Elamite language

Modern Elamite
Lisan Haltamtime
Pronunciation	[li.sän häl.täm.ti.me]
Native to	Elam
Ethnicity	Elamites
Native speakers	2.7 million (2018)
Language family	language isolate
Early forms	Old Elamite Classical Elamite Achaemeno-Sasanian Elamite Middle Elamite Early Neo-Elamite
Writing system	Elamite Latin alphabet Perso-Arabic script (historically)
Official status
Official language in	Elam
Recognised minority language in	Iran
Regulated by	Elamite College of Grammar Kuliyah Nahume Haltamtime
Language codes
ISO 639-1	ELY
ISO 639-3	–

The Elamite Language (lisan Haltamtime, [li.sän häl.täm.ti.me]), sometimes referred to as Modern Elamite to distinguish it from its historical forms, is a language spoken primarily in Elam and in bordering regions of neighbouring Iran. Linguistically, Elamite is unrelated to the other languages of the region and is a language isolate unrelated to any other known living language. The Elamites are indigenous to and primarily inhabit the region of Elam.

Native speakers of Elamite live in a contiguous area that straddles the edge of the Iranian plateau and follows the course of the Karun river to the Persian gulf. The northern and central parts of Elam and the Iranian province of Ilam form the core of the historically Elamite speaking area. In the southern- and westernmost parts of Elam, Arabic has either displaced Elamite or Elamite was never spoken natively to begin with.

Under Qajar rule, public use of Elamite was frowned upon and often regarded as a sign of separatism and growing nationalism. After Elam became independent in 1921, this trend reversed and education and publishing in Elamite began to flourish. As part of this process, a standardised form of the Elamite language was developed by the University of the Republic (now the Royal Elamite University) in the early 1920s. Although variation within dialects still exists, the standardised form is considered universally easy to understand and employ in formal situations (education, mass media, literature).

A language isolate, Elamite is believed to be one of the few surviving Pre-Semitic and Pre-Indo-Iranian languages of the ancient Near East. The origin of the Elamites and their language isn't conclusively known, though the most accepted theory is that early forms of Elamite developed in the area well before the arrival of Semitic peoples. A relationship to the Dravidian language family was suggested by Igor M. Diakonoff and later defended by David McAlpin; this hypothesis has not gained mainstream acceptance however. Elamite has borrowed extensively from surrounding languages over the years — particularly from Arabic following the Islamic conquest of Elam and Iran.

Grammar

Syntax

While literary Elamite has a canonical subject-object-verb (SOV) word order, it is not strongly left-branching. However, because Elamite is a pro-drop language, the subject of a sentence is often not apparent until the end of the finite verb.

• Kitab dabantiname in berah. (I am reading the blue book)
• Kitab dabantiname in berat. (You are reading the blue book)
• Kitab dabantiname in beraš. (He/she is reading the blue book)

^a singular informal form.

In the colloquial language, there has been a leftward migration of the verbal element in that, in day-to-day speech, word order can often appear as subject-verb-object (SVO); this is particularly common in the southwestern part of the language area.

• Berah kitabi dabantinameyn. (I am reading the blue book)
• Berahu kitabi dabantinameyn. (We are reading the blue book[s])

This ordering of phrases is considered nonstandard and stylistically unsound in prose.

Main clauses precede subordinate clauses.

• Una iddašta ha al'ahad na inna mayizziš. (He told me that he wouldn't come on Sunday)

There exists an interrogative particle, mi, which indicates a polar question. It isn't used in the literary form of the language, but in colloquial speech it can be heard at the end of the question.

• Berat kitabi mi? (Are you reading the book?)

Grammatical modifiers, such as adjectives, follow the nouns they modify. In the literary form, the noun takes no morphological modification; in the colloquial form, an adjunct structure similar to Persian izâfah marks the relationship between the noun and its modifier. After a consonant it appears as -i, and after a vowel or y it appears as -ye.

• Literary: kitab dabantiname (blue book); arayan šilhame (powerful government); ayli šišniri (beautiful girl)
• Colloquial: kitabi dabantiname (blue book); arayani šilhame (powerful government); ayliye šišniri (beautiful girl)

Nouns

Gender

Elamite nouns and pronouns are categorised according to two grammatical genders: animate and inanimate. Nouns themselves will not display animacy distinction — the distinction will be made apparent only when modifiers are appended to the noun (or pronoun) in question. Additionally, no distinction is made in nouns between singular and plural. Plural forms are only distinguished by modifiers appended to animate nouns.

• kitab dabantiname (blue book — inanimate)
• tyut dabantinari (blue bird — animate singular)
• tyut dabantinape (blue birds — animate plural).

Appended modifiers are inflected differently when their referent is the speaker or a second-person.

• dabantinaki (I, the blue one — first person)
• dabantinati (You, the blue one — second person)

This system also applies to genitive relationships between nouns.

• u šak Ahmadiki (I, the son of Ahmad — first person)
• ni ra'is serikatiti (you, the manager of the company — second person)
• sunki haltamtiri (king of Elam — third person singular)
• sunki haltamtipe (kings of Elam — third person plural)
• rahmat addame (blessing of the father — third person inanimate)

As in other modifiers, in colloquial speech genitive nouns are often attached by means of the izâfah-like construction.

• Literary: rahmat addame (father's blessing); sunki haltamtiri (King of Elam)
• Colloquial: rahmati addame (father's blessing); sunkiye haltamtiri (King of Elam)

Cases

In modern Elamite, two morphological cases exist: the nominative case and accusative case. The nominative is the unmarked form of a noun; the accusative is marked by the particle in which follows the noun and all of its modifiers. Other oblique cases are marked with postpositions.

• Kitab dabantina šaš. (The book is blue) — Kitab is the subject, and therefore governs the nominative.
• U kitab in berah. (I read the book) — Kitab is the direct object, and is therefore modified with the particle in.

In colloquial speech, the accusative particle in becomes the suffix -yn after a, u, and e, and -n- after i and y.

• Literary: kazira in (blacksmith); kursi in (chair); mutay in (case/instance)
• Colloquial: kazirayn (blacksmith); kursin (chair); mutayn (case/instance)

Phonology

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i /i/		u /u/
Mid	e /e/
Open		a /ä/

The Elamite language features only four vowels: /ä/, /e/, /i/, and /u/.

Consonants

Table of consonant phonemes of Standard Elamite

		Labial	Alveolar	Palatal or postalveolar	Velar or labiovelar	Uvular	Glottal
Nasal		m /m/	n /n/
Plosive	voiceless	p /p/	t /t/		k /k/
	voiced	b /b/	d /d/		g /ɡ/		(apostrophe) /ʔ/
Affricate				j /d͡ʒ/
Fricative	voiceless	f /f/	s /s/	š /ʃ/		x /χ/	h /h/
	voiced		z /z/			q /ʁ/
Lateral			l /l/
Approximant				y /j/	w /w/
Rhotic			r /ɾ~r/

^A Not found in native words; only occur in loanwords.