Canaanite languages

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Canaanite
Geographic distribution:	Levant
Genetic classification:	Afro-Asiatic  Semitic   West Semitic    Central Semitic     Northwest Semitic      Canaanite
Subdivisions:	Phoenician Philistine (living) Ammonite Moabite Edomite Hebrew (living)

The Canaanite languages are a subfamily of the Semitic languages, which were spoken by the ancient peoples of the Canaan region, including Canaanites, Hebrews, Phoenicians, and eventually Philistines. 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.

• Phoenician languages - extinct
  • Punic language - extinct
• Philistine language (?) extinct (ie, the Ekron dialect)
• Ammonite language - extinct
• Moabite language - extinct
• Edomite language - extinct
• Hebrew languages
  • Biblical Hebrew language - Israelites, liturgical
    • Samaritan Hebrew language - liturgical
    • Mishnaic Hebrew language - Jews, liturgical
      • Tiberian Hebrew language - liturgical
      • Mizrahi Hebrew language - liturgical
        • Yemenite Hebrew language - liturgical
      • Sephardi Hebrew language - liturgical
      • Ashkenazi Hebrew language - liturgical
      • Modern Hebrew language - State of Israel, reconstructed, revived, a live descendant

The main sources for study of Canaanite languages are the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), and inscriptions such as:

• in the Moabite language: Mesha Stele, El-Kerak Stela
• in the Biblical Hebrew language: Gezer calendar
• in the Phoenician languages: Ahiram inscription, sarcophagus of Eshmunazar[1], Kilamuwa inscription, the Byblos inscription
• in later Punic language: in Poenulus - by Plautus - beginning of 5th-Act.

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".

The Canaanite languages, together with the Aramaic languages and Ugaritic, form the Northwest Semitic 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 'ʼnk' (אנכ - anok(i)) (versus Aramaic - ʼnʼ/ʼny) - which is similar to Akkadian and Ancient Egyptian.

[edit] External links

• Some West Semitic Inscriptions