Akkadian, being the oldest of Semitic languages, is the most important source of our knowledge of ancient Mesopotamian history, economy, literature and religion. It is also invaluable for comparative Semitics and philology in general.

This book is a translation of Riemschneider's Lehrbuch des Akkadischen, which is by far the richest in the basics of a good textbook, exercises and reading lessons.

This translation has two parts. The first part contains eighteen lessons, which are complete in themselves with rich vocabularies. The second part is a general vocabulary. This translation adds an index and a table of contents, all of which should prove very useful to the reader taking his very first steps in Akkadian. "