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| Canaanite | |
|---|---|
| Geographic distribution | Levant,Ancient Carthage |
| Linguistic classification | Afroasiatic |
| Subdivisions |
|
| Language codes | |
| Glottolog | cana1267 |
TheCanaanite languages, sometimes referred to asCanaanite dialects,[1] are one of four subgroups of theNorthwest Semitic languages. The others areAramaic and the now-extinctUgaritic andAmorite language. These closely related languages originated in theLevant andUpper Mesopotamia. Ancient Semitic-speaking peoples spoke them in an area encompassing what is todayIsrael,Palestine,Jordan, theSinai Peninsula,Lebanon,Syria, as well as some areas of southwesternTurkey,Iraq, and the northwestern corner ofSaudi Arabia. From the 9th century BCE, they also spread to theIberian Peninsula andNorth Africa in the form ofPhoenician.
TheCanaanites are broadly defined to include theHebrews (includingIsraelites,Judeans, andSamaritans),Ammonites,Edomites,Ekronites,Hyksos,Phoenicians (including thePunics/Carthaginians),Moabites,Suteans and sometimes theUgarites andAmorites.
The Canaanite languages continued to bespoken languages until at least the 5th century but were gradually supplanted byAramaic.Modern Hebrew is the only living Canaanite language today and wasrevived in the 19th century by political and cultural activists as an everyday spoken language in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This was achieved mainly through the revitalization and cultivation efforts ofZionists throughoutEurope and inPalestine. By the mid-20th century, Modern Hebrew had become the primary[citation needed] language ofPalestinian Jews and was later made theofficial language of theState of Israel.
ManyJews usedMishnaic Hebrew well into theMiddle Ages and up to the present day as both aliturgical andliterary language, and they also employed it asfor commerce between disparatediasporic communities.Samaritan Hebrew remained a liturgical language amongSamaritans.
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Analogous to the Romance languages, the Canaanite languages operate on a spectrum ofmutual intelligibility with one another, with significant overlap occurring in syntax, morphology, phonology, and semantics. This family of languages also has the distinction of being the first historically attested group of languages to use analphabet, derived from theProto-Canaanite alphabet, to record their writings, as opposed to the far earlierCuneiformlogographic/syllabic writing of the region, which originated inMesopotamia and was used to recordSumerian,Akkadian,Eblaite,Elamite,Hurrian andHittite.
They are heavily attested inCanaanite inscriptions throughout theLevant,Mesopotamia,Anatolia and theEastern Mediterranean, and after the founding ofCarthage byPhoenician colonists, in coastal regions ofNorth Africa andIberian Peninsula also. Dialects have been labelled primarily with reference toBiblical geography:Hebrew (Israelian, Judean/Biblical,Samaritan),Phoenician/Punic,Amorite,Ammonite,Moabite,Sutean andEdomite; the dialects were all mutually intelligible, being no more differentiated than geographical varieties of Modern English.[2]
The Canaanite languages or dialects can be split into the following:[1][3]
Other possible Canaanite languages:
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Some distinctivetypological features of Canaanite in relation to the still spoken Aramaic are:
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Modern Hebrew, revived in the modern era from an extinct dialect of the ancientIsraelites preserved in literature, poetry, liturgy; also known as Classical Hebrew, the oldest form of the language attested in writing. The original pronunciation of Biblical Hebrew is accessible only through reconstruction. It may also includeSamaritan Hebrew, a variety formerly spoken by theSamaritans. The main sources of Classical Hebrew are theHebrew Bible and inscriptions such as theGezer calendar andKhirbet Qeiyafa pottery shard. All of the other Canaanite languages seem to have become extinct by the early first millennium AD exceptPunic, which survived intolate antiquity (or possibly even longer).
Slightly varying forms of Hebrew preserved from the first millennium BC until modern times include:
The Phoenician and Punic expansion spread thePhoenician language and the Punic variety spoken in theantique-era colonies inWestern Mediterranean for a time, but there too it died out, although it seems to have survived longer than inPhoenicia itself.
The primary modern reference book for the many extra-biblical Canaanite inscriptions, together withAramaic inscriptions, is the German-language bookKanaanäische und Aramäische Inschriften, from which inscriptions are often referenced asKAIn (for a numbern).[12]
