Elamite is an extinct language spoken by the ancient Elamites. Elamite was the primary language in present day Iran from 2800–550 BCE. The last written records in Elamite appear about the time of the conquest of the Persian Empire by Alexander the Great.

Over the centuries, three distinct Elamite scripts developed.

Elamite was an agglutinative language, and Elamite grammar was characterized by a well-developed and pervasive nominal class system, where animate nouns had separate markers for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd person – the latter being a rather unusual feature. It can be said to display a kind of Suffixaufnahme in that the nominal class markers of the head were also attached to any modifiers, including adjectives, noun adjuncts, possessor nouns, and even entire clauses.

The history of Elamite is periodized as follows:

Middle Elamite is considered the “classical” period of Elamite, whereas the best attested variety is Achaemenid Elamite, which was widely used by the Achaemenid Persian state for official inscriptions as well as administrative records and displays significant Old Persian influence. Documents from the Old Elamite and early Neo-Elamite stages are rather scarce. Neo-Elamite can be regarded as a transition between Middle and Achaemenid Elamite with respect to language structure.