 It used the cuneiform script, which was originally used to write the unrelated, and also extinct, Sumerian (which is a language isolate).Akkadian is named after the city of Akkad, a major centre of Mesopotamian civilization during the Akkadian Empire (c. 2334–2154 BCE).The mutual influence between Sumerian and Akkadian had led scholars to describe the languages as a "Sprachbund".