Editing Akkadian language (section)

===Vowels===
{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center"
 |+ Akkadian vowels
 !   !! [[Front vowel|Front]]!! [[Central vowel|Central]]!! [[Back vowel|Back]]
 |-
 ! [[Close vowel|Close]]
 | {{IPA link|i}} ||   || {{IPA link|u}}
 |-
 ! [[Mid vowel|Mid]]
 | {{IPA link|e}} ||   ||  
 |-
 ! [[Open vowel|Open]]
 |   || {{IPA link|a}} ||  
 |}

The existence of a back mid-vowel {{IPA|/o/}} has been proposed, but the cuneiform writing gives no good proof for this.<ref>Sabatino Moscati et al. "An Introduction to Comparative Grammar of Semitic Languages Phonology and Morphology". (section on vowels and semi-vowels)</ref> There is limited contrast between different u-signs in lexical texts, but this scribal differentiation may reflect the superimposition of the Sumerian phonological system (for which an /o/ phoneme has also been proposed), rather than a separate phoneme in Akkadian.<ref>{{Cite journal|title = Akkadian and Eblaite|url = https://www.academia.edu/6933497|website = www.academia.edu|access-date = 2015-11-19|last = Huehnergard & Woods|page = 233|archive-date = 2021-05-11|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20210511014738/https://www.academia.edu/6933497/2004_Akkadian_and_Eblaite|url-status = live}}</ref>

All consonants and [[vowel]]s appear in long and short forms. Long consonants are transliterated as double consonants, and inconsistently written as such in cuneiform. Long vowels are transliterated with a macron (ā, ē, ī, ū) or a circumflex (â, ê, î, û), the latter being used for long vowels arising from the contraction of vowels in hiatus. The distinction between long and short is [[phoneme|phonemic]], and is used in the grammar; for example, ''iprusu'' ('that he decided') versus ''iprusū'' ('they decided').