On the later phase of Elamite-Iranian language contact
Résumé
It is generally believed that Persian tribes migrated to the Iranian
plateau in the late second millennium BCE, at a time when the region had long
been under the sway of an Elamite population. Because of the location of
Persian settlements in the Iranian plateau, contact between Iranians and the
local Elamite people was inevitable. Persian and Elamite populations were in
contact for up to 500 years before the emergence of the Achaemenid Persian
Empire in the former eastern Elamite territories. The Elamite language was
adopted and strongly reshaped by speakers of Old Iranian, who probably
acquired Elamite as a second language for the purpose of writing and perhaps
for communication with native Elamites. The latest documented phase of the
Elamite language is known as (royal) Achaemenid Elamite. The nature of the
impact of Old Iranian on it goes beyond the adoption of loanwords, and includes
morphological restructuring. The main body of evidence for this evolution comes
from a considerable collection of clay tablets written in Elamite that constitutes
the Persepolis Fortification Archive dated the reign of Darius I. Based on these
considerations, the present paper will discuss examples of language contact
between Persians and Elamites. This paper analyzes the Old Persian and
Elamite versions of multilingual royal inscriptions in the Achaemenid royal
necropolis, Naqsh-e Rostam in order to further elucidate the nature of language
contact between Old Iranian and Elamite.