The Sound of the Elamite language (Vocabulary & Sample Text)

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ELAMITE
Native to: Elamite Empire
Region: Western Asia, Iran
Era: c. 2800–300 BC
Language family: Language isolate

Elamite, also known as Hatamtite, is an extinct language that was spoken by the ancient Elamites. It was used in present-day southwestern Iran from 2600 BC to 330 BC. Elamite works disappear from the archeological record after Alexander the Great entered Iran. Elamite is generally thought to have no demonstrable relatives and is usually considered a language isolate. The lack of established relatives makes its interpretation difficult.

A sizeable number of Elamite lexemes are known from the trilingual Behistun inscription and numerous other bilingual or trilingual inscriptions of the Achaemenid Empire, in which Elamite was written using Elamite cuneiform (circa 400 BCE), which is fully deciphered. An important dictionary of the Elamite language, the Elamisches Wörterbuch was published in 1987 by W. Hinz and H. Koch. The Linear Elamite script however, one of the scripts used to write the Elamite language circa 2000 BC, has remained elusive until recently.

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[SarimFaruque]

It's unfortunate that the language was eventually elaminited from the world

[Ali-hdjm]

Here in Khuzestan, Iran. Where the center of Elam was, we still have some Elamite words in the language of Lori Bakhtiari

[wandererinthedust]

Excellent! I would love if you uploaded more Elamite. Especially with the cuneiform. :)

[ZERO-vobh]

This language is not semitic. I'm kurd and i speak Arabic and I can tell you this language have %0 Similarity with Arabic

[goingmerry]

Telugu speaker here. While I am not sure whether Elamite is a Dravidian language or part of a larger related family (Zagrosian) as proposed by Southworth. The fact that Proto Dravidian words for ivory, teeth, sesame, etc have been found in Akkadian and Elamite languages is interesting to me. If anything it shows that even in the ancient world, peoples were still connected in some way. Most plausible explanation for this is trade relations between the Indus Valley Civilization and Mesopotamia. Beautiful language though!

[rajabouzeid]

Everyone seems to claim that this language is related to his. So far I've seen turks, Persians, luris, arabs and even dravidian Indians claim this language. Some languages don't seem to be related to any language, or at least, not to the languages that we know that have existed. Elamite is one of them, so is Basque and ainu, among others.

[devasdin]

other: hello how are you
elamite: ASHA ISH SHE SHA ASHASHA SHA SHA SH SHIA SHSHA SHA SHA

[gillkara]

As a person who speaks basic Malayalam. I only came here to see whether Elamite is similar to Dravidian and it turns out there are similarities, however many people seem to ignore the fact that Korean and Japanese are also similar to Dravidian. And Australian Aboriginal languages have accents and tones that are very similar to Dravidian.

Firstly I don't think Dravidian languages came from Elamite, maybe there was a very very ancient connection that linked with Korean, Japanese, Dravidian languages and this so-called Elamite from the pre-historic age, during early human migrations eastward from Africa, this is a possibility!

Another possibility is that maybe Dravidian languages may have influenced Elamite, because the logic is that Ancient Indian civilisation is far more superior than Ancient Iranian civilisation, because of the size of the civilisation as well as population. No wonder why India is like billion plus people compared to the Middle East, about +100 million roughly.

Here are words that I found similar to Dravidian Korean and Japanese:

English: Dravidian: Elamite: Korean or Japanese:
you. ni. ni, nu neo (Korean)
who aara(Malayalam). akqa Dare (Japanese)
how engane(Malayalam). anka
not. alla(Malayalam) illai(Tamil). inna. innai (Japanese)
mother amma(Malayalam and Tamil) amma. omma or amma (Korean)

Also retroflexes are very critical in Dravidian languages, because they determine the meaning of word, Elamite language does not have these feature. So the Proto-Dravidian language (if it exist at all from god knows where) should be retroflexed too.

Therefore Dravidians have a connection, but most of the connection is with Korean than Elamite.

[nikhilalbert]

Excellent work! As a Dravidian speaker, there are extremely strong similarities especially that words for Mother, Father, you and me are same. But like a Sparchbund effect or a member of a presently undecoded language family.

[المرتدالفخور]

I thought this was a Semitic language. But it’s not

[sammesopotamia]

I like the ancient languages of the middle-east.

[SinaArdestani]

Do not use( kiir) in iran or other persian countrys.😂😂😂

[zahramerchant]

There is a theory that the Dravidian languages are descended from the Elamite languages but I don’t think it’s been backed up with enough evidence but I can see some similarities

[grungus]

I'd always wondered why Persian and other West Iranian languages have such a higher distribution of /ʃ/ than even related languages, I think I have my answer

[KrisP]

The pronouns in Brahui are in-between Elamite and the rest of the Dravidian languages. It is really interesting. Brahui people are also mainly of Iranian related ancestry.

[難攻不落-df]

This sounds like a southern Indian / Sri Lankan Dravidian language. If this was spoken faster it'd sound like Tamil

[abhinavchauhan]

Thats what i was looking for since you deleted your old elamite video.
Thank you so much

[Умедчон-уц]

In persian language the woman translate as "zan" too. Its elamite word but i thought it was pure indo european

[NoName-nzjb]

"The history of Elamite is periodised as follows:

Old Elamite (c. 2600–1500 BC)

Middle Elamite (c. 1500–1000 BC)

Neo-Elamite (1000–550 BC)

Achaemenid Elamite (550–330 BC)

Middle Elamite is considered the “classical” period of Elamite, but the best attested variety is Achaemenid Elamite, [7] which was widely used by the Achaemenid Persian state for official inscriptions as well as administrative records and displays significant Old Persian influence. Documents from the Old Elamite and early Neo-Elamite stages are rather scarce.

Neo-Elamite can be regarded as a transition between Middle and Achaemenid Elamite, with respect to language structure.

The Elamite language may have remained in widespread use after the Achaemenid period. Several rulers of Elymais bore the Elamite name Kamnaskires in the 2nd and 1st centuries BC. The Acts of the Apostles (c. 80–90 AD) mentions the language as if it was still current. There are no later direct references, but Elamite may be the local language in which, according to the Talmud, the Book of Esther was recited annually to the Jews of Susa in the Sasanian period (224–642 AD). Between the 9th and 13th centuries AD, various Arabic authors refer to a language called Khuzi spoken in Khuzistan, which was not any other language known to those writers. It is possible that it was "a late variant of Elamite".[8]" (Source: Wikipedia)

[meggieqin]

As a native persian who has studied arabic and have listened to lots of indian songs😂it mostly sounds like tamil or telugu to my ears, specially the words appa, amma and ect, there are some words similar to persian or arabic but overall it doesnt have much similarities to any of that