Elamite, also known as Hatamtite and formerly as Susian, is an

extinct language An extinct language is a language that no longer has any speakers, especially if the language has no living descendants. In contrast, a dead language is one that is no longer the native language of any community, even if it is still in use, ...

that was spoken by the ancient Elamites. It was used in what is now southwestern

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkm ...

from 2600 BC to 330 BC. Elamite works disappear from the archeological record after

Alexander the Great Alexander III of Macedon ( grc, Ἀλέξανδρος, Alexandros; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon. He succeeded his father Philip II to ...

entered Iran. Elamite is generally thought to have no demonstrable relatives and is usually considered a

language isolate Language isolates are languages that cannot be classified into larger language families. Korean and Basque are two of the most common examples. Other language isolates include Ainu in Asia, Sandawe in Africa, and Haida in North America. The nu ...

. The lack of established relatives makes its interpretation difficult. A sizeable number of Elamite lexemes are known from the trilingual Behistun inscription and numerous other bilingual or trilingual inscriptions of the

Achaemenid Empire The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire (; peo, 𐎧𐏁𐏂, , ), also called the First Persian Empire, was an ancient Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great in 550 BC. Based in Western Asia, it was contemporarily the largest em ...

, in which Elamite was written using Elamite cuneiform (circa 400 BC), which is fully deciphered. An important dictionary of the Elamite language, the ''Elamisches Wörterbuch'' was published in 1987 by W. Hinz and H. Koch. The Linear Elamite script however, one of the scripts used to write the Elamite language circa 2000 BC, has remained elusive until recently.

Writing system

Bilingual Linear Elamite Akkadian inscription of king Kutik-Inshushinak Table of the Lion Louvre Museum Sb 17 (Linear Elamite detail)

Two early scripts of the area remain undeciphered but plausibly have encoded Elamite: * Proto-Elamite is the oldest known writing system from Iran. It was used during a brief period of time (c. 3100–2900 BC); clay tablets with Proto-Elamite writing have been found at different sites across Iran. It is thought to have developed from early

cuneiform Cuneiform is a logo- syllabic script that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Middle East. The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era. It is named for the characteristic wedg ...

(proto-cuneiform) and consists of more than 1,000 signs. It is thought to be largely logographic. * Linear Elamite is attested in a few monumental inscriptions. It is often claimed that Linear Elamite is a syllabic writing system derived from Proto-Elamite, but it cannot be proven. Linear Elamite was used for a very brief period of time during the last quarter of the third millennium BC. Later, Elamite cuneiform, adapted from

Akkadian cuneiform Cuneiform is a logo- syllabic script that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Middle East. The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era. It is named for the characteristic wedg ...

, was used from c. 2500 to 331 BC. Elamite cuneiform was largely a syllabary of some 130 glyphs at any one time and retained only a few

logogram In a written language, a logogram, logograph, or lexigraph is a written character that represents a word or morpheme. Chinese characters (pronounced ''hanzi'' in Mandarin, ''kanji'' in Japanese, ''hanja'' in Korean) are generally logograms, as ...

s from Akkadian but, over time, the number of logograms increased. The complete corpus of Elamite cuneiform consists of about 20,000 tablets and fragments. The majority belong to the

Achaemenid The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire (; peo, 𐎧𐏁𐏂, , ), also called the First Persian Empire, was an ancient Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great in 550 BC. Based in Western Asia, it was contemporarily the largest emp ...

era, and contain primarily economic records.

Linguistic typology

Elamite is an agglutinative language, and its

grammar In linguistics, the grammar of a natural language is its set of structure, structural constraints on speakers' or writers' composition of clause (linguistics), clauses, phrases, and words. The term can also refer to the study of such constraint ...

was characterized by an extensive and pervasive nominal class system. Animate nouns have separate markers for first, second and third person. It can be said to display a kind of

Suffixaufnahme Suffixaufnahme (, "suffix resumption"), also known as case stacking, is a linguistic phenomenon used in forming a genitive construction, whereby prototypically a genitive noun agrees with its head noun. The term Suffixaufnahme itself is literally ...

in that the nominal class markers of the head are also attached to any modifiers, including adjectives,

noun adjunct In grammar, a noun adjunct, attributive noun, qualifying noun, noun (pre)modifier, or apposite noun is an optional noun that modifies another noun; functioning similarly to an adjective, it is, more specifically, a noun functioning as a pre-modif ...

s, possessor nouns and even entire clauses.

History

The history of Elamite is periodised as follows: * Old Elamite (c. 2600–1500 BC) * Middle Elamite (c. 1500–1000 BC) * Neo-Elamite (1000–550 BC) * Achaemenid Elamite (550–330 BC) Middle Elamite is considered the “classical” period of Elamite, but the best attested variety is Achaemenid Elamite, which was widely used by the Achaemenid Persian state for official inscriptions as well as administrative records and displays significant

Old Persian Old Persian is one of the two directly attested Old Iranian languages (the other being Avestan) and is the ancestor of Middle Persian (the language of Sasanian Empire). Like other Old Iranian languages, it was known to its native speakers as ( ...

influence. Persepolis Administrative Archives were found at Persepolis in 1930s, and they are mostly in Elamite; the remains of more than 10,000 of these cuneiform documents have been uncovered. In comparison,

Aramaic The Aramaic languages, short Aramaic ( syc, ܐܪܡܝܐ, Arāmāyā; oar, 𐤀𐤓𐤌𐤉𐤀; arc, 𐡀𐡓𐡌𐡉𐡀; tmr, אֲרָמִית), are a language family containing many varieties (languages and dialects) that originated i ...

is represented by only 1,000 or so original records. These documents represent administrative activity and flow of data in Persepolis over more than fifty consecutive years (509 to 457 BC). Documents from the Old Elamite and early Neo-Elamite stages are rather scarce. Neo-Elamite can be regarded as a transition between Middle and Achaemenid Elamite, with respect to language structure. The Elamite language may have remained in widespread use after the Achaemenid period. Several rulers of Elymais bore the Elamite name Kamnaskires in the 2nd and 1st centuries BC. The '' Acts of the Apostles'' (c. 80–90 AD) mentions the language as if it was still current. There are no later direct references, but Elamite may be the local language in which, according to the

Talmud The Talmud (; he, , Talmūḏ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law ('' halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the cen ...

, the ''

Book of Esther The Book of Esther ( he, מְגִלַּת אֶסְתֵּר, Megillat Esther), also known in Hebrew as "the Scroll" ("the Megillah"), is a book in the third section (, "Writings") of the Jewish ''Tanakh'' (the Hebrew Bible). It is one of the fi ...

'' was recited annually to the Jews of Susa in the Sasanian period (224–642 AD). Between the 9th and 13th centuries AD, various

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walte ...

authors refer to a language called ''Khuzi'' spoken in Khuzistan, which was not any other language known to those writers. It is possible that it was "a late variant of Elamite".

Phonology

Because of the limitations of the language's scripts, its phonology is not well understood. Its consonants included at least stops , and , sibilants , and (with an uncertain pronunciation), nasals and , liquids and and fricative , which was lost in late Neo-Elamite. Some peculiarities of the spelling have been interpreted as suggesting that there was a contrast between two series of stops (, , as opposed to , , ), but in general, such a distinction was not consistently indicated by written Elamite. Elamite had at least the vowels , , and and may also have had , which was not generally expressed unambiguously. Roots were generally CV, (C)VC, (C)VCV or, more rarely, CVCCV (the first C was usually a nasal).

Morphology

Elamite is agglutinative but with fewer morphemes per word than, for example,

Sumerian Sumerian or Sumerians may refer to: *Sumer, an ancient civilization **Sumerian language **Sumerian art **Sumerian architecture **Sumerian literature **Cuneiform script, used in Sumerian writing *Sumerian Records, an American record label based in ...

or Hurrian and Urartian and it is mostly suffixing.

Nouns

The Elamite nominal system is thoroughly pervaded by a

noun class In linguistics, a noun class is a particular category of nouns. A noun may belong to a given class because of the characteristic features of its referent, such as gender, animacy, shape, but such designations are often clearly conventional. Some ...

distinction, which combines a gender distinction between animate and inanimate with a personal class distinction, corresponding to the three persons of verbal inflection (first, second, third, plural).
The suffixes are as follows:
Animate:
:1st person singular: ''-k'' :2nd person singular: ''-t'' :3rd person singular: ''-r'' or ''Ø'' :3rd person plural: ''-p'' : Inanimate:
:''-∅'', ''-me'', ''-n'', ''-t'' Inscription in Elamite, in the Xerxes I inscription at Van, 5th century BCE

Inscription in Elamite, in the Xerxes I inscription at Van, 5th century BCE

The animate third-person suffix ''-r'' can serve as a nominalizing suffix and indicate

nomen agentis In linguistics, an agent noun (in Latin, ) is a word that is derived from another word denoting an action, and that identifies an entity that does that action. For example, "driver" is an agent noun formed from the verb "drive". Usually, ''derive ...

or just members of a class. The inanimate third-person singular suffix ''-me'' forms abstracts: ''sunki-k'' “a king (first person)” i.e. “I, a king”, ''sunki-r'' “a king (third person)”, ''nap-Ø'' or ''nap-ir'' “a god (third person)”, ''sunki-p'' “kings”, ''nap-ip'' “gods”, ''sunki-me'' “kingdom, kingship”, ''hal-Ø'' “town, land”, ''siya-n'' “temple”, ''hala-t'' “mud brick”. Modifiers follow their (nominal) heads. In noun phrases and pronoun phrases, the suffixes referring to the head are appended to the modifier, regardless of whether the modifier is another noun (such as a possessor) or an adjective. Sometimes the suffix is preserved on the head as well: :''u šak X-k(i)'' = “I, the son of X” :''X šak Y-r(i)'' = “X, the son of Y” :''u sunki-k Hatamti-k'' = “I, the king of Elam” :''sunki Hatamti-p'' (or, sometimes, ''sunki-p Hatamti-p'') = “the kings of Elam” :''temti riša-r'' = “great lord” (lit. “lord great”) :''riša-r nap-ip-ir'' = “greatest of the gods” (lit. "great of the gods") :''nap-ir u-ri'' = ''my god'' (lit. “god of me”) :''hiya-n nap-ir u-ri-me'' = ''the throne hall of my god '' :''takki-me puhu nika-me-me'' = “the life of our children” :''sunki-p uri-p u-p(e)'' = ”kings, my predecessors” (lit. “kings, predecessors of me”) This system, in which the noun class suffixes function as derivational morphemes as well as agreement markers and indirectly as subordinating morphemes, is best seen in Middle Elamite. It was, to a great extent, broken down in Achaemenid Elamite, where possession and, sometimes, attributive relationships are uniformly expressed with the “

genitive case In grammar, the genitive case ( abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that marks a word, usually a noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun. A genitive can ...

” suffix ''-na'' appended to the modifier: e.g. ''šak X-na'' “son of X”. The suffix ''-na'', which probably originated from the inanimate agreement suffix ''-n'' followed by the nominalizing particle ''-a'' (see below), appeared already in Neo-Elamite. The personal pronouns distinguish nominative and accusative case forms. They are as follows: In general, no special possessive pronouns are needed in view of the construction with the noun class suffixes. Nevertheless, a set of separate third-person animate possessives ''-e'' (sing.) / ''appi-e'' (plur.) is occasionally used already in Middle Elamite: ''puhu-e'' “her children”, ''hiš-api-e'' “their name”. The relative pronouns are ''akka'' “who” and ''appa'' “what, which”.

Verbs

The verb base can be simple (''ta-'' “put”) or “ reduplicated” (''beti'' > ''bepti'' “rebel”). The pure verb base can function as a verbal noun, or “infinitive”. The verb distinguishes three forms functioning as

finite verb Traditionally, a finite verb (from la, fīnītus, past participle of to put an end to, bound, limit) is the form "to which number and person appertain", in other words, those inflected for number and person. Verbs were originally said to be '' ...

s, known as “conjugations”. Conjugation I is the only one with special endings characteristic of finite verbs as such, as shown below. Its use is mostly associated with active voice, transitivity (or verbs of motion), neutral aspect and past tense meaning. Conjugations II and III can be regarded as periphrastic constructions with participles; they are formed by the addition of the nominal personal class suffixes to a passive perfective participle in ''-k'' and to an active imperfective participle in ''-n'', respectively. Accordingly, conjugation II expresses a

perfective aspect The perfective aspect ( abbreviated ), sometimes called the aoristic aspect, is a grammatical aspect that describes an action viewed as a simple whole; i.e., a unit without interior composition. The perfective aspect is distinguished from the i ...

, hence usually past tense, and an intransitive or passive voice, whereas conjugation III expresses an imperfective non-past action. The Middle Elamite conjugation I is formed with the following suffixes: : Examples: ''kulla-h'' ”I prayed”, ''hap-t'' ”you heard”, ''hutta-š'' “he did”, ''kulla-hu'' “we prayed”, ''hutta-h-t'' “you (plur.) did”, ''hutta-h-š'' “they did”. In Achaemenid Elamite, the loss of the /h/ reduces the transparency of the Conjugation I endings and leads to the merger of the singular and plural except in the first person; in addition, the first-person plural changes from ''-hu'' to ''-ut''. The participles can be exemplified as follows: perfective participle ''hutta-k'' “done”, ''kulla-k'' “something prayed”, i.e. “a prayer”; imperfective participle ''hutta-n'' “doing” or “who will do”, also serving as a non-past infinitive. The corresponding conjugations (conjugation II and III) are: In Achaemenid Elamite, the Conjugation 2 endings are somewhat changed: There is also a periphrastic construction with an auxiliary verb ''ma-'' following either Conjugation II and III stems (i.e. the perfective and imperfective participles), or ''nomina agentis'' in ''-r'', or a verb base directly. In Achaemenid Elamite, only the third option exists. There is no consensus on the exact meaning of the periphrastic forms with ''ma-'', but durative, intensive or volitional interpretations have been suggested. The optative is expressed by the addition of the suffix ''-ni'' to Conjugations I and II. The imperative is identical to the second person of Conjugation I in Middle Elamite. In Achaemenid Elamite, it is the third person that coincides with the imperative. The prohibitative is formed by the particle ''ani/ani'' preceding Conjugation III. Verbal forms can be converted into the heads of subordinate clauses through the addition of the nominalising suffix ''-a'', much as in

: ''siyan in-me kuši-hš(i)-me-a'' “the temple which they did not build”. ''-ti''/''-ta'' can be suffixed to verbs, chiefly of conjugation I, expressing possibly a meaning of anteriority (perfect and pluperfect tense). The negative particle is ''in-''; it takes nominal class suffixes that agree with the subject of attention (which may or may not coincide with the grammatical subject): first-person singular ''in-ki'', third-person singular animate ''in-ri'', third-person singular inanimate ''in-ni''/''in-me''. In Achaemenid Elamite, the inanimate form ''in-ni'' has been generalized to all persons, and concord has been lost.

Syntax

Nominal heads are normally followed by their modifiers, but there are occasional inversions. Word order is subject–object–verb (SOV), with indirect objects preceding direct objects, but it becomes more flexible in Achaemenid Elamite. There are often resumptive pronouns before the verb – often long sequences, especially in Middle Elamite (''ap u in duni-h'' "to-them I it gave"). The language uses postpositions such as ''-ma'' "in" and ''-na'' "of", but spatial and temporal relationships are generally expressed in Middle Elamite by means of "directional words" originating as nouns or verbs. They can precede or follow the governed nouns and tend to exhibit noun class agreement with whatever noun is described by the prepositional phrase: ''i-r pat-r u-r ta-t-ni'' "may you place him under me", lit. "him inferior of-me place-you-may". In Achaemenid Elamite, postpositions become more common and partly displace that type of construction. A common conjunction is ''ak'' "and, or". Achaemenid Elamite also uses a number of subordinating conjunctions such as ''anka'' "if, when" and ''sap'' "as, when". Subordinate clauses usually precede the verb of the main clause. In Middle Elamite, the most common way to construct a relative clause is to attach a nominal class suffix to the clause-final verb, optionally followed by the relativizing suffix ''-a'': thus, ''lika-me i-r hani-š-r(i)'' "whose reign he loves", or optionally ''lika-me i-r hani-š-r-a''. The alternative construction by means of the relative pronouns ''akka'' "who" and ''appa'' "which" is uncommon in Middle Elamite, but gradually becomes dominant at the expense of the nominal class suffix construction in Achaemenid Elamite.

Language samples

Middle Elamite (Šutruk-Nahhunte I, 1200–1160 BC; EKI 18, IRS 33): Transliteration: (1) ú ^DIŠšu-ut-ru-uk-d.nah-hu-un-te ša-ak ^DIŠhal-lu-du-uš-^din-šu-ši- (2) -na-ak-gi-ik su-un-ki-ik an-za-an šu-šu-un-ka₄ e-ri-en- (3) -tu₄-um ti-pu-uh a-ak hi-ya-an ^din-šu-ši-na-ak na-pír (4) ú-ri-me a-ha-an ha-li-ih-ma hu-ut-tak ha-li-ku-me (5) ^din-šu-ši-na-ak na-pír ú-ri in li-na te-la-ak-ni Transcription: ''U Šutruk-Nahhunte, šak Halluduš-Inšušinak-ik, sunki-k Anzan Šušun-ka. Erientum tipu-h ak hiya-n Inšušinak nap-ir u-ri-me ahan hali-h-ma. hutta-k hali-k u-me Inšušinak nap-ir u-ri in lina tela-k-ni''. Translation: I, Šutruk-Nahhunte, son of Halluduš-Inšušinak, king of Anshan and

Susa Susa ( ; Middle elx, 𒀸𒋗𒊺𒂗, translit=Šušen; Middle and Neo- elx, 𒋢𒋢𒌦, translit=Šušun; Neo-Elamite and Achaemenid elx, 𒀸𒋗𒐼𒀭, translit=Šušán; Achaemenid elx, 𒀸𒋗𒐼, translit=Šušá; fa, شوش ...

. I moulded bricks and made the throne hall of my god Inšušinak with them. May my work come as an offering to my god Inšušinak. Achaemenid Elamite (

Xerxes I Xerxes I ( peo, 𐎧𐏁𐎹𐎠𐎼𐏁𐎠 ; grc-gre, Ξέρξης ; – August 465 BC), commonly known as Xerxes the Great, was the fourth King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire, ruling from 486 to 465 BC. He was the son and successor of ...

, 486–465 BC; XPa): Transliteration: (01)

ect 01 ECT may refer to: Educational institutions * École Canadienne de Tunis, a school in Tunis, Tunisia * Emirates College of Technology, in Abu Dhabi Government and politics * Catalan Workers' Left ( ca, Esquerra Catalana dels Treballadors, ...

^dna-ap ir-šá-ir-ra ^du-ra-mas-da ak-ka₄ ^AŠmu-ru-un
(02) hi pè-iš-tá ak-ka₄ ^dki-ik hu-ip-pè pè-iš-tá ak-ka₄ ^DIŠ
(03) LÚ.MEŠ-ir-ra ir pè-iš-tá ak-ka₄ ši-ia-ti-iš pè-iš-tá ^DIŠ
(04) LÚ.MEŠ-ra-na ak-ka₄ ^DIŠik-še-ir-iš-šá ^DIŠEŠŠANA ir hu-ut-taš-
(05) tá ki-ir ir-še-ki-ip-in-na ^DIŠEŠŠANA ki-ir ir-še-ki-ip-
(06) in-na pír-ra-ma-ut-tá-ra-na-um Transcription: ''Nap irša-rra Uramasda, akka muru-n hi pe-š-ta, akka kik hupe pe-š-ta, akka ruh(?)-irra ir pe-š-ta, akka šiatiš pe-š-ta ruh(?)-ra-na, akka Ikšerša sunki(?) ir hutta-š-ta kir iršeki-pi-na sunki(?), kir iršeki-pi-na piramataram.'' Translation: A great god is

Ahura Mazda Ahura Mazda (; ae, , translit=Ahura Mazdā; ), also known as Oromasdes, Ohrmazd, Ahuramazda, Hoormazd, Hormazd, Hormaz and Hurmuz, is the creator deity in Zoroastrianism. He is the first and most frequently invoked spirit in the '' Yasna ...

, who created this earth, who created that sky, who created man, who created happiness of man, who made Xerxes king, one king of many, one lord of many.

Relations to other language families

Elamite is regarded by the vast majority of

linguists Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...

as a

,Roger Blench, Matthew Spriggs (eds.)(2003), "Archaeology and Language I: Theoretical and Methodological Orientations", Routledge, p.125 as it has no demonstrable relationship to the neighbouring

Semitic languages The Semitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They are spoken by more than 330 million people across much of West Asia, the Horn of Africa, and latterly North Africa, Malta, West Africa, Chad, and in large immigrant a ...

Indo-European languages The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, ...

, or to

, despite having adopted the Sumerian-

Akkadian Akkadian or Accadian may refer to: * Akkadians, inhabitants of the Akkadian Empire * Akkadian language, an extinct Eastern Semitic language * Akkadian literature, literature in this language * Akkadian cuneiform, early writing system * Akkadian myt ...

script. An

Elamo-Dravidian The Elamo-Dravidian language family is a hypothesised language family that links the Dravidian languages of Pakistan, and Southern India to the extinct Elamite language of ancient Elam (present-day southwestern Iran). Linguist David McAlpin has ...

family connecting Elamite with the Brahui language of Pakistan and

Dravidian languages The Dravidian languages (or sometimes Dravidic) are a family of languages spoken by 250 million people, mainly in southern India, north-east Sri Lanka, and south-west Pakistan. Since the colonial era, there have been small but significant i ...

of India was suggested in 1967 by Igor M. Diakonoff and later, in 1974, defended by David McAlpin. In 2012, Southworth proposed that Elamite forms the “Zagrosian family” along with Brahui and, further down the cladogram, the remaining Dravidian languages; this family would have originated in Southwest Asia (southern Iran) and was widely distributed in South Asia and parts of eastern West Asia before the Indo-Aryan migration. Recent discoveries regarding early population migration based on ancient DNA analysis have revived interest in the possible —albeit widely rejected— connection between proto-Elamite and proto-Dravidian.

Václav Blažek Václav Blažek (born 23 April 1959 in Sokolov, Czechoslovakia) is a Czech historical linguist. He is a professor at Masaryk University (Brno, Czech Republic) and also teaches at the University of West Bohemia ( Pilsen, Czech Republic). His majo ...

proposed a relation with the

. In 2002 George Starostin published a

lexicostatistic Lexicostatistics is a method of comparative linguistics that involves comparing the percentage of lexical cognates between languages to determine their relationship. Lexicostatistics is related to the comparative method but does not reconstruct a ...

analysis finding Elamite to be approximately equidistant from Nostratic and Semitic.Starostin 2002 None of these ideas have been accepted by mainstream historical linguists.

References

Bibliography

* * Khačikjan, Margaret: ''The Elamite Language'', Documenta Asiana IV, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche Istituto per gli Studi Micenei ed Egeo-Anatolici, 1998 . * Paper H. (1955). ''The phonology and morphology of Royal Achaemenid Elamite''. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. * Potts, Daniel T.: ''The archaeology of Elam: formation and transformation of an ancient Iranian state,'' Cambridge U., 1999 and . * Starostin, George: ''On the genetic affiliation of the Elamite language'' in Mother Tongue (), vol. VII, 2002, pp. 147–17 * Stolper, Matthew W. 2006. ''Elamite''. In: Woodard, Roger D. (ed.). ''The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Ancient Languages''. pp. 60–95. **Republished in Woodard, Roger D. (ed.). 2008. ''The Ancient Languages of Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Aksum''. pp. 60–95.

External links

*
Part 1: A–HPart 2: I–Z

Elamisch
by Ernst Kausen . An overview of Elamite.
Elamite grammar, glossary, and a very comprehensive text corpus
by Enrique Quintana (in some respects, the author's views deviate from those generally accepted in the field)

a detailed description by Igor Diakonov
Persepolis Fortification Archive
(requires Java)

(the project is discontinued, but the texts, the translations and the glossaries remain accessible on the

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music ...

through the options "Corpus Catalogue" and "Browse Lexicon")
On the genetic affiliation of the Elamite language
by George Starostin (the Nostratic theory; also with glossary)
Elamite and Dravidian: Further Evidence of Relationship
by David McAlpin {{Authority control Bronze Age writing systems Subject–object–verb languages Language isolates of Asia Pre-Indo-Europeans Languages attested from the 3rd millennium BC Languages extinct in the 3rd millennium BC