Amorite is an extinct early

Semitic language The Semitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They are spoken by more than 330 million people across much of West Asia, the Horn of Africa, and latterly North Africa, Malta, West Africa, Chad, and in large immigrant a ...

, formerly spoken during the

Bronze Age The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second prin ...

by the

Amorite The Amorites (; sux, 𒈥𒌅, MAR.TU; Akkadian: 𒀀𒈬𒊒𒌝 or 𒋾𒀉𒉡𒌝/𒊎 ; he, אֱמוֹרִי, 'Ĕmōrī; grc, Ἀμορραῖοι) were an ancient Northwest Semitic-speaking people from the Levant who also occupied la ...

tribes prominent in

ancient Near East The ancient Near East was the home of early civilizations within a region roughly corresponding to the modern Middle East: Mesopotamia (modern Iraq, southeast Turkey, southwest Iran and northeastern Syria), ancient Egypt, ancient Iran ( Elam, ...

ern history. It is known from

Ugaritic Ugaritic () is an extinct Northwest Semitic language, classified by some as a dialect of the Amorite language and so the only known Amorite dialect preserved in writing. It is known through the Ugaritic texts discovered by French archaeologist ...

, classed by some as its westernmost dialect and the only known Amorite

dialect The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of linguistic phenomena: One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a ...

preserved in writing, and non- Akkadian proper names recorded by Akkadian

scribes A scribe is a person who serves as a professional copyist, especially one who made copies of manuscripts before the invention of automatic printing. The profession of the scribe, previously widespread across cultures, lost most of its promin ...

during periods of Amorite rule in Babylonia (the end of the 3rd and the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC), notably from Mari and to a lesser extent Alalakh, Tell Harmal and Khafajah. Occasionally, such names are also found in early Egyptian texts; and one placename, "Sənīr" سنير (שְׂנִיר) for

Mount Hermon Mount Hermon ( ar, جبل الشيخ or جبل حرمون / ALA-LC: ''Jabal al-Shaykh'' ("Mountain of the Sheikh") or ''Jabal Haramun''; he, הַר חֶרְמוֹן, ''Har Hermon'') is a mountain cluster constituting the southern end of th ...

, is known from the

Bible The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts ...

( Book of Deuteronomy, ). Amorite is considered an archaic Northwest Semitic language, but there is also some evidence for other groupings. Notable characteristics include the following: * The usual Northwest Semitic imperfective-perfective distinction is found: ''Yantin-Dagan'', '

Dagon Dagon ( he, דָּגוֹן, ''Dāgōn'') or Dagan ( sux, 2= dda-gan, ; phn, 𐤃𐤂𐤍, Dāgān) was a god worshipped in ancient Syria across the middle of the Euphrates, with primary temples located in Tuttul and Terqa, though many attes ...

gives' (''ntn''); ''Raṣa-Dagan'', 'Dagon was pleased' (rṣy). It included a 3rd-person suffix -''a'' (unlike Akkadian or

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 an imperfect vowel, ''a''-, as in

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 ...

rather than the Hebrew and

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 in ...

-''i''-. * There was a verb form with a

geminate In phonetics and phonology, gemination (), or consonant lengthening (from Latin 'doubling', itself from '' gemini'' 'twins'), is an articulation of a consonant for a longer period of time than that of a singleton consonant. It is distinct from ...

second consonant — ''Yabanni-Il'', 'God creates' (root ''bny''). * In several cases that Akkadian has ''š'', Amorite, like Hebrew and Arabic, has ''h'', thus ''hu'' 'his', -''haa'' 'her', causative ''h-'' or ''ʼ''- (I. Gelb 1958). * The 1st-person perfect is in -''ti'' (singular), -''nu'' (plural), as in the Canaanite languages.

Notes

References

*A. Andrason and J.-P. Vita, "Amorite: A Northwest Semitic Language?", ''Journal of Semitic Studies'' 63/1 ( 2018): 18–58. *D. Cohen. ''Les langues chamito-semitiques''. Paris: CNRS, 1985. *I. Gelb. ''La lingua degli amoriti'', ''Academia Nazionale dei Lincei. Rendiconti'' 8, no. 13 (1958): 143–163. *H. B. Huffmon. ''Amorite Personal Names in the Mari Texts: A Structural and Lexical Study''. Baltimore, 1965. *Remo Mugnaioni. “Notes pour servir d’approche à l’amorrite” Travaux 16 – ''La sémitologie aujourd’hui''. Aix-en-Provence: Cercle de Linguistique d’Aix-en-Provence, Centre des sciences du language, 2000, p. 57–65. *M. P. Streck. ''Das amurritische Onomastikon der altbabylonischen Zeit'', vol. 1: ''Die Amurriter, Die onomastische Forschung, Orthographie und Phonologie, Nominalmorphologie''. Alter Orient und Altes Testament Band 271/1. Münster, 2000. {{Authority control Amorites Northwest Semitic languages Extinct languages of Asia Languages attested from the 3rd millennium BC Languages extinct in the 2nd millennium BC Book of Deuteronomy