Question

The sumerian language died out in about 2000 bce, but cuteiform survived for another 2000years, how is that possible?

Answer 1

Answer:

Cuneiform was used as a form of record-keeping and it was picked up by the speakers of different languages.  This helped to perpetuate it across different cultures. Today it is largely preserved on stone tablets whereas other exemplars of early languages were kept on more perishable materials like leather or papyrus.  

Explanation:

Cuneiform was a language that many societies in the Ancient Near East had in common. The cuneiform style was so dominant that scholars have said that it is the script for the first half of recorded history.  Even to this day,   cuneiform tablets survive in great abundance. The cuneiform script was not in itself a language. Scribes from different cultures could decipher and use it to convey information in a  number of languages and not just ancient Sumerian. Among them is the Semitic language  Akkadian which was the lingua franca of the Assyrian Empire and for the Babylonians. The Rosetta Stone equivalent for cuneiform is Bisitun Pass in Iran. There there are inscriptions recorded in Persian, Akkadian, and an Iranian language known as Elamite. This allowed researchers to decipher repetitive words across the different languages like “Darius” and “king” and so they could eventually piece together the information that cuneiform conveyed.