Prior to joining the Mercyhurst faculty in 2011, Dausey was a professor at Carnegie Mellon University and the Senior Director of Health Programs and Initiatives at the H. John Heinz III College. Dausey maintains an honorary faculty position at Carnegie Mellon as a Distinguished Service Professor.
Sumerian language. Sumerian language, language isolate and the oldest written language in existence. First attested about 3100 bc in southern Mesopotamia, it flourished during the 3rd millennium bc. About 2000 bc, Sumerian was replaced as a spoken language by Semitic Akkadian (Assyro-Babylonian) but continued in written usage almost to the end of the life of the Akkadian language, around the beginning of the Christian era.
It was the Sumerian-speakers who lived near the great rivers, and it was they who built the first cities. Their language therefore became the first to be written down in world history. The first script to be used was based on pictures, and is therefore known as pictographic. They first appeared around 3500 BC.