Scholars at the University of Chicago have completed a 21-volume dictionary of an ancient Mesopotamian language.  The team of approximately 90 people documented and translated words that were written in cuneiform and carved into clay or stone tablets between 2500 B.C. and A.D. 100.

Despite originally naming The Chicago Assyrian Dictionary (CAD) after the Assyrian language, researchers later learned that Assyrian was a dialect of the Semitic language Akkadian; the CAD provides a comprehensive record of the latter, which includes the Babylonian dialect.  James Henry Breasted, founder of the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute, began the development of the CAD in 1921, a mere hundred years after cuneiform writing had been deciphered.

The dictionary might be more accurately called an encyclopedia, as it contains not only the lexical information of over 28,000 words, but also extensive cultural contexts and original documents in which each word was used.  For instance, the dictionary’s entry for the word “umu,” which in English means “day,” is 17 pages long and cites the word’s use in The Epic of Gilgamesh, one of the earliest known works of literature.

Also included in the CAD are recordings of letters to loved ones.  And what’s interesting, perhaps even comforting, about many of the historical letters is the content expressed in them, namely, aspirations and anxieties that we still share today.

University of Chicago professor and dedicated worker on the project, Matthew Stolper, told the Associated Press, “a lot of what you see is absolutely recognizable – people expressing fear and anger, expressing love, asking for love”.  Stolper continued, “There’s also a lot of ancient versions of ‘your check is in the mail’. And there’s a common phrase in old Babylonian letters that literally means ‘don’t worry about a thing’.”

Here a schoolboy laments about his wardrobe:

“From year to year, the clothes of the (young) gentlemen here become better, but you let my clothes get worse.  The son of Adad-iddinam, whose father is only an assistant to my father, (has) two new sets of clothes…while you fuss even about a single set of clothes for me. In spite of the fact that you bore me and his mother only adopted him, his mother loves him, while you, you do not love me!”

When asked what import, if any, a dictionary of a language that has been obsolete for more than 2,000 years has today, Gil Stein, director of the university’s Oriental Institute, replies, “The Assyrian Dictionary gives us the key into the world’s first urban civilization.  Virtually everything that we take for granted…has its origins in Mesopotamia, whether it’s the origins of cities, of state societies, the invention of the wheel, the way we measure time, and most important the invention of writing.”

According to Stein, “If we ever want to understand our roots, we have to understand this first great civilization.”

The dictionary is available for purchase as a full set for $1,995 or by individual volume, ranging from $45 to $150 each.  The University of Chicago also offers a digital copy in PDF file format free of charge. [Click here]

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 – S.P. Sagisi