History of the Akkadian Language offers a detailed chronological survey of the oldest known Semitic language and one of history’s longest written records. The outcome is presented in 26 chapters written by 25 leading authors.

"Akkadian is, after Sumerian, the second oldest language attested in the Ancient Near East, as well as the oldest known Semitic language. It is also a language with one of history's longest written records. And yet, unlike other relevant languages written over a long period of time, there has been no volume dedicated to its own history. The aim of the present work is to fill that void. The outcome is presented in 26 chapters written by 25 leading authors and divided into two volumes: the first covering the linguistic background and early periods and the second covering the second and first millennia BCE as well as its afterlife"--

The second half of the proceedings, City Administration in the Ancient Near East, is available here. A workshop volume is available here. In July 2007, the 53rd Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale (the annual meeting of the International Association of Assyriologists) was held in Moscow and St. Petersburg, Russia. In Moscow, several hundred Assyriologists enjoyed the hospitality of the Russian State University for the Humanities. Dozens of papers on the topic “Language in the Ancient Near East,” were delivered at the University. More than 50 of those papers are published in this 2-volume set.

In Language Contact, Colonial Administration, and the Construction of Identity in Ancient Israel, Boyd offers the first book-length incorporation of language contact theory with data from the Bible. It allows for a reexamination of the nature of contact between biblical authors and the Assyrian, Babylonian, and Achaemenid empires.

This book provides the first comprehensive introduction to the field of language contact and multilingualism in ancient Egypt before the Greco-Roman period (4th millennium BCE–4th c. BCE). It gives a survey of the historical evidence of linguistic interference of Egyptian with languages in Africa, the Near East and the Mediterranean, discusses the different attested phenomena of language contact and offers a case study of foreign language communities in ancient Egypt. Detailed indexes makes this book a rich source of linguistic information for general linguistics and neighboring disciplines.

The historical Bhagavad -Pyhäkaavat (Bhagavad Gita) is a collection of letters mostly written by Achaemenids ́ vassals dating back to the pre-Roman Iron Age of Northern Europe. Letter writing begins in Greek Anatolia in 480 B.C.E. and continues in North Europe. Ancient Veda texts are astonishing, historical first- hand information about northern kingdoms established by the Achaemenid dynasty. Previously, it was not known that the Persian sphere of influence even extended to the territory of present-day Finland. Cyrus the Great was aptly titled ́King of the Four Corners of the Earth ́. The Achaemenids were a common factor between Vedic India and Vedic North Europe. Their power also extended to Caria and Ionia in Anatolia. These people spoke and wrote in the Carian or Arian language, the language that is called the Finnish Karelian dialect nowadays. The Bhagavad Gita letters also provide valuable information about their ancient Baptist religion. Many of its features were transferred to modern religions.

The handbook The Semitic Languages offers a comprehensive reference tool for Semitic Linguistics in its broad sense. It is not restricted to comparative Grammar, although it covers also comparative aspects, including classification. By comprising a chapter on typology and sections with sociolinguistic focus and language contact, the conception of the book aims at a rather complete, unbiased description of the state of the art in Semitics. Articles on individual languages and dialects give basic facts as location, numbers of speakers, scripts, numbers of extant texts and their nature, attestation where appropriate, and salient features of the grammar and lexicon of the respective variety. The handbook is the most comprehensive treatment of the Semitic language family since many decades.