Akkadian gradually replaced Sumerian as a spoken language in the area around 2000 BC (the exact date is debated), but Sumerian continued to be used as a sacred, ceremonial, literary and scientific language in Akkadian-speaking Mesopotamian states such as Assyria and Babylonia until the 1st century AD.

Can we read Sumerian language?

Some 90% of cuneiform texts remain untranslated. ... But its texts are mainly written in Sumerian and Akkadian, languages that relatively few scholars can read.

What language did the Sumerian speak?

Sumerian. Sumerian is an "agglutinating" language with no known relatives. It was spoken in South Iraq until it died out, probably around 2000 BC, giving way to Babylonianian; but it survived as a scholarly and liturgical language, much like mediaeval Latin, until the very end of cuneiform in the late 1st millennium BC ...