User:SomeGuyWhoRandomlyEdits/Kishite

The Sumerian King List (SKL) stated that Kish was the first city to have kings following a flood (beginning with Jushur); moreover, it indicated the existence of a Semitic population in the regions of the Diyala river and upper Mesopotamia. Jushur's successor is referred to as Kullassina-bel; additionally, this is an East Semitic sentence meaning all of them were lord. Thus, some scholars have suggested that this may have been intended to signify the absence of a central authority in Kish for a time. The names of the next ten kings of Kish (preceding Etana) are: Nangishlishma, En-tarah-ana, Babum, Puannum, Kalibum, Kalumum, Zuqaqip, Atab, Mashda, and Arwium. Most of these names are East Semitic words for animals (e.g. Zuqaqip means scorpion); in fact, most of the names of the first dynasty of Kish (aside from Enmebaragesi and Aga) may have been Kishite names.

The Semitic nature of their names revealed that the city's population may have had a strong Semitic component from the dawn of recorded history. A Bayesian analysis suggested an origin for all known Semitic languages with a population of ancient Semitic-speaking peoples migrating from the Levant c. 3750 BCE; furthermore, spreading into Mesopotamia and possibly contributing to the collapse of the Uruk period c. 3100 BCE. Kish has been identified as the center of the earliest known East Semitic culture—its own civilization. This early East Semitic culture is characterized by linguistic, literary, and orthographic similarities extending across settlements such as Tell Mardikh, Tell Hariri, Tell Abu Salabikh, and Tell Brak.

The similarities include the use of a writing system that contained non-Sumerian logograms, the use of the same system in naming the months of the year, dating by regnal years, and a measuring system (among many others). However, the existence of a single authority ruling those lands has not been assumed as each city had its own monarchical system, in addition to some linguistic differences for while the languages of Mari and Ebla were closely related, Kish represented an independent East Semitic linguistic entity that spoke a sort of dialect (Kishite), different from both pre-Sargonic Akkadian and Eblaite. The East Semitic languages are one of three divisions of the Semitic languages, and is attested by three distinct languages: Kishite, Akkadian, and Eblaite (all of which have been long extinct). Kishite is the oldest known Semitic language.

Throughout the third millennium BCE, an intimate cultural symbiosis developed between Sumerians and Semites (which included widespread bilingualism). The influence of the Sumerian and East Semitic languages on each other is evident in all areas, from lexical borrowing on a substantial scale to syntactic, morphological, and phonological convergence. This has prompted scholars to refer to Sumerian and the East Semitic languages during the third millennium BCE as a sprachbund.