Digital Akkadian Lexicon (DAL)
The DAL is currently still in beta and may contain minor bugs.
The DAL provides an overview of the Akkadian lexicon as recorded in standard dictionaries, selected lexical databases and bibliographic reference works.
The DAL is being developed in several stages. First, information on the lemmas and meanings is compiled from the following works:
- W. von Soden, Akkadisches Handwörterbuch (1958-1981) [AHw],
- J. Black, A. George & N. Postgate (eds.), A Concise Dictionary of Akkadian (22000) [CDA],
- A.L. Oppenheim et al. (eds.), Chicago Assyrian Dictionary: The Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago (1956-2010) [CAD],
- M.P. Streck et al., Supplement to the Akkadian Dictionaries (2018-) [SAD],
- E. Jiménez et al., The “electronic Babylonian Library” Dictionary (https://www.ebl.lmu.de/dictionary) (2018-) [eBL].
The eBL references the CDA in its entirety and offers extensive bibliographic information. Where available, references are also made to entries in L. Kogan & M. Krebernik, Etymological Dictionary of Akkadian (2020-) [EDA]. Corrections to incorrect or inconsistent lemmas can be found under Discussion.
The lemmas are recorded according to the AHw or CDA standard, and the basic meanings largely follow the CDA. In accordance with established conventions of Akkadian lexicography and linguistics, the semivowel [j] is transcribed as /j/ (and not with ‘Anglo-centric’ usage as /y/, which violates IPA practice).
Each lemma includes information on the part of speech (POS), which follows the Universal Dependencies (UD) standard (https://universaldependencies.org/). UD is a framework for consistent annotation of grammar (parts of speech, morphological features, and syntactic dependencies) across different human languages. The following POS tags are used in the DAL:
ADJ (adjective), ADP (adposition [preposition]), ADV (adverb), CCONJ (coordinating conjunction), DET (determiner), INTJ (interjection), NOUN (noun), NUM (numeral), PART (particle), PRON (pronoun), PROPN (proper noun), SCONJ (subordinating conjunction), VERB (verb). For multiword expressions (MWE), the analysis of POS tags is added according to the CoNLL-U format (https://universaldependencies.org/format.html) (only in the JSON edition).
Lemmatisation according to parts of speech was carried out systematically. A general feature of Akkadian lexicography to date is widespread inconsistency: different parts of speech are often mixed, and distinctions between inflection and derivation, nominalisation and conversion, etc. are made (or not) at will. In order to achieve consistent lemmatisation, it was often necessary to extract the information from the dictionary entries and rearrange it.
Each lemma is assigned a unique, unchangeable Word ID that can be accessed directly via a hyperlink. The nomenclature uses the initial letter with a sequential number, e.g. P0001 – P0829 for all lemmas from AHw and CDA, PN001 – PN141 for additions from CAD, SAD, EDA. Further additions can easily be inserted into this nomenclature.
The DAL aims to record the Akkadian lexicon as completely as possible. Initially, the letters P, R, T, Ṭ, U and W will be published, for which the CDA inventory did not yet have the CAD available for updating. The relevant volumes of the CAD have resulted in considerable additions and modifications to Akkadian lexicography. The remaining letters will then be made available in alphabetical order.
In subsequent steps, continuous updates will be made, as well as further additions, in particular the compilation of phraseological word combinations, extensive bibliographies and relevant discussions.
The DAL also provides an edition in JSON format on its website as open access for further free use.
The DAL is not a dictionary and does not refer to individual text examples. It forms the basis for the forthcoming Digital Old Akkadian Dictionary (DOAkkD), which is designed as a thesaurus.
November 2025
W. Sommerfeld