The BBC on the CAD

THE COMPLETION OF THE CHICAGO ASSYRIAN DICTIONARY is celebrated by the BBC:

Dictionary of dead language complete after 90 years

By Cordelia Hebblethwaite BBC News

Five volumes of 21 volumes of the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary. Photo by Jason Smith The first volumes of the dictionary were published in the 1950s

A dictionary of the extinct language of ancient Mesopotamia has been completed after 90 years of work.

Assyrian and Babylonian - dialects of the language collectively known as Akkadian - have not been spoken for almost 2,000 years.

"This is a heroic and significant moment in history," beamed Dr Irving Finkel of the British Museum's Middle East department.

As a young man in the 1970s Dr Finkel dedicated three years of his life to The Chicago Assyrian Dictionary Project which is based at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago.

That makes him something of a spring chicken in the life story of this project, which began in 1921.

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Background here. More on Dr. Finkel here.