Editing Sumerian language (section)

=== Old Babylonian Sumerian ===
The dominant Sumerian variety of the Old Babylonian period, in turn, reflected a different regional dialect from the standard Neo-Sumerian of the Ur III period:
* Neo-Sumerian elides the conjugation prefixes 𒉌 /i/- and 𒀀 /a/- in front of the prefixes 𒉌-/ni/-, 𒊏 -/ra/- and 𒊑 -/ri/-, while Old Babylonian Sumerian retains them.
* The original sequence 𒈬𒂊 ''mu-e-'', consisting of the ventive conjugation prefix 𒈬 ''mu-'' and the 2nd person prefix 𒂊 ''-e-'', is contracted into 𒈬 /muː/ in the Ur III standard, but into 𒈨 /meː/ in the most common Old Babylonian variety.<ref>Jagersma 2010: 7</ref>
* In general, Old Babylonian Sumerian preserved many features of Northern Sumerian, in contrast to the decidedly Southern character of the Ur III standard. This is doubtlessly connected to the fact that the centre of power in Babylonia moved to the north.<ref name="Zólyomi 2017: 19"/> In particular, it uses spellings that show that its reflex of the Old Sumerian ''ř'' phoneme is /d/.<ref>Sallaberger 2023: 37</ref>