1.
Skewer
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A skewer is a thin metal or wood stick used to hold pieces of food together. They are used while grilling or roasting meats, and in other culinary applications, metal skewers are typically stainless steel rods with a pointed tip on one end and a grip of some kind on the other end for ease of removing the food. Non-metallic skewers are often made from bamboo, however, any suitable wood may be used, prior to grilling, wooden skewers must be soaked in water to avoid burning. Excavations in Santorini, Greece, unearthed stone sets of barbecue for skewers used before the 17th century BC, mycenaean Greeks used portable tray as grills. Homer in Ilad mentions pieces of meat roasted on spits, in Classical Greece, a small spit or skewer was known as ὀβελίσκος, and Aristophanes mentions such skewers being used to roast thrushes. Small, often decorative, skewers of glass, metal, wood or bamboo known as olive picks are used for garnishes on cocktails and other alcoholic beverages. Many types of food are sold and served on a stick or skewer, especially at outdoor markets, fairs
2.
Meat
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Meat is animal flesh that is eaten as food. Humans have hunted and killed animals for meat since prehistoric times, the advent of civilization allowed the domestication of animals such as chickens, sheep, pigs and cattle. This eventually led to their use in production on an industrial scale with the aid of slaughterhouses. Meat is mainly composed of water, protein, and fat and it is edible raw, but is normally eaten after it has been cooked and seasoned or processed in a variety of ways. Unprocessed meat will spoil or rot within hours or days as a result of infection with and decomposition by bacteria, most often, meat refers to skeletal muscle and associated fat and other tissues, but it may also describe other edible tissues such as offal. The word meat comes from the Old English word mete, which referred to food in general, the term is related to mad in Danish, mat in Swedish and Norwegian, and matur in Icelandic and Faroese, which also mean food. The word mete also exists in Old Frisian to denote important food, differentiating it from swiets, paleontological evidence suggests that meat constituted a substantial proportion of the diet of even the earliest humans. Early hunter-gatherers depended on the hunting of large animals such as bison. Several breeds of sheep were established in ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt by 3500–3000 BC, today, more than 200 sheep-breeds exist. Cattle were domesticated in Mesopotamia after settled agriculture was established about 5000 BC, modern domesticated cattle fall into the groups Bos taurus and Bos indicus, both descended from the now-extinct aurochs. The breeding of cattle, cattle optimized for meat production as opposed to animals best suited for draught or dairy purposes. Domestic pigs, which are descended from boars, are known to have existed about 2500 BC in modern-day Hungary and in Troy, earlier pottery from Jericho. Pork sausages and hams were of commercial importance in Greco-Roman times. Pigs continue to be bred intensively as they are being optimized to produce meat best suited for meat products. Other animals are or have raised or hunted for their flesh. The type of meat consumed varies much between different cultures, changes over time, depending on such as tradition and the availability of the animals. The amount and kind of meat consumed also varies by income, horses are commonly eaten in France, Italy, Germany and Japan, among other countries. Horses and other mammals such as reindeer were hunted during the late Paleolithic in western Europe
3.
Caucasus
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The Caucasus /ˈkɔːkəsəs/ or Caucasia /kɔːˈkeɪʒə/ is a region at the border of Europe and Asia, situated between the Black and the Caspian seas. It is home to the Caucasus Mountains, which contain Europes highest mountain, politically, the Caucasus region is separated between northern and southern parts. The southern parts consist of independent sovereign states, and the parts are under the jurisdiction of the Russian Federation. The region is known for its diversity, aside from Indo-European and Turkic languages, the Kartvelian, Northwest Caucasian. Pliny the Elders Natural History derives the name of the Caucasus from Scythian kroy-khasis, German linguist Paul Kretschmer notes that the Latvian word Kruvesis also means ice. According to German philologists Otto Schrader and Alfons A. Nehring, the South Caucasus region and southern Dagestan were the furthest points of Persian expansions, with areas to the north of Caucasus Mountains practically impregnable. The mythological mountain of Qaf, the worlds highest mountain that ancient lore shrouded in mystery, was said to be situated in this region, therefore, the Caucasus might be associated with the legendary mountain. The Ciscaucasus contains the majority of the Greater Caucasus Mountain range. It includes Southwestern Russia and northern parts of Georgia and Azerbaijan, the Transcaucasus is bordered on the north by Russia, on the west by the Black Sea and Turkey, on the east by the Caspian Sea, and on the south by Iran. It includes the Caucasus Mountains and surrounding lowlands, all of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia are in South Caucasus. The main Greater Caucasus range is generally perceived to be the line between Asia and Europe. The highest peak in the Caucasus is Mount Elbrus in the western Ciscaucasus in Russia, the Caucasus is one of the most linguistically and culturally diverse regions on Earth. The nation states that comprise the Caucasus today are the post-Soviet states Georgia, Armenia, three territories in the region claim independence but are recognized as such by only a handful or by no independent states, Nagorno-Karabakh, Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Abkhazia and South Ossetia are recognised by the majority of independent states as part of Georgia, the Russian divisions include Krasnodar Krai, Stavropol Krai, and the autonomous republics of Adygea, Karachay–Cherkessia, Kabardino-Balkaria, North Ossetia, Ingushetia, Chechnya, and Dagestan. The region has many different languages and language families, there are more than 50 ethnic groups living in the region. Russian is used as a common language, today the peoples of the Northern and Southern Caucasus tend to be either Eastern Orthodox Christians, Oriental Orthodox Christians, or Sunni Muslims. Shia Islam has had many adherents historically in Azerbaijan, located in the part of the region. Located on the peripheries of Turkey, Iran, and Russia, the region has been an arena for political, military, religious, throughout its history, the Caucasus was usually incorporated into the Iranian world
4.
Kebab
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Kebab are various Middle Eastern dishes originally based on grilled meat, and now with many variants. Two of the best-known kebab dishes are shish kebab and doner kebab, also known as shish kebab or sometimes shashlik, kebabs are customarily prepared in homes and restaurants, and are usually cooked on a grill or barbeque. This is different from its use in the Levant, where shish is the word for skewer, in Germany, the highly popular sandwich, introduced by Turkish immigrants, is called a döner, though Arab shops serve shawarma. In other countries in Europe and worldwide, the name used depends on the dish, although often cooked on a skewer, many types of kebab are not. The traditional meat for kebab is lamb, but depending on tastes and religious prohibitions, other meats may include beef, goat, chicken, fish, or, more rarely. The practice of cooking meat on a stick or skewer originates in prehistorical times, possibly as long as a million years ago, when early humans began cooking with fire. Dishes prepared in a way to kebab, with various cultural origins, include anticucho, espetada, satay, souvlaki, yakitori. Excavations in Santorini, Greece, unearthed stone sets of barbecue for skewers used before the 17th century BC, mycenaean Greeks used portable tray as grills. Homer in Ilad mentions pieces of meat roasted on spits, in Classical Greece, a small spit or skewer was known as ὀβελίσκος, and Aristophanes mentions such skewers being used to roast thrushes. The English word kebab comes from the Persian كَبَاب, partly through Urdu, Persian, according to Sevan Nişanyan, an etymologist of the Turkish language, the word kebab is derived from the Persian word kabab meaning fry. The word was first mentioned in a Turkish script of Kyssa-i Yusuf in 1377, however, he emphasizes that the word has the equivalent meaning of frying/burning with kabābu in the old Akkadian language, and kbabā/כבבא in Aramaic. The American Heritage Dictionary also gives a probable East Semitic root origin with the meaning of burn, char, or roast, from the Aramaic and these words point to an origin in the prehistoric Proto-Afroasiatic language, *kab-, to burn or roast. Tradition has it that the dish was invented by soldiers who used their swords to grill meat over open-field fires. Persian kebab was served in the houses during various Islamic Empires. The Afghan variant of the kebab is the kabob, Kebabs in Armenia are prepared of ground meat spiced with pepper, parsley and other herbs, and roasted on skewers. In the Republic of Azerbaijan, the varieties include tika kabab, lyula kabab, tas kababy. The meat for tika kabab is sometimes prepared in basdirma and then goes onto the ramrods and it may be served, wrapped in lavash, with sauce-like pomegranate addon and other condiments. In Bulgaria, the word кебап is a term for meat stews with few or no vegetables
5.
Middle East
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The Middle East is a transcontinental region centered on Western Asia and Egypt. The corresponding adjective is Middle-Eastern and the noun is Middle-Easterner. The term has come into usage as a replacement of the term Near East beginning in the early 20th century. Arabs, Turks, Persians, Kurds, and Azeris constitute the largest ethnic groups in the region by population. Indigenous minorities of the Middle East include Jews, Assyrians and other Arameans, Baloch, Berbers, Copts, Druze, Lurs, Mandaeans, Samaritans, Shabaks, Tats, in the Middle East, there is also a Romani community. European ethnic groups form a diaspora in the region include Albanians, Bosniaks, Circassians, Crimean Tatars, Franco-Levantines. Among other migrant populations are Bengalis as well as other Indians, Chinese, Filipinos, Indonesians, Pakistanis, the history of the Middle East dates back to ancient times, with the importance of the region being recognized for millennia. Most of the countries border the Persian Gulf have vast reserves of crude oil. The term Middle East may have originated in the 1850s in the British India Office, however, it became more widely known when American naval strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan used the term in 1902 to designate the area between Arabia and India. During this time the British and Russian Empires were vying for influence in Central Asia, Mahan realized not only the strategic importance of the region, but also of its center, the Persian Gulf. Mahan first used the term in his article The Persian Gulf and International Relations, published in September 1902 in the National Review, a British journal. The Middle East, if I may adopt a term which I have not seen, will some day need its Malta, as well as its Gibraltar, it does not follow that either will be in the Persian Gulf. The British Navy should have the facility to concentrate in force if occasion arise, about Aden, India, mahans article was reprinted in The Times and followed in October by a 20-article series entitled The Middle Eastern Question, written by Sir Ignatius Valentine Chirol. During this series, Sir Ignatius expanded the definition of Middle East to include regions of Asia which extend to the borders of India or command the approaches to India. After the series ended in 1903, The Times removed quotation marks from subsequent uses of the term, in the late 1930s, the British established the Middle East Command, which was based in Cairo, for its military forces in the region. After that time, the term Middle East gained broader usage in Europe, the description Middle has also led to some confusion over changing definitions. Before the First World War, Near East was used in English to refer to the Balkans and the Ottoman Empire, while Middle East referred to Iran, the Caucasus, Afghanistan, Central Asia, and Turkestan. The first official use of the term Middle East by the United States government was in the 1957 Eisenhower Doctrine, the Associated Press Stylebook says that Near East formerly referred to the farther west countries while Middle East referred to the eastern ones, but that now they are synonymous
6.
Doner kebab
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Döner kebab is a type of Turkish kebab, made of meat cooked on a vertical rotisserie. Similar dishes cooked on a vertical rotisserie are the Arab shawarma, Greek gyros, seasoned meat stacked in the shape of an inverted cone is turned slowly on the rotisserie, next to a vertical cooking element. The outer layer is sliced vertically into thin shavings as it cooks, since the early 1970s, the sandwich or wrap form has become popular around the world as a fast food dish sold by kebab shops, and is often called simply a kebab. The sandwich generally contains salad or vegetables, which may include tomato, lettuce, cabbage, onion with sumac, fresh or pickled cucumber, or chili, and various types of sauces. Before taking its form, as mentioned in Ottoman travel books of the 18th century. Grilling meat on horizontal skewers has an ancient history in the Eastern Mediterranean, since then, Hacı İskender has been considered the inventor of Turkish döner kebap, though he might have been preceded by Hamdi Usta from Kastamonu around 1830. With time, the took a different marinade, got leaner. It was not until a later, that döner kebab was introduced and popularized in Istanbul. His restaurant, first opened in 1945, was discovered by journalists and began serving döner and other kebab dishes to kings, prime ministers, film stars. It has been sold in form in Istanbul since at least the mid-1960s. The döner kebab, and its derivatives shawarma and gyros, served in a sandwich, the first doner kebab shop in London opened in 1966, while Greek-style gyros was already popular in Greece and New York City in 1971. In Germany the döner kebab was popularized by Turkish guest workers in the early 1970s with a center in Berlin, the English word kebab comes from the Arabic, كَبَاب, partly through Urdu, Persian and Turkish. It may refer to a number of different kebab dishes made with roasted or grilled meat, Döner is a Turkish word, from dönmek. It is sometimes spelled döner kebap, the Turkish spelling, in English, it may also be spelled doner, donar, donair or sometimes donner. In German, it is spelled Döner Kebab, which can also be spelled Doener Kebab if the ö character is not available, particularly in British English, a döner kebab sandwich may be referred to simply as a kebab. In Greece, it was originally called döner but later came to be known as gyros, from γύρος, the Arabic name شاورما derives from another Turkish word, çevirme, also meaning turning. Persians refer to it as kebab torki, there are many variations of döner in Turkey, Porsiyon Pilavüstü İskender Kebapçı İskender is trademarked by Yavuz İskenderoğlu, whose family still runs the restaurant in Bursa. Dürüm, wrapped in a thin lavaş that is also grilled after being rolled
7.
Lamb and mutton
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Lamb, hogget, and mutton are the meat of domestic sheep at different ages. A sheep in its first year is called a lamb, the meat of a juvenile sheep older than one year is hogget, outside North America this is also a term for the living animal. The meat of a sheep is mutton, a term only used for the meat. The term mutton is almost always used to refer to meat in the Indian subcontinent. Lamb is the most expensive of the three types, and in recent decades sheep meat is increasingly only retailed as lamb, sometimes stretching the accepted distinctions given above. The stronger-tasting mutton is now hard to find in many areas, in Australia, the term prime lamb is often used to refer to lambs raised for meat. The definitions for lamb, hogget and mutton vary considerably between countries, younger lambs are smaller and more tender. Mutton is meat from a sheep over two old, and has less tender flesh. In general, the darker the colour, the older the animal, baby lamb meat will be pale pink, while regular lamb is pinkish-red. Lamb — a young sheep under 12 months of age which does not have any permanent incisor teeth in wear, hogget — A term for a sheep of either sex having no more than two permanent incisors in wear, or its meat. Still common in farming usage, it is now rare as a domestic or retail term for the meat, Much of the lamb sold in the UK is hogget to an Antipodean farmer. Mutton — a female or castrated male sheep having more than two permanent incisors in wear, under United States law, lamb is defined in terms of mutton, The term lamb means meat, other than mutton, produced from sheep. Under current federal regulations, only the lamb is used, Lamb — ovine animals of any age, including ewes and rams The terms mutton. Nevertheless, the use of lamb in the United States may be confusing. Under the previous definition, lamb meant meat, other than mutton, the term mutton is applied to goat meat in most of these countries, and the goat population has been rising. For example, mutton-curry is always made from goat meat and it is estimated that over one-third of the goat population is slaughtered every year and sold as mutton. The flavour and texture of milk-fed lamb when grilled or roasted is generally thought to be finer than that of older lamb, the areas in northern Spain where this can be found include Asturias, Cantabria, Castile and León, and La Rioja. Milk-fed lambs are prized for Easter in Greece, when they are roasted on a spit
8.
Beef
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Beef is the culinary name for meat from cattle, particularly skeletal muscle. Humans have been eating beef since prehistoric times, Beef is a complete source of protein, and provides many of the essential fatty acids, vitamins, and minerals that humans need. Beef skeletal muscle meat can be cut into roasts, short ribs or steak, Some cuts are processed, and trimmings, usually mixed with meat from older, leaner cattle, are ground, minced or used in sausages. The blood is used in varieties of blood sausage. Some intestines are cooked and eaten as-is, but are often cleaned and used as natural sausage casings. The bones are used for making beef stock, Beef from steers and heifers is very similar. According to the most recent National Beef Quality Audit, heifer carcasses had slightly more marbling than steer carcasses, depending on economics, the number of heifers kept for breeding varies. The meat from older bulls is usually tougher, so it is used for mince. Beef is the third most widely consumed meat in the world, accounting for about 25% of meat production worldwide, after pork and poultry at 38% and 30% respectively. According to the data from OECD, the average Uruguayan ate over 42 kg of beef or veal in 2014, cattle are considered sacred in the culture of India and there is prohibition on selling and consumption of beef in much of India. Though India is the largest producer and exporter of meat in the world. In 2015, the worlds largest exporters of beef including the meat, were India, Brazil. Beef production is important to the economies of Uruguay, Canada, Paraguay, Mexico, Argentina, Belarus. The word beef is from the Latin bōs, in contrast to cow which is from Middle English cou, after the Norman Conquest, the French-speaking nobles who ruled England naturally used French words to refer to the meats they were served. Thus, various Anglo-Saxon words were used for the animal by the peasants, Beef is cognate with bovine through the Late Latin bovīnus. People have eaten the flesh of bovines from prehistoric times, some of the earliest known paintings, such as those of Lascaux. People domesticated cattle around 8000 BC to provide access to beef, milk. Most cattle originated in the Old World, with the exception of bison hybrids, examples include the Wagyū from Japan, Ankole-Watusi from Egypt, and longhorn Zebu from the Indian subcontinent
9.
Veal
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Veal is the meat of calves, in contrast to the beef from older cattle. Veal can be produced from a calf of either sex and any breed, however, generally, veal is more expensive than beef from older cattle. Some methods or aspects of production are controversial due to animal welfare concerns. There are several types of veal, although some terminology varies by country, types of veal include, Bob veal Calves are slaughtered when only a few weeks old weighing up to 60 lb. Formula-fed veal Calves are raised on a milk formula supplement. The meat colour is ivory or creamy pink, with a firm, fine, the calves are usually slaughtered when they reach 18 to 20 weeks of age, weighing 450 to 500 pounds. Nonformula-fed veal Calves that are raised on grain, hay, or other solid food, the meat is darker in colour, and some additional marbling and fat may be apparent. It is usually marketed as calf, rather than veal, the calves are slaughtered at 22 to 26 weeks of age weighing 650 to 700 pounds. Rose veal Young beef Calves raised on farms in association with the UK Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Freedom Food programme, the name comes from the pink colour, which is partly a result of the calves being slaughtered later at about 35 weeks of age. As of 2013, the majority of veal calves in the US are special-fed, Veal has been an important ingredient in Italian and French cuisine from ancient times. The veal is often in the form of cutlets, such as the Italian cotoletta or the famous Austrian dish Wiener Schnitzel, some classic French veal dishes include fried escalopes, fried veal Grenadines, stuffed paupiettes, roast joints, and blanquettes. Because veal is lower in fat than many meats, care must be taken in preparation to ensure that it not become tough. Veal is often coated in preparation for frying or eaten with a sauce, Veal Parmigiana is a common Italian-American dish made with breaded veal cutlets. In addition to providing meat, the bones of calves are used to make a stock that forms the base for sauces, calf stomachs are also used to produce rennet, which is used in the production of cheese. Calf offal is also regarded as the most prized animal offal. Most valued are the liver, sweetbreads, kidney, and bone marrow, the head, brains, tongue, feet, and mesentery are also valued. Male dairy calves are used for veal production as they do not lactate and are therefore surplus to the requirements of the dairy industry. Newborn veal calves are given only a limited amount of time with their mothers. Free-raised calves are raised alongside their mothers, and always have access to their mothers milk, three different primary types of housing used for veal calves, hutches, stalls, or various types of group housing
10.
Swordfish
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Swordfish, also known as broadbills in some countries, are large, highly migratory, predatory fish characterized by a long, flat bill. They are a sport fish of the billfish category, though elusive. Swordfish are elongated, round-bodied, and lose all teeth and scales by adulthood and these fish are found widely in tropical and temperate parts of the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans, and can typically be found from near the surface to a depth of 550 m. They commonly reach 3 m in length, and the maximum reported is 4.55 m in length and 650 kg in weight and they are the sole member of their family, Xiphiidae. The swordfish is named after its bill, which resembles a sword and this makes it superficially similar to other billfish such as marlin, but upon examination, their physiology is quite different and they are members of different families. They commonly reach 3 m in length, and the maximum reported is 4.55 m in length and 650 kg in weight, the International Game Fish Associations all-tackle angling record for a swordfish was a 1,182 lb specimen taken off Chile in 1953. Females are larger than males, and Pacific swordfish reach a greater size than northwest Atlantic and they reach maturity at 4–5 years of age and the maximum age is believed to be at least 9 years. The oldest swordfish found in a recent study were a 16-year-old female, swordfish ages are derived, with difficulty, from annual rings on fin rays rather than otoliths, since their otoliths are small in size. Swordfish are ectothermic animals, however, along some species of sharks, they have special organs next to their eyes to heat their eyes. Temperatures of 10 to 15 °C above the water temperature have been measured. The heating of the eyes greatly improves their vision, and consequently improves their ability to catch prey, of the 25, 000+ fish species, only 22 are known to have a mechanism to conserve heat. These include the swordfish, marlin, tuna, and some sharks, contrary to popular belief, the sword is not used to spear, but instead may be used to slash at its prey to injure the prey animal, to make for an easier catch. Mainly, the swordfish relies on its speed and agility in the water to catch its prey. It is undoubtedly among the fastest fish, but the basis for the frequently quoted speed of 97 km/h is unreliable, swordfish prefer water temperatures between 18 and 22 °C, but have the widest tolerance among billfish, and can be found from 5 to 27 °C. This highly migratory species typically moves towards colder regions to feed during the summer, swordfish feed daily, most often at night, when they rise to surface and near-surface waters in search of smaller fish. During the day, they occur to depths of 550 m and have exceptionally been recorded as deep as 2,878 m. Adults feed on a range of pelagic fish, such as mackerel, barracudinas, silver hake, rockfish, herring, and lanternfishes, but they also take demersal fish, squid. Large prey are typically slashed with the sword, while small are swallowed whole and they swim alone or in very loose aggregations, separated by as much as 10 m from a neighboring swordfish
11.
Turkey
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Turkey, officially the Republic of Turkey, is a transcontinental country in Eurasia, mainly in Anatolia in Western Asia, with a smaller portion on the Balkan peninsula in Southeast Europe. Turkey is a democratic, secular, unitary, parliamentary republic with a cultural heritage. The country is encircled by seas on three sides, the Aegean Sea is to the west, the Black Sea to the north, and the Mediterranean Sea to the south. The Bosphorus, the Sea of Marmara, and the Dardanelles, Ankara is the capital while Istanbul is the countrys largest city and main cultural and commercial centre. Approximately 70-80% of the countrys citizens identify themselves as ethnic Turks, other ethnic groups include legally recognised and unrecognised minorities. Kurds are the largest ethnic minority group, making up approximately 20% of the population, the area of Turkey has been inhabited since the Paleolithic by various ancient Anatolian civilisations, as well as Assyrians, Greeks, Thracians, Phrygians, Urartians and Armenians. After Alexander the Greats conquest, the area was Hellenized, a process continued under the Roman Empire. The Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm ruled Anatolia until the Mongol invasion in 1243, the empire reached the peak of its power in the 16th century, especially during the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent. During the war, the Ottoman government committed genocides against its Armenian, Assyrian, following the war, the conglomeration of territories and peoples that formerly comprised the Ottoman Empire was partitioned into several new states. Turkey is a member of the UN, an early member of NATO. Turkeys growing economy and diplomatic initiatives have led to its recognition as a regional power while her location has given it geopolitical, the name of Turkey is based on the ethnonym Türk. The first recorded use of the term Türk or Türük as an autonym is contained in the Old Turkic inscriptions of the Göktürks of Central Asia, the English name Turkey first appeared in the late 14th century and is derived from Medieval Latin Turchia. Similarly, the medieval Khazar Empire, a Turkic state on the shores of the Black. The medieval Arabs referred to the Mamluk Sultanate as al-Dawla al-Turkiyya, the Ottoman Empire was sometimes referred to as Turkey or the Turkish Empire among its European contemporaries. The Anatolian peninsula, comprising most of modern Turkey, is one of the oldest permanently settled regions in the world, various ancient Anatolian populations have lived in Anatolia, from at least the Neolithic period until the Hellenistic period. Many of these peoples spoke the Anatolian languages, a branch of the larger Indo-European language family, in fact, given the antiquity of the Indo-European Hittite and Luwian languages, some scholars have proposed Anatolia as the hypothetical centre from which the Indo-European languages radiated. The European part of Turkey, called Eastern Thrace, has also been inhabited since at least forty years ago. It is the largest and best-preserved Neolithic site found to date, the settlement of Troy started in the Neolithic Age and continued into the Iron Age
12.
Akkadian
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Akkadian is an extinct East Semitic language that was spoken in ancient Mesopotamia. The earliest attested Semitic language, it used the writing system, which was originally used to write the unrelated Ancient Sumerian. The language was named after the city of Akkad, a centre of Mesopotamian civilization during the Akkadian Empire. The mutual influence between Sumerian and Akkadian had led scholars to describe the languages as a sprachbund, Akkadian proper names were first attested in Sumerian texts from around the mid 3rd-millennium BC. From the second half of the third millennium BC, texts written in Akkadian begin to appear. By the second millennium BC, two variant forms of the language were in use in Assyria and Babylonia, known as Assyrian and Babylonian respectively, for centuries, Akkadian was the native language in Mesopotamian nations such as Assyria and Babylonia. However, it began to decline during the Neo-Assyrian Empire around the 8th century BC, by the Hellenistic period, the language was largely confined to scholars and priests working in temples in Assyria and Babylonia. The last known Akkadian cuneiform document dates from the 1st century AD, Akkadian belongs with the other Semitic languages in the Near Eastern branch of the Afroasiatic languages, a family native to East Africa, which then spread to West, Northwest and Northeast Africa. Within the Near Eastern Semitic languages, Akkadian forms an East Semitic subgroup and this novel word order is due to the influence of the Sumerian substratum, which has an SOV order. Additionally Akkadian is the only Semitic language to use the prepositions ina and ana, other Semitic languages like Arabic and Aramaic have the prepositions bi/bə and li/lə. The origin of the Akkadian spatial prepositions is unknown, in contrast to most other Semitic languages, Akkadian has only one non-sibilant fricative, ḫ. Akkadian lost both the glottal and pharyngeal fricatives, which are characteristic of the other Semitic languages, until the Old Babylonian period, the Akkadian sibilants were exclusively affricated. Old Akkadian is preserved on clay tablets dating back to c.2500 BC and it was written using cuneiform, a script adopted from the Sumerians using wedge-shaped symbols pressed in wet clay. As employed by Akkadian scribes, the cuneiform script could represent either Sumerian logograms, Sumerian syllables, Akkadian syllables. For this reason, the sign AN can on the one hand be a logogram for the word ilum, additionally, this sign was used as a determinative for divine names. Another peculiarity of Akkadian cuneiform is that many signs do not have a phonetic value. Certain signs, such as AḪ, do not distinguish between the different vowel qualities, nor is there any coordination in the other direction, the syllable -ša-, for example, is rendered by the sign ŠA, but also by the sign NĪĜ. Both of these are used for the same syllable in the same text
