Urartian

Urartian is the language of the Urartian kingdom, an Iron Age state centered around Lake Van in eastern Anatolia, whose prominence lasted roughly from the 9th to the 6th centuries BCE. It is known primarily from cuneiform inscriptions carved on monumental rock, metal, and clay tablets.

Linguistic classification: Urartian forms part of the Hurro-Urartian language family, together with Hurrian; it is a distinct, non-Indo-European, non-Semitic language spoken by the Urartian people.

Writing system: Urartian inscriptions were written in a variant of Mesopotamian cuneiform adapted to Urartian phonology. The script borrowed signs from Akkadian cuneiform and was used for royal proclamations, religious formulas, and monumental texts.

Attestation: The corpus comprises royal annals, foundation and victory inscriptions, temple dedicatory texts, and inscriptions on architecture. Rulers such as Ishpuini, Menua, Argishti I, Sarduri II, and Rusa II are known from inscriptions across eastern Anatolia, Armenia, and western Iran.

Linguistic features: The language is described as agglutinative with a rich system of suffixes for case, number, and verb morphology. Its grammar is reconstructed largely from monumental inscriptions and onomastic evidence and shows substantial Hurrian influence.

Legacy and decipherment: Urartian ceased to be spoken with the fall of the kingdom in the late 6th century BCE. The script and language were deciphered gradually from the 19th into the 20th centuries, with ongoing research to refine vocabulary and syntax.