Talk:Elamite language

Elamite and Susian
I have come across a number of references to the "Susian" language; are Susian and Elamite synonymous, or is Susian distinct, or does it represent a period of Elamite (i.e. late Elamite)? Tom Radulovich 19:34, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

Bit about Kurdish
I have removed this bit:


 * Also the most recently, there have been arguments showing the relationship between Elamite and Kurdish language, an Indo-European language classified among Iranian languages but with different origins.

First off, this doesn't make sense: the entire point of a language family is that every language of that family is a descendant of the associated proto-language. Kurdish and Farsi were both once Proto-Iranian, just as Kurdish and English were both once proto-Indo-European. So no "different origins" are possible. If the writer meant to argue that Kurdish is an Iranian language built upon an Elamite linguistic substrate, well fine, but that needs to be expressed and to be credibly sourced.

Which brings me to the next point: the site cited does not appear notable and looks like the work of one person with an agenda. The crankish rant about being ignored by the academic establishment is an immediate yellow flag. Later, the author explicitly rejects the characterization of Kurdish as a Iranian language, which is completely absurd. --Saforrest 05:54, 14 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I don't see how being ignored by the academic establishment is a "yellow flag". Perhaps the academic establishment has an agenda, and regarding Kurds in any way, that is very likely.
 * I'd really like the source to comment on this... Perhaps I can get him to. Which brings me to my next point - I am sick and tired of people disregarding sources because they do not have some establishment supporting them - the site does not look notable? What did you expect? A flash presentation? This is clearly an independent researcher who is having a hard time being heard, much like many others, but has recently (finally) attracted some interest in his work. I think your stating the site does not look notable, or that the source has an agenda is very judgemental.

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by211.27.252.129 (talk • contribs).
 * Wikipedia has policies. People should read at least their summaries before contributing.--91.148.159.4 (talk) 23:03, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Perhaps the IP is the author of said "work"? Such people are given a scholarly review, and when their work is found to be scientifically unsupportable, they are so noted.50.111.14.1 (talk) 23:28, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

McAlpin, Blažek, Starostin
I corrected and added some information. For example, the article wasn't written by Sergei Starostin, but George Starostin, his son. Please, feel free to correct my English, as I'm not a native speaker. :) Thanks in advance. P. 04:43, 4 June 2006 213.168.173.197

Old Elamite or Linear-Elamite
There is no definitive proof that linear-Elamite was a syllabary or that it was used to write Elamite. I therefore suggest to call the writing system linear-Elamite (in accordance with tradition), and not Old Elamite. I will write a brief entry on linear-Elamite and link from here. Jacob Dahl, 20060604

Elamite Numerals?
Any information on Elamite Numerals? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 213.168.173.197 (talk • contribs).
 * I knew 1 = ki, 2 = ma-ir before... If you look at List of numbers in various languages you'll see: 1 = kir, 2 = mar (these are other versions of "ki" and "ma-ir"), 3 = zit, 8 = liuli, 10 = rit; and on internet I found: 5 = tuku?, 80 = barba Böri (talk) 09:11, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

"Official language"
There needs to be an explanation why it was adopted as an "official language" (?) by the Achaemenids. --Ghirla-трёп- 21:09, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I can tell you why - the Persian rulers, for the most part, were accommodating to their subjects; the southwest population spoke Elamite - ignoring that fact, or trying to force a new language upon tens of thousands of people - especially in those times - was not practical. For government and satrapies to work in what was Elam, Elamite had to be recognized.HammerFilmFan (talk) 23:36, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

Paucity of Information
The corresponding article in the German-language Wikipedia (Elamische Sprache)is much, much richer in information than this article. Those who feel strongly about making Elamite better known to the larger public might want to translate the German article into English. In any case, let this talk item be a directive to the German page. Jakob37 (talk) 03:27, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Elamite and Tamil; Relationship?
I have never forgotten my former Persian professor (UCLA) Don Stilo's remarks in class one day in 1974 or 5 about Elamite being related to the Dravidian languages. I wonder if anyone feels it worthy to note that the separatist Tamil groups currently fighting in Sri Lanka refer to themselves as the "Tigers of Elam"? Perhaps there is a connection between Elamite and Tamil. I am not in the linguistics field, but I thought it worthy to at least make a comment. Hats off to everyone for their thoughtful and critical efforts on here. Daniel Sparkman (talk) 21:41, 16 May 2008 (UTC)


 * The proposed Elamite-Dravidian relationship is discussed in the article. (Tamil is a Dravidian language.) Eelam is the Tamil form of Lanka. --JWB (talk) 21:50, 16 May 2008 (UTC)


 * No relationship whatsoever - scholars and linguists identify Elamite as a language isolate. HammerFilmFan (talk) 16:31, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Should the variant "Ilamid" for "Elamite" be used on this page?
I will paste in below recent exchange on this subject between myself and an anonymous correspondent on my personal Talk page and ask that others more knowledgeable than myself please make a decision on this issue. Here is the correspondence so far:

Llamids?
Hi, what exactly did you mean by this? --Anonymous44 (talk) 12:47, 15 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Ilamid is meant to begin with a capital "i" - not a capital "l" - the font used in the Wikipedia is, indeed, very confusing and should be changed so that capital forms of the letters can be easily distinguished from each other. "Ilamid" is a reasonably common alternative way of writing "Elamite." See, for example, or . Hope that clears up any confusion. Cheers, John Hill (talk) 22:55, 15 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks, it makes more sense now (I had been wondering at first if a connection might be implied with Llamas or even Tibetan Lamas in some way :)), although I wonder how you came to encounter this version of the name in the first place. It's not really that common at all in my experience. Judging from the links you provided and other searches, "Ilamids" seems to be used in English by a few Iranian websites, for unclear reasons - perhaps they're using the Farsi (oops, Persian) form as a way of claiming their cultural heritage? A search for "Ilamids", "Ilamid language", as compared with "Elamites", "Elamite language", on either Google or Google books shows that "Ilamid" (apart from the names of some unrelated Muslim sultans) practically doesn't exist. (This includes the researcher cited by the Iranian news, who uses "Elamite" in his own writings ). A look-up in an English dictionary or encyclopedia also shows that "Ilamid" is not an English word. Of course, if there's much lobbying for it, "Political Correctness" may eventually claim another triumph. But for the time being, I think we shouldn't be giving the term a legitimacy that it doesn't have.--Anonymous44 (talk) 00:24, 16 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Reply: Sorry - I just quickly looked up a couple of references to Ilamids (i.e. with a capital "I" at the beginning) on the internet to give you links you could check (and I could find) quickly. I have seen it used in various papers but, unfortunately, I don't have any of them with me still (I was doing a lot of reading on that period a couple of years ago - but haven't been recently). You may be right, though, that it is only used in Iranian sources, and its use here is not justified. I have just had a further look on the internet and have found only a few references to it. One source that does use it in its papers, and which may indicate a wider acceptance, is the "Circle of Ancient Iranian Studies" which is connected with London University's prestigious School of Oriental and African Studies. However, I now discover as I tried to post it here for you to check, that their website has been blacklisted by the Wikipedia (for reasons unknown to me). I am, therefore, happy to leave it to other readers to decide whether it should be included in this article - I have no strong feelings either way. I will post all this correspondence on the Talk page to see what others think. Best wishes, John Hill (talk) 10:36, 17 August 2008 (UTC)
 * About the CAIS's blacklisting - I don't know why it was done, but I do have the vague impression that they pursue a nationalist agenda (I don't quite remember how I got it, it might have been in connection with the description of the Cyrus cylinder as a "charter of human rights", which is the only Iranian-related issue I recall having participated in anyway). They point out in their "About" page that they are not connected to the London School any more. Best, --Anonymous44 (talk) 12:59, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

OK, since there have been no other comments, I'll remove "Ilamids" for the time being.--Anonymous44 (talk) 19:56, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

How do people know if it is/not Indo-European?
Does anybody speak the language? No they don't so how do they know it is not Semitic/Indo European. Modern Persians(Iranians) speak Farsi. So switching from a language that is from a completely different family is a very dramatic change. Can tell why linguists don't think that Elamite is not a Semtic/Indo-European language? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.106.64.242 (talk) 16:28, 18 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Actually, scholars do have a sufficiently good idea of the Elamite language to tell such a thing. They know a great deal of the vocabulary and the grammar, so they can see that it has nothing to do with Indo-European. You may want to take a look at comparative linguistics if you are unsure how people can tell an IE language from a non-IE language. If you want to see what Elamite looks like and how it works, you can look at the sources in the external links (unfortunately, none is in English). --91.148.159.4 (talk) 22:59, 10 August 2010 (UTC)


 * I do hope you meant "... is not a Semitic OR an Indo-European language" above - Sumerian is not Indo-European, nor is it related to any other language. It's a language isolate.  Dramatic changes in a spoken language in a particular territory have happened many times throughout history for a variety of reasons (conquest, immigration, adoption, etc.) and is not unusual in the least. HammerFilmFan (talk) 16:45, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Possible late survival
In the writings of some early Arabic/Muslim geographers, mention is made of an "unintelligible dialect" which they occurred here and there in Khuzestan. Some scholars have suggested that this idiom could have represented a late survival of Elamite, based the plausible assumption that the Arabic geographers were familiar with all other probable alternatives such as Persian, Kurdish, Aramaic and the like. I agree that the suggestion sounds plausible, even if it is, of course, conjecture. See the German article for citations. Could be mentioned here, too, with all due caution. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 22:39, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

See also Origin of the name Khuzestan for further details and citations. Encyclopædia Iranica is probably the best source to use as it is supremely scholarly and renowned, written in English, and largely available online. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 22:49, 4 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Instead of "see .... ", list the source, date and page number if you wish to be truly helpful.


 * The latest articles on Elamite suggest no such "late survival." Since over a year ago you were asked to provide a proper citation, and have not done so, I can only regard such claims as so much cruft/fringey.16:04, 18 January 2015 (UTC)


 * The latest articles on Elamite suggest no such "late survival." That is because that is the current consensus, backed up by hard evidence. And by "hard evidence" I mean actual writing samples.
 * Since over a year ago you were asked to provide a proper citation, and have not done so, I can only regard such claims as so much cruft/fringey. Specifically what evidence are you looking for? The source that causes all of the speculation about the language's late survival? Or sources which actually speculate about that source implicating a late survival for the language? For those interested, the passage in Al-Fehrast by Ibn al-Nadim which was itself a quote from another scholar Ibn al-Muqaffa' that causes all of this wild speculation reads as follows: "The Iranian languages are Fahlavi, Dari, Khuzi, Persian, and Seryani." Pahlavi, Dari and Persian are all important literary languages and hence they are mentioned separately despite being similar to each other, Seyrani is of course Syriac, the only language which we cannot identify in this list is Khuzi. Hence the theory goes, what other language could Khuzi be other than Elamite? What other language in that part of Iran would deserve mention? This is all of course wild speculation, that is why sources like this one  mention the idea only briefly in passing, (in any case that article cites other scholars though which gives you the sources you were looking for). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.10.117.203 (talk) 23:53, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

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proto-Elamite script vs. language
It would seem that by 2650 B.C. when an Elamite king is first attested IN Elamite, that the language would have been solidly formed. I am aware that the proto-Elamite script is still not decipherable - correct? - so we don't know if what is said is in the Elamite language. Are there sources which push the language back to 3100 B.C., etc.? 50.111.14.1 (talk) 23:44, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Dating and History
I have never seen a question mark used this way on Wikipedia to demonstrate uncertainty. If anyone has any citations I would like to help even try and find them but otherwise propose that the section be removed as it seems to have no sources and be sketchy. Monosyllable (talk) 10:34, 1 July 2024 (UTC)