Akkadian vs Arabic - How similar is Akkadian to Arabic?

How similar is Akkadian to Arabic? To what extent are these two Semitic languages intelligible? Can an Arabic speaker understand Akkadian? Akkadian was the language used in ancient Mesopotamia by the Akkadian, Babylonian, and Assyrian communities. The language was used as the lingua franca for international correspondence throughout the ancient Near East and reached as far away as Egypt. In time Akkadian was replaced by Aramaic, which was the main language of the region for more than a thousand years after Akkadian. Eventually, Arabic came to replace Aramaic in the Middle Ages and remains as the native language from the Arabian Peninsula to Mesopotamia, and across North Africa. #Akkadian #Arabic #Polyglot