Editing Akkadian language (section)

==== Reconstruction ====
[[File:AO 5477 (photograph and transcription).jpg|thumb|The first known Sumerian-Akkadian bilingual tablet dates from the reign of [[Rimush]]. Louvre Museum AO 5477. The top column is in Sumerian, the bottom column is its translation in Akkadian.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=THUREAU-DANGIN |first1=F. |title=Notes Assyriologiques |journal=Revue d'Assyriologie et d'archéologie orientale |date=1911 |volume=8 |issue=3 |pages=138–141 |jstor=23284567 |issn=0373-6032}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Site officiel du musée du Louvre |url=http://cartelfr.louvre.fr/cartelfr/visite?srv=car_not_frame&idNotice=12108 |website=cartelfr.louvre.fr |access-date=2020-05-10 |archive-date=2020-07-15 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200715003716/http://cartelfr.louvre.fr/cartelfr/visite?srv=car_not_frame&idNotice=12108 |url-status=live }}</ref>]]
Akkadian emphatic consonants are typically reconstructed as [[Ejective consonant|ejectives]], which are thought to be the oldest realization of emphatics across the Semitic languages.<ref>{{Cite book|title = The Semitic Languages|last1 = Hetzron|first1 = Robert}}</ref> One piece of evidence for this is that Akkadian shows a development known as [[Geers's law]], where one of two emphatic consonants dissimilates to the corresponding non-emphatic consonant. For the sibilants, traditionally {{angbr IPA|š}} has been held to be postalveolar {{IPA|/ʃ/}}, and {{angbr IPA|s}}, {{angbr IPA|z}}, {{angbr IPA|ṣ}} analyzed as fricatives; but attested [[assimilation (linguistics)|assimilations]] in Akkadian suggest otherwise.<ref name=":0" /><ref>Kogan, Leonid (2011). "Proto-Semitic Phonetics and Phonology". In Semitic languages: an international handbook, Stefan Weninger, ed. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. p. 68.</ref> For example, when the possessive suffix ''-šu'' is added to the root ''awat'' ('word'), it is written ''awassu'' ('his word') even though ''šš'' would be expected.

The most straightforward interpretation of this shift from ''tš'' to ''ss'', is that {{angbr IPA|s, ṣ}} form a pair of voiceless alveolar affricates {{IPA|/t͡s/ /t͡sʼ/}}, {{angbr IPA|š}} is a voiceless alveolar sibilant {{IPA|/s/}}, and {{angbr IPA|z}} is a voiced alveolar affricate or fricative {{IPA|/d͡z/~/z/}}. The assimilation is then [awat+su] > {{IPA|/awatt͡su/}}. In this vein, an alternative transcription of {{angbr IPA|š}} is {{angbr IPA|s̱}}, with the macron below indicating a soft (lenis) articulation in Semitic transcription. Other interpretations are possible. {{IPA|/ʃ/}} could have been assimilated to the preceding {{IPA|/t/}}, yielding {{IPA|/ts/}}, which would later have been simplified to {{IPA|/ss/}}.

The rhotic {{angbr IPA|r}} has traditionally been interpreted as a [[voiced alveolar trill]] {{IPA|/r/}} but its pattern of alternation with {{angbr IPA|ḫ}} suggests it was a fricative (either [[voiced uvular fricative|uvular]] {{IPA|/ʁ/}} or [[voiced velar fricative|velar]] {{IPA|/ɣ/}}). In the Hellenistic period, Akkadian {{angbr IPA|r}} was transcribed using the Greek ρ, indicating it was pronounced similarly as an alveolar sound (though Greeks may also have perceived a [[uvular trill]] as ρ).<ref name=":0" />