Proto-Euphratean
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The article below discusses a hypothetical language that most Sumerologists now doubt ever existed.
Proto-Euphratean was considered by some Assyriologists (for example Samuel Noah Kramer), to be the substratum language that introduced farming into Southern Iraq in the Early Ubaid period.
Benno Landsberger and other Assyriologists argued that by examining the structure of Sumerian names of occupations, as well as toponyms and hydronyms, one can suggest that there was once an earlier group of people in the region who spoke an entirely different language-often referred to as Proto-Euphratean. Terms for "farmer", "smith", "carpenter", and "date" (as in the fruit), also do not appear to have a Sumerian or Semitic origin. Rubio challenged the Substratum hypothesis, arguing that there is evidence of borrowing from more than one language. This theory is now predominant in the field (Piotr Michalowski, Gerd Steiner, etc.).
[edit] References
Rubio, Gonzalo “On the alleged pre-Sumerian substratum,” in Journal of Cuneiform Studies 51 (1999): 1-16
