A dialect of the Akkadian Language, an extinct semitic language of the Northern Peripheral group, spoken in Mesopotamia from the 3rd to the 1st millennium BC.

At about 2000 BC the Akkadian language divided into the Assyrian dialect, spoken in northern Mesopotamia, and the Babylonian dialect, spoken in southern Mesopotamia. Babylonian largely supplanted Assyrian becoming the lingua franca of the Middle East by the 9th century BC.