| Ammonite | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Native to | Ammon |
| Region | northwesternJordan |
| Extinct | 5th century BC |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | None (mis) |
qgg | |
| Glottolog | ammo1234 |
Ammonite is the extinctCanaanite language of theAmmonite people mentioned in theBible, who used to live in modern-dayJordan, and after whom its capitalAmman is named. Only fragments of their language survive—chiefly the 9th century BCAmman Citadel Inscription,[1] the 7th–6th century BCTel Siran bronze bottle, and a fewostraca. As far as can be determined from the small corpus, it was extremely similar toBiblical Hebrew, with some possibleAramaic influence including the use of the verb‘bd (עבד) instead of the more common Biblical Hebrew‘śh (עשה) for'make'. The only other notable difference with Biblical Hebrew is the sporadic retention of feminine singular-t (’šħt'cistern', but‘lyh'high [fem.]'.) Ammonite also appears to have possessed largely typical correspondences of diphthongs, with words such asywmt (יומת*yawmōt,'days') both preserving/aw/ and showing a shift to/o/, and other words such asyn (ין'wine') exhibiting a shift of/ay/ toē (yēn <*yayn) much like Hebrew.[2]
It was first described as a separate language in 1970 by Italian OrientalistGiovanni Garbini.[3] Subsequently, a number of inscriptions previously identified as Hebrew, Phoenician, or Aramaic were reclassified, as a result of consensus around the similarity of the Amman Theatre Inscription, Amman Citadel Inscription, Tell Siren Bottle, Heshbon Ostraca, and Tell el-Mazer Ostraca.[4][5]
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