Canaanite languages
Encyclopedia
The Canaanite languages are a subfamily of the Semitic languages
, which were spoken by the ancient peoples of the Canaan
region, including Canaanites, Israelites and Phoenicians. All of them became extinct as native languages in the early 1st millennium
CE, although Hebrew
remained in continuous literary and religious use among Jews, and was revived as a spoken, everyday language in the 19th century by Eliezer Ben Yehuda. The Phoenician (and especially Carthaginian
) expansion spread their Canaanite language to the Western Mediterranean for a time, but there too it died out, although it seems to have survived slightly longer than in Phoenicia
itself.
The main sources for study of Canaanite languages are the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh
), and inscriptions such as:
The Deir Alla Inscription
is written in a dialect with Aramaic
and South Canaanite characteristics, which is classified as Canaanite in Hetzron.
The extra-biblical Canaanite inscriptions are gathered along with Aramaic inscriptions in editions of the book "Kanaanäische und Aramäische Inschriften", from which they may be referenced as KAI n (for a number n); for example, the Mesha Stele
is "KAI 181".
s and Ugaritic
, form the Northwest Semitic
subgroup. Some distinctive features of Canaanite in relation to Aramaic are:
Semitic languages
The Semitic languages are a group of related languages whose living representatives are spoken by more than 270 million people across much of the Middle East, North Africa and the Horn of Africa...
, which were spoken by the ancient peoples of the Canaan
Canaan
Canaan is a historical region roughly corresponding to modern-day Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, and the western parts of Jordan...
region, including Canaanites, Israelites and Phoenicians. All of them became extinct as native languages in the early 1st millennium
1st millennium
File:1st millennium montage.png|From left, clockwise: Depiction of Jesus, the central figure in Christianity; The Colosseum, a landmark of the once Roman Empire; Gunpowder is invented during the latter part of the millennium, in China; Chess, a new board game, takes on popularity across the globe;...
CE, although Hebrew
Hebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
remained in continuous literary and religious use among Jews, and was revived as a spoken, everyday language in the 19th century by Eliezer Ben Yehuda. The Phoenician (and especially Carthaginian
Carthage
Carthage , implying it was a 'new Tyre') is a major urban centre that has existed for nearly 3,000 years on the Gulf of Tunis, developing from a Phoenician colony of the 1st millennium BC...
) expansion spread their Canaanite language to the Western Mediterranean for a time, but there too it died out, although it seems to have survived slightly longer than in Phoenicia
Phoenicia
Phoenicia , was an ancient civilization in Canaan which covered most of the western, coastal part of the Fertile Crescent. Several major Phoenician cities were built on the coastline of the Mediterranean. It was an enterprising maritime trading culture that spread across the Mediterranean from 1550...
itself.
- PhoenicianPhoenician languagesPhoenician was a language originally spoken in the coastal region then called "Canaan" in Phoenician, Arabic, Hebrew, and Aramaic, "Phoenicia" in Greek and Latin, and "Pūt" in Ancient Egyptian. Phoenician is a Semitic language of the Canaanite subgroup; its closest living relative is Hebrew, to...
– extinct- PunicPunic languageThe Punic language or Carthagian language is an extinct Semitic language formerly spoken in the Mediterranean region of North Africa and several Mediterranean islands, by people of the Punic culture.- Description :...
– extinct
- Punic
- AmmoniteAmmonite languageThe Ammonite language is the extinct Canaanite language of the Ammonite people mentioned in the Bible, who used to live in modern-day Jordan, and after whom its capital Amman is named. Only fragments of their language survive - chiefly the 9th century BC , the 7th-6th century BC Tell Siran bronze...
– extinct - MoabiteMoabite languageThe Moabite language is an extinct Canaanite language, spoken in Moab in the early first millennium BC. Most of our knowledge about Moabite comes from the Mesha Stele, as well as the El-Kerak Stela. The main features distinguishing Moabite from fellow Canaanite languages such as Hebrew are: a...
– extinct - EdomiteEdomite languageThe Edomite language was a Canaanite language spoken by the Edomites in southwestern Jordan in the first millennium BC. It is known only from a very small corpus. In early times, it seems to have been written with a Canaanite alphabet; like the Moabite language, it retained feminine -t. However, in...
– extinct - Hebrew
- Biblical HebrewBiblical Hebrew languageBiblical Hebrew , also called Classical Hebrew , is the archaic form of the Hebrew language, a Canaanite Semitic language spoken in the area known as Canaan between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Biblical Hebrew is attested from about the 10th century BCE, and persisted through...
– JewsJewsThe Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
, literary, poetical, liturgical. It has different pronunciations in different diasporas - Samaritan HebrewSamaritan Hebrew languageSamaritan Hebrew , is a reading tradition for Biblical Hebrew as used by the Samaritans for reading the Samaritan Pentateuch. Its pronunciation is highly similar to that of Samaritan Arabic, used by the Samaritans in prayer.-Orthography:...
– Samaritans - Tiberian Hebrew – JewsJewsThe Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
- Mizrahi HebrewMizrahi Hebrew languageMizrahi Hebrew or Oriental Hebrew refers to any of the pronunciation systems for Biblical Hebrew used liturgically by Mizrahi Jews, that is, Jews originating in Arab countries or further east, and with a background of Arabic, Persian, Turkish, or other languages of the Middle East and Asia...
– Mizrahi JewsMizrahi JewsMizrahi Jews or Mizrahiyim, , also referred to as Adot HaMizrach are Jews descended from the Jewish communities of the Middle East, North Africa and the Caucasus... - Yemenite HebrewYemenite Hebrew languageYemenite Hebrew , also referred to as Temani Hebrew , is the pronunciation system for Biblical and liturgical Hebrew traditionally used by Yemenite Jews. Yemenite Jews brought their language to Israel through immigration. Their first organized immigration to the region began in 1882.It is believed...
– Yemenite JewsYemenite JewsYemenite Jews are those Jews who live, or whose recent ancestors lived, in Yemen . Between June 1949 and September 1950, the overwhelming majority of Yemen's Jewish population was transported to Israel in Operation Magic Carpet... - Sephardi HebrewSephardi Hebrew languageSephardi Hebrew is the pronunciation system for Biblical Hebrew favored for liturgical use by Sephardi Jewish practice...
– Sephardi JewsSephardi JewsSephardi Jews is a general term referring to the descendants of the Jews who lived in the Iberian Peninsula before their expulsion in the Spanish Inquisition. It can also refer to those who use a Sephardic style of liturgy or would otherwise define themselves in terms of the Jewish customs and... - Ashkenazi Hebrew languageAshkenazi HebrewAshkenazi Hebrew , is the pronunciation system for Biblical and Mishnaic Hebrew favored for liturgical use by Ashkenazi Jewish practice. Its phonology was influenced by languages with which it came into contact, such as Yiddish, German, and various Slavic languages...
– Ashkenazi JewsAshkenazi JewsAshkenazi Jews, also known as Ashkenazic Jews or Ashkenazim , are the Jews descended from the medieval Jewish communities along the Rhine in Germany from Alsace in the south to the Rhineland in the north. Ashkenaz is the medieval Hebrew name for this region and thus for Germany... - Mishnaic Hebrew Or Rabbinical Hebrew – Jews, liturgical, rabbinical,
- Medieval Hebrew – Jews, liturgical, poetical,rabbinical, scientific, literary, lingua franca based on Bible, Mishna and neologisms forms created by translators and commentators/
- Haskala Hebrew language – Jews, scientific, literary and journalistic language based on Biblical but enriched with neologisms created by writers and journalists, a transition to the later
- Modern Hebrew languageHebrew languageHebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
– The transformation and enlargement of the former into a spoken language which in turn emerged as the new contemporary Israeli Hebrew, the main language of the State of Israel, revivedLanguage revivalLanguage revitalization, language revival or reversing language shift is the attempt by interested parties, including individuals, cultural or community groups, governments, or political authorities, to reverse the decline of a language. If the decline is severe, the language may be endangered,...
- Biblical Hebrew
The main sources for study of Canaanite languages are the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh
Tanakh
The Tanakh is a name used in Judaism for the canon of the Hebrew Bible. The Tanakh is also known as the Masoretic Text or the Miqra. The name is an acronym formed from the initial Hebrew letters of the Masoretic Text's three traditional subdivisions: The Torah , Nevi'im and Ketuvim —hence...
), and inscriptions such as:
- in the MoabiteMoabite languageThe Moabite language is an extinct Canaanite language, spoken in Moab in the early first millennium BC. Most of our knowledge about Moabite comes from the Mesha Stele, as well as the El-Kerak Stela. The main features distinguishing Moabite from fellow Canaanite languages such as Hebrew are: a...
: Mesha SteleMesha SteleThe Mesha Stele is a black basalt stone bearing an inscription by the 9th century BC ruler Mesha of Moab in Jordan....
, El-Kerak Stela - in the Biblical HebrewBiblical Hebrew languageBiblical Hebrew , also called Classical Hebrew , is the archaic form of the Hebrew language, a Canaanite Semitic language spoken in the area known as Canaan between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Biblical Hebrew is attested from about the 10th century BCE, and persisted through...
: Gezer calendarGezer calendarThe Gezer calendar is a tablet of soft limestone inscription, dating to the 10th century BCE. Scholars are divided as to whether the script and language are Phoenician or paleo-Hebrew, which were linguistically very similar in this period....
, Khirbet Qeiyafa pottery sherd - in the PhoenicianPhoenician languagesPhoenician was a language originally spoken in the coastal region then called "Canaan" in Phoenician, Arabic, Hebrew, and Aramaic, "Phoenicia" in Greek and Latin, and "Pūt" in Ancient Egyptian. Phoenician is a Semitic language of the Canaanite subgroup; its closest living relative is Hebrew, to...
: Ahiram sarcophagus inscription, sarcophagus of EshmunazarEshmunazarEshmunazar was the name of several Phoenician kings of Sidon.The sarcophagus of Eshmunazar II, which is now in the Louvre, was unearthed in 1855 in a site near Sidon, and contains an inscription - known as KAI-14 , in Phoenician Canaanite, inscribed using the Phoenician alphabet. Now located in...
http://www.proel.org/alfabetos/fenicio19.gif, Kilamuwa inscription, the Byblos inscription - in the later PunicPunic languageThe Punic language or Carthagian language is an extinct Semitic language formerly spoken in the Mediterranean region of North Africa and several Mediterranean islands, by people of the Punic culture.- Description :...
: in PoenulusPoenulusPoenulus, also called The Little Carthaginian or The Puny Punic, is a Latin comedic play for the early Roman theatre by Titus Maccius Plautus. The play is noteworthy for containing text in Carthaginian Punic, spoken by the character Hanno in the fifth act.-Plot:Agorastocles is in love with...
– by PlautusPlautusTitus Maccius Plautus , commonly known as "Plautus", was a Roman playwright of the Old Latin period. His comedies are the earliest surviving intact works in Latin literature. He wrote Palliata comoedia, the genre devised by the innovator of Latin literature, Livius Andronicus...
– beginning of 5th-Act.
The Deir Alla Inscription
Deir Alla Inscription
The Deir 'Alla Inscription was the product of a 1967 excavation in Deir 'Alla, Jordan. The excavation revealed a many-chambered structure that had also been destroyed by earthquake, during the Persian period at the site, on the wall of which was written a previously unknown prophecy by the seer...
is written in a dialect with Aramaic
Aramaic language
Aramaic is a group of languages belonging to the Afroasiatic language phylum. The name of the language is based on the name of Aram, an ancient region in central Syria. Within this family, Aramaic belongs to the Semitic family, and more specifically, is a part of the Northwest Semitic subfamily,...
and South Canaanite characteristics, which is classified as Canaanite in Hetzron.
The extra-biblical Canaanite inscriptions are gathered along with Aramaic inscriptions in editions of the book "Kanaanäische und Aramäische Inschriften", from which they may be referenced as KAI n (for a number n); for example, the Mesha Stele
Mesha Stele
The Mesha Stele is a black basalt stone bearing an inscription by the 9th century BC ruler Mesha of Moab in Jordan....
is "KAI 181".
Distinctive features
The Canaanite languages, together with the Aramaic languageAramaic language
Aramaic is a group of languages belonging to the Afroasiatic language phylum. The name of the language is based on the name of Aram, an ancient region in central Syria. Within this family, Aramaic belongs to the Semitic family, and more specifically, is a part of the Northwest Semitic subfamily,...
s and Ugaritic
Ugaritic language
The following table shows Proto-Semitic phonemes and their correspondences among Ugaritic, Arabic and Tiberian Hebrew:-Grammar:Ugaritic is an inflected language, and as a Semitic language its grammatical features are highly similar to those found in Classical Arabic and Akkadian...
, form the Northwest Semitic
Northwest Semitic languages
The Northwest Semitic languages form a medium-level division of the Semitic language family. The languages of this group are spoken by approximately eight million people today. The group is generally divided into three branches: Ugaritic , Canaanite and Aramaic...
subgroup. Some distinctive features of Canaanite in relation to Aramaic are:
- The prefix 'h-' used as the definite article (whereas Aramaic has a postfixed -a). This seems to be an innovation of Canaanite.
- The first person pronoun being '' (אנכ – anok(i)) (versus Aramaic – /) – which is similar to AkkadianAkkadian languageAkkadian is an extinct Semitic language that was spoken in ancient Mesopotamia. The earliest attested Semitic language, it used the cuneiform writing system derived ultimately from ancient Sumerian, an unrelated language isolate...
, Ancient EgyptianEgyptian languageEgyptian is the oldest known indigenous language of Egypt and a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. Written records of the Egyptian language have been dated from about 3400 BC, making it one of the oldest recorded languages known. Egyptian was spoken until the late 17th century AD in the...
and BerberBerber languagesThe Berber languages are a family of languages indigenous to North Africa, spoken from Siwa Oasis in Egypt to Morocco , and south to the countries of the Sahara Desert...
. - The *ā > ō vowel shiftVowel shiftA vowel shift is a systematic sound change in the pronunciation of the vowel sounds of a language.The best-known example in the English language is the Great Vowel Shift, which began in the 15th century...
(Canaanite shiftCanaanite shiftIn historical linguistics, the Canaanite shift is a sound change that took place in the Canaanite dialects, which belong to the Northwest Semitic branch of the Semitic languages family. This sound change caused Proto-NW-Semitic *ā to turn into ō in Proto-Canaanite...
).
External links
- Some West Semitic Inscriptions
- How the Alphabet Was Born from Hieroglyphs Biblical Archaeology Review