages
phonologicalFeature reduction of case endings compared to Old Babylonian
precededBy Old Babylonian Empire
surface form: Old Babylonian
region Lower Mesopotamia
surface form: southern Mesopotamia
scriptDirection left-to-right
standardizedIn Akkadian
surface form: Standard Babylonian literary language
status extinct
subdivisionOf Akkadian
surface form: Akkadian language

Babylonian
timePeriod late second millennium BCE
timePeriodEnd c. 1000 BCE
timePeriodStart c. 1500 BCE
usedAs literary standard in later periods
usedBy Babylonian administration
Mesopotamian scholars
scribes
usedFor administrative texts
legal documents
letters
lexical lists
literary texts
omen texts
religious texts
royal inscriptions
scholarly texts
usedIn Assyria
Babylon
surface form: Babylonia

Mesopotamia
writingMaterial clay tablets
writingSystem cuneiform

How these facts were elicited

Referenced by (2)

Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.

Akkadian hasDialect Middle Babylonian
Babylonians timePeriod Middle Babylonian
this entity surface form: Middle Babylonian period