East Semitic languages

The East Semitic languages are an extinct branch of the Semitic language family, spoken in ancient Mesopotamia and Syria. They include Akkadian, with its Babylonian and Assyrian dialects, and probably Eblaite, the language of the archives of Ebla. Written in cuneiform from the mid-third millennium BCE, they are the earliest recorded Semitic languages, and Akkadian served as a language of international diplomacy in the second millennium BCE.