accadian
n. uncountablen. an ancient language that was spoken in Mesopotamia, which is now modern-day Iraq. It was used by the people who lived there before the rise of the Babylonians and Assyrians.
n. an ancient Semitic language of the Mesopotamian region, primarily spoken in the city-states of Sumer and Akkad. It is distinguished from the Sumerian language by its Semitic grammatical structure and is known through cuneiform inscriptions.
Scholars study ancient Accadian texts to learn about early Mesopotamian history.
The discovery of the Tell Harmal tablets provided new evidence of how Accadian was used in the administrative centers of the third millennium BCE.
While Sumerian remained the primary language of religious and literary tradition, Accadian eventually became the dominant tongue of the region, influencing the development of later Semitic languages like Aramaic and Hebrew.
From Accad (alternative spelling of Akkad) + -ian.