The Moabite language, also known as the Moabite dialect, is an extinct sub-language or dialect of the
Canaanite languages
The Canaanite languages, or Canaanite dialects, are one of the three subgroups of the Northwest Semitic languages, the others being Aramaic and Ugaritic, all originating in the Levant and Mesopotamia. They are attested in Canaanite inscriptio ...
, themselves a branch of
Northwest Semitic languages
Northwest Semitic is a division of the Semitic languages comprising the indigenous languages of the Levant. It emerged from Proto-Semitic in the Early Bronze Age. It is first attested in proper names identified as Amorite in the Middle Bronze A ...
, formerly spoken in the region described in the Bible as
Moab (modern day central-western
Jordan
Jordan ( ar, الأردن; tr. ' ), officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan,; tr. ' is a country in Western Asia. It is situated at the crossroads of Asia, Africa, and Europe, within the Levant region, on the East Bank of the Jordan Rive ...
) in the early 1st millennium BC. The body of Canaanite epigraphy found in the region is described as Moabite; this is limited primarily to the
Mesha Stele and a few seals. Moabite, together with the similarly poorly-attested
Ammonite and
Edomite
Edom (; Edomite: ; he, אֱדוֹם , lit.: "red"; Akkadian: , ; Ancient Egyptian: ) was an ancient kingdom in Transjordan, located between Moab to the northeast, the Arabah to the west, and the Arabian Desert to the south and east. ...
, belonged to the
dialect continuum
A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are mutually intelligible, but the differences accumulate over distance so that widely separated vari ...
of the
Canaanite group of
northwest Semitic languages
Northwest Semitic is a division of the Semitic languages comprising the indigenous languages of the Levant. It emerged from Proto-Semitic in the Early Bronze Age. It is first attested in proper names identified as Amorite in the Middle Bronze A ...
, together with Hebrew and
Phoenician.
History
An altar inscription written in Moabite and dated to 800 BC was revealed in an excavation in
Khirbat Ataruz
Khirbat Ataruz () or Ataroth () is an archaeological site in Madaba Governorate, Jordan. The site was settled during the Iron Age, Hellenistic, Roman and Islamic periods, with most findings dating from the Iron Age.
A Moabite temple dated to mid- ...
. It was written using a variant of the
Phoenician alphabet
The Phoenician alphabet is an alphabet (more specifically, an abjad) known in modern times from the Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions found across the Mediterranean region. The name comes from the Phoenician civilization.
The Phoenician al ...
.
Most knowledge about Moabite comes from the
Mesha Stele,
which is the only known extensive text in the language. In addition, there is the three-line
El-Kerak Inscription and a few seals. The inscription, on Mesha Stele is also referred to as “Kanaanäische und Aramäische Inschriften,” (
KAI) which is German for Canaanite and Aramaic Inscriptions. It is to be read from right to left.
The following table presents the first four lines of the inscription of Mesha Stele including its transliteration and English translation by Alviero Niccacci.
Grammar
The main features distinguishing Moabite from fellow Canaanite languages such as
Hebrew
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
and
Phoenician are: a plural in ''-în'' rather than ''-îm'' (e.g. ''mlkn'' "kings" for
Biblical Hebrew
Biblical Hebrew (, or , ), also called Classical Hebrew, is an archaic form of the Hebrew language, a language in the Canaanite branch of Semitic languages spoken by the Israelites in the area known as the Land of Israel, roughly west of t ...
''məlākîm''), like
Aramaic
The Aramaic languages, short Aramaic ( syc, ܐܪܡܝܐ, Arāmāyā; oar, 𐤀𐤓𐤌𐤉𐤀; arc, 𐡀𐡓𐡌𐡉𐡀; tmr, אֲרָמִית), are a language family containing many varieties (languages and dialects) that originated i ...
(also Northwest Semitic) and
Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...
(Central Semitic); retention of the feminine ending ''-at'' or "-ah", which Biblical Hebrew reduces to ''-āh'' only (e.g. ''qiryat'' or ''qiryah'', "town", Biblical Hebrew ''qiryāh'') but retains in the construct state nominal form (e.g. ''qiryát yisrael'' "town of Israel"); and retention of a verb form with infixed ''-t-'', also found in Arabic and
Akkadian Akkadian or Accadian may refer to:
* Akkadians, inhabitants of the Akkadian Empire
* Akkadian language, an extinct Eastern Semitic language
* Akkadian literature, literature in this language
* Akkadian cuneiform
Cuneiform is a logo-syllabic ...
(''w-’ltḥm'' "I began to fight", from the root ''lḥm''). Vowel values and diphthongs, which had potential to vary wildly between Semitic languages, were also largely typical of other Semitic tongues: there is inconsistent evidence to suggest that ''ā'' contracted to ''ō'' much like in Hebrew and later Phoenician, at the same time, there is evidence to suggest that the diphthongs /aw/ and /ay/ eventually contracted to ''ō'' and ''ē'', another characteristic shared by Hebrew and later Phoenician.
Moabite differed only dialectally from Hebrew, and Moabite religion and culture was related to that of the
Israelites
The Israelites (; , , ) were a group of Semitic-speaking tribes in the ancient Near East who, during the Iron Age, inhabited a part of Canaan.
The earliest recorded evidence of a people by the name of Israel appears in the Merneptah Stele o ...
. On the other hand, although Moabite itself had begun to diverge, the script used in the 9th century BC did not differ from the script used in Hebrew inscriptions at that time.
Arrows
In numbered examples, non-Roman script representations are signaled by arrows, namely ⟶ or ⟵, to indicate the text's direction of writing as it is presented in the volume. As for Ugaritic, Hebrew (epigraphic and Tiberian), Phoenician, and Moabite, the arrow will typically point in the same direction as the original writing.
Numerals
The absolute numeral precedes singular (collective) nouns, for instance “thirty years” is expressed as “šlšn.št” in line 2 of
KAI; it has been transliterated as well as translated by Alvierra Niccani. Others are followed by a plural noun. Numeral phrases can stand in apposition with a noun (phrase) coming before or after. This is seen in KAI's line 17: “ymh.wḥṣy.ymy.bnh.’rb’nšt,” meaning“his days and half the days of his son, for forty years”.
Controversy
Sentence Boundaries
In the inscriptions on
Mesha Stele a vertical stroke, /, appears 37 times. However, its function causes disagreement among researchers. Van Zyl claims that the strokes are used to divide clauses. Similarly, Segert explains that they can be seen as tools for the punctuation of sentences. A. Poebel goes into a different direction and states that vertical strokes are used to separate sentences forming a mentally cohesive group. According to Andersen the only two parallels that can be found in accordance with the stroke are in the
Gezer Calendar. Rather, he suggest that a dot fulfills the function as a word divider based on its occurrence in a variety of Old Aramaic inscriptions, the
Siloam Inscription and other texts of the early Hebrew.
Classification as Canaanite dialects
Information about the dialect geography of the
Levant
The Levant () is an approximate historical geographical term referring to a large area in the Eastern Mediterranean region of Western Asia. In its narrowest sense, which is in use today in archaeology and other cultural contexts, it is ...
experienced a lot of adjustments throughout the past few years. Features of Coastal Canaanite languages and other Northwest Semitic languages stand apart from each other, although both include languages that are often regarded as dialects of Canaanite, including Moabite.
Isogloss
A lexical isogloss exists between the Northwest Semitic languages Aramaic, Hebrew and Moabite. For example, the verb 'to be', from the root(s) *HWY/HYY. The coastal languages, Phoenician and Ugaritic, both used the root *KWN, and that seems to be the case in the mother tongue of the Amarna scribes from Canaan as well; it is also standard in Arabic.
Syntactic features
A syntactic feature that Aramaic, Hebrew and Moabite share is the syntagma of the narrative preterit. Supported by three inscriptions, prefix preterite narrative sequences are found in Moabite as well as Old Southern Aramaic and Hebrew. First, it was discerned in the Old Aramaic inscription of
Zakkur
Zakkur (or ''Zakir'') was the ancient king of Hamath and Luhuti (also known as Nuhašše) in Syria. He ruled around 785 BC. Most of the information about him comes from his basalt stele, known as the Stele of Zakkur.
History
Irhuleni and his son ...
by king of Hamath and proclaimed to be of Canaanite influence on an Aramaic text.
Second, it occurred in the
Deir Alla Inscription The Deir 'Alla Inscription (or Bal'am Son of Be'or Inscription), known as KAI 312, was discovered during a 1967 excavation in Deir 'Alla, Jordan. It is currently at the Jordan Archaeological Museum. It is written in a peculiar Northwest Semitic d ...
. Finally the prefix preterite, appeared in the
Tel Dan stele with and without the sequential conjunction. This feature is absent in Phoenician, a language that is certain to be Canaanite, which suggests that the classification of Moabite as a Canaanite dialect is does not apply.
References
{{Authority control
Canaanite languages
Hebrew language
Languages attested from the 1st millennium BC
1st-millennium BC establishments
Languages extinct in the 1st millennium BC
1st-millennium BC disestablishments