Which language did the “Babylonians” speak?
Well, this is quite a difficult question to answer, but I shall try to anywa, since it changed widely through time. Early in it’s history the Babylonians spoke the Akkadian language, which is Semitic, writing technology was first invented South of Babylonia (the area in Mesopotamia around Babylon) in an area called Sumeria. This is where writing first developed, as counters inside clay spheres originally for counting, then markings on the outside of these constructions, then pictograms. These eventually developed into Cuneiform (you might want to google it, its a facinating writing system, although very complex). Sumeria was more advanced technologically and culturally than the rest of Mesopotamia and several of their devlopments spread across the Near East (as far East as modern day Pakistan.) The Babylonians imported Cuneiform writing technology, and the Sumerian language (which isn’t related to any other known language), since Cuneiform is very difficult to master only scribed were