ABSTRACT
The original name of the language has not, however, been revived by modern scholars. The other extinct language from the ancient Middle East for which we have extensive records is Akkadian, first attested in names appended to Sumerian texts. Being a Semitic language with modern counterparts, Akkadian is much better understood than Sumerian. To a large degree our understanding of Sumerian is refracted through our understanding of its neighbor, and it is Akkadian that is the source of the term “Sumerian”: the expression used in what we call Sumerian was instead Eme-gir15 (“tongue” + “native” in the Sumerian sequence, that is “Nativelanguage”; the subscript numerals are a modern convention enabling scholars to specify how a particular sound sequence is written).
