Languages of Iraq, Ancient and Modern

"For over five thousand years of its history Iraq has been home to a mixture of languages from different linguistic families, spoken and written, and the same is true today. Some, although long dead, have a prime place in the history of the ancient world: Sumerian, probably the first language to be written, Akkadian, the language of Hammurapi, the Epic of Gilgamesh and international diplomacy, and Hurrian. Aramaic is already on the scene before 1000 BC, but survives in Iraq to this day. Here each language and its history is described by an expert, and an account of the vernacular Iraqi dialects of Arabic is complemented by descriptions of Iraqi Kurdish and Turkman which are unique, detailed and authoritative."--BOOK JACKET.Postgate, J. N. is the author of 'Languages of Iraq, Ancient and Modern', published 2007 under ISBN 9780903472210 and ISBN 090347221X.