古代中東地區曾被幾種語言廣泛使用的一種文字。原先是用一支斜尖的蘆葦在軟泥板上刻畫，所以筆畫呈楔形。已經證實的最早用楔形文字書寫的文獻是蘇美語文獻，這種語言是西元前4千紀～西元前2千紀之間美索不達米亞東南部和加爾底亞地區的居民所使用的一種語言。早期的楔形文字是一種圖畫文字，所記事物用圖畫表示，只能根據通常的發音組合來解讀，而不是按圖畫本身所描繪的東西來理解。到西元前3千紀，圖畫型的楔形文字逐漸演變成按照慣例書寫的線形筆畫文字。入侵美索不達米亞的阿卡德人和閃米特人都曾用楔形文字書寫他們的語言，之後其他一些中東語言也曾使用。西元前7世紀～西元前6世紀阿拉米語作為交際語廣泛流傳，腓尼基文字使用增多，隨着波斯帝國的壯大、美索不達米亞失去政治獨立性等因素，楔形文字的使用越來越少。19世紀中期，歐洲學者逐漸解讀出古代楔形文字，其價值才開始受到重視。
cuneiform writing
System of writing employed for a number of languages of South Asia in ancient times. The original and primary writing material for cuneiform texts was a damp clay tablet, into which the scribe would press a wedge-shaped stroke with a reed stylus. A configuration of such impressions constituted a character, or sign. Proto-cuneiform signs dating from c. 3200-3000 BC were drawn rather than impressed and were largely pictographic (see pictography), though these features were lost as the script evolved. A single cuneiform sign could be a logogram (an arbitrary representation of a word) or a syllabogram (a representation of the sound of a syllable). The first language to be written in cuneiform was Sumerian (see Sumer). Akkadian began to be written in cuneiform c. 2350 BC. Later the script was adapted to other South Asian languages. Cuneiform was slowly displaced in the first millennium BC by the rise of Aramaic, written in an alphabet script of Phoenician origin. Knowledge of the value of cuneiform signs was lost until the mid-19th century, when European scholars deciphered the script.
