Canaanite languages

The Canaanite languages, or Canaanite dialects,[2] are one of the three subgroups of the Northwest Semitic languages, the others being Aramaic and Amorite. They were spoken by the ancient Semitic people of the Canaan and Levant regions, an area encompassing what is today Israel, Jordan, Sinai, Lebanon, Syria, the Palestinian territories and also some fringe areas of southern Turkey and the northern Arabian Peninsula. The Canaanites are broadly defined to include the Israelites (including Judeans and Samaritans), Phoenicians (including parts of Carthaginians), Amorites, Ammonites, Moabites, Edomites, Suteans, Ekronites and Amalekites. Although the Amorites are included among the Canaanite peoples, their language is not generally considered to be a Canaanite language. The Canaanite languages continued to be everyday spoken languages until at least the 4th century CE. Hebrew is the only living Canaanite language today, having remained in continuous use by many Jews well into the Middle Ages as a liturgical language, it also remained a liturgical language among Samaritans, and as a literary language and for commerce between disparate diasporic Jewish communities. It was then revived by Jews as an everyday spoken language in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and became the main language of the Jews of Palestine and later the State of Israel.

Not to be confused with Knaanic language.
Canaanite
Geographic
distribution		Levant, Carthage
Linguistic classificationAfro-Asiatic
Subdivisions
Glottologcana1267[1]

This family of languages has the distinction of being the first historically attested group of languages to use an alphabet, derived from the Proto-Canaanite alphabet, to record their writings, as opposed to the far earlier Cuneiform logographic/syllabic writing of the region.

The primary reference for extra-biblical Canaanite inscriptions, together with Aramaic inscriptions, is the German-language book Kanaanäische und Aramäische Inschriften, from which inscriptions are often referenced as KAI n (for a number n).[3]

Classification and sources

The Canaanite languages or dialects can be split into the following:[2][4]

North Canaan

South Canaan
  • Hebrew died out as an everyday spoken language between 200 and 400 AD, but remained in continuous use by many Jews since that period, as a written language, a read language and by many people a spoken language as well. It was primarily used in liturgy, literature, and commerce well into modern times. Beginning in the late 19th century, it was revived as an everyday spoken language by Jews in Palestine and Europe as Zionism emerged as a political movement and Jews began moving to Palestine in increasing numbers, and it became the lingua franca of the growing Jewish community there. After the State of Israel was established, it became the main language of the country. Although different dialects of the language were used in earlier times, mostly it is the same Hebrew language. Hebrew is the only Canaanite language that is a living language, and the only truly successful example of a revived dead language.
  • Ammonite – an extinct Hebraic dialect of the Ammonite people mentioned in the Bible.
  • Moabite – an extinct Hebraic dialect of the Moabite people mentioned in the Bible. The main sources are the Mesha Stele and El-Kerak Stela.
  • Edomite – an extinct Hebraic dialect of the Edomite people mentioned in the Bible and Egyptian texts.

Other

Other possible Canaanite languages:

  • Ugaritic, although the inclusion of this language within Canaanite is disputed.
  • The Deir Alla Inscription, written in a dialect with Aramaic and South Canaanite characteristics, which is classified as Canaanite in Hetzron.
  • Ekronite or Philistine Semitic – not to be confused with the non-Semitic (assumed Indo-European) Philistine language. The former is attested by several dozen inscriptions in Phoenician script scattered along Israel's southwest coast, in particular the Ekron Royal Dedicatory Inscription.

Comparison to Aramaic

Some distinctive typological features of Canaanite in relation to Aramaic are:

  • The prefix h- used as the definite article (Aramaic has a postfixed -a). That seems to be an innovation of Canaanite.
  • The first person pronoun being ʼnk (אנכ anok(i), versus Aramaic ʼnʼ/ʼny', which is similar to Akkadian, Ancient Egyptian and Berber.
  • The *ā > ō vowel shift (Canaanite shift).

Descendants

Modern Hebrew, revived in the modern era from an extinct dialect of the ancient Israelites 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 include Ancient Samaritan Hebrew, a dialect formerly spoken by the ancient Samaritans. The main sources of Classical Hebrew are the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), and inscriptions such as the Gezer calendar and Khirbet Qeiyafa pottery shard. All of the other Cannanite languages seem to have become extinct by the early 1st millennium AD.

Slightly varying forms of Hebrew preserved from the first millennium BC until modern times include:

  • Tiberian Hebrew – Masoretic scholars living in the Jewish community of Tiberias in Palestine c. 750–950 AD.
  • Mizrahi Hebrew – Mizrahi Jews, liturgical
  • Yemenite Hebrew – Yemenite Jews, liturgical
  • Sephardi Hebrew – Sephardi Jews, liturgical
  • Ashkenazi Hebrew – Ashkenazi Jews, liturgical
  • Mishnaic Hebrew (Rabbinical Hebrew) – Jews, liturgical, rabbinical, any of the Hebrew dialects found in the Talmud.
  • Medieval Hebrew – Jews, liturgical, poetical, rabbinical, scientific, literary; lingua franca based on Bible, Mishna and neologisms forms created by translators and commentators
  • Haskala Hebrew – 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 used in Israel today
  • Samaritan Hebrew – Samaritans, liturgical

The Phoenician and Carthaginian expansion spread the Phoenician language and its Punic dialect 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.

See also

References
  1. Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Canaanite". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  2. Rendsburg 1997, p. 65.
  3. For example, the Mesha Stele is "KAI 181".
  4. Waltke & O'Connor (1990:8): "The extrabiblical linguistic material from the Iron Age is primarily epigraphic, that is, texts written on hard materials (pottery, stones, walls, etc.). The epigraphic texts from Israelite territory are written in Hebrew in a form of the language which may be called Inscriptional Hebrew; this 'dialect' is not strikingly different from the Hebrew preserved in the Masoretic text. Unfortunately, it is meagerly attested. Similarly limited are the epigraphic materials in the other South Canaanite dialects, Moabite and Ammonite; Edomite is so poorly attested that we are not sure that it is a South Canaanite dialect, though that seems likely. Of greater interest and bulk is the body of Central Canaanite inscriptions, those written in the Phoenician language of Tyre, Sidon, and Byblos, and in the offshoot Punic and Neo-Punic tongues of the Phoenician colonies in North Africa. "An especially problematic body of material is the Deir Alla wall inscriptions referring to a prophet Balaam (c. 700 BC), these texts have both Canaanite and Aramaic features. W. R. Garr has recently proposed that all the Iron Age Canaanite dialects be regarded as forming a chain that actually includes the oldest forms of Aramaic as well."

Bibliography
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