The Canaanite languages, sometimes referred to as Canaanite dialects, are one of four subgroups of the

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 ...

. The others are

Aramaic Aramaic (; ) is a Northwest Semitic language that originated in the ancient region of Syria and quickly spread to Mesopotamia, the southern Levant, Sinai, southeastern Anatolia, and Eastern Arabia, where it has been continually written a ...

and the now-extinct

Ugaritic Ugaritic () is an extinct Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language known through the Ugaritic texts discovered by French archaeology, archaeologists in 1928 at Ugarit, including several major literary texts, notably the Baal cycl ...

and Amorite language. These closely related languages originated in the

Levant The Levant ( ) is the subregion that borders the Eastern Mediterranean, Eastern Mediterranean sea to the west, and forms the core of West Asia and the political term, Middle East, ''Middle East''. In its narrowest sense, which is in use toda ...

and

Upper Mesopotamia Upper Mesopotamia constitutes the Upland and lowland, uplands and great outwash plain of northwestern Iraq, northeastern Syria and southeastern Turkey, in the northern Middle East. Since the early Muslim conquests of the mid-7th century, the regio ...

. Ancient Semitic-speaking peoples spoke them in an area encompassing what is today

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

Palestine Palestine, officially the State of Palestine, is a country in West Asia. Recognized by International recognition of Palestine, 147 of the UN's 193 member states, it encompasses the Israeli-occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and th ...

Jordan Jordan, officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is a country in the Southern Levant region of West Asia. Jordan is bordered by Syria to the north, Iraq to the east, Saudi Arabia to the south, and Israel and the occupied Palestinian ter ...

, the

Sinai Peninsula The Sinai Peninsula, or simply Sinai ( ; ; ; ), is a peninsula in Egypt, and the only part of the country located in Asia. It is between the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Red Sea to the south, and is a land bridge between Asia and Afri ...

Lebanon Lebanon, officially the Republic of Lebanon, is a country in the Levant region of West Asia. Situated at the crossroads of the Mediterranean Basin and the Arabian Peninsula, it is bordered by Syria to the north and east, Israel to the south ...

Syria Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...

, as well as some areas of southwestern

Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

Iraq Iraq, officially the Republic of Iraq, is a country in West Asia. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to Iraq–Saudi Arabia border, the south, Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq border, the east, the Persian Gulf and ...

, and the northwestern corner of

Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in West Asia. Located in the centre of the Middle East, it covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula and has a land area of about , making it the List of Asian countries ...

. From the 9th century BCE, they also spread to the

Iberian Peninsula The Iberian Peninsula ( ), also known as Iberia, is a peninsula in south-western Europe. Mostly separated from the rest of the European landmass by the Pyrenees, it includes the territories of peninsular Spain and Continental Portugal, comprisin ...

and

North Africa North Africa (sometimes Northern Africa) is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region. However, it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of t ...

in the form of Phoenician. The Canaanites are broadly defined to include the

Hebrews The Hebrews (; ) were an ancient Semitic-speaking peoples, ancient Semitic-speaking people. Historians mostly consider the Hebrews as synonymous with the Israelites, with the term "Hebrew" denoting an Israelite from the nomadic era, which pre ...

(including

Israelites Israelites were a Hebrew language, Hebrew-speaking ethnoreligious group, consisting of tribes that lived in Canaan during the Iron Age. Modern scholarship describes the Israelites as emerging from indigenous Canaanites, Canaanite populations ...

, Judeans, and

Samaritans Samaritans (; ; ; ), are an ethnoreligious group originating from the Hebrews and Israelites of the ancient Near East. They are indigenous to Samaria, a historical region of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah that ...

Ammon Ammon (; Ammonite language, Ammonite: 𐤏𐤌𐤍 ''ʻAmān''; '; ) was an ancient Semitic languages, Semitic-speaking kingdom occupying the east of the Jordan River, between the torrent valleys of Wadi Mujib, Arnon and Jabbok, in present-d ...

ites, Edomites, Ekronites, Hyksos,

Phoenicians Phoenicians were an ancient Semitic group of people who lived in the Phoenician city-states along a coastal strip in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean, primarily modern Lebanon and the Syrian coast. They developed a maritime civi ...

(including the Punics/

Carthaginians The Punic people, usually known as the Carthaginians (and sometimes as Western Phoenicians), were a Semitic people, Semitic people who Phoenician settlement of North Africa, migrated from Phoenicia to the Western Mediterranean during the Iron ...

), Moabites, Suteans and sometimes the

Ugarit Ugarit (; , ''ủgrt'' /ʾUgarītu/) was an ancient port city in northern Syria about 10 kilometers north of modern Latakia. At its height it ruled an area roughly equivalent to the modern Latakia Governorate. It was discovered by accident in 19 ...

es and

Amorites The Amorites () were an ancient Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic-speaking Bronze Age people from the Levant. Initially appearing in Sumerian records c. 2500 BC, they expanded and ruled most of the Levant, Mesopotamia and parts of Eg ...

. The Canaanite languages continued to be

spoken language A spoken language is a form of communication produced through articulate sounds or, in some cases, through manual gestures, as opposed to written language. Oral or vocal languages are those produced using the vocal tract, whereas sign languages ar ...

s until at least the 5th century but were gradually supplanted by

Modern Hebrew Modern Hebrew (, or ), also known as Israeli Hebrew or simply Hebrew, is the Standard language, standard form of the Hebrew language spoken today. It is the only surviving Canaanite language, as well as one of the List of languages by first w ...

is the only living Canaanite language today and was revived 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 of Zionists throughout

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

and in

. By the mid-20th century, Modern Hebrew had become the primary language of Palestinian Jews and was later made the

official language An official language is defined by the Cambridge English Dictionary as, "the language or one of the languages that is accepted by a country's government, is taught in schools, used in the courts of law, etc." Depending on the decree, establishmen ...

of the

State of Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

. Many

Jews Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

used

Mishnaic Hebrew Mishnaic Hebrew () is the Hebrew language used in Talmudic texts. Mishnaic Hebrew can be sub-divided into Mishnaic Hebrew proper (c. 1–200 CE, also called Tannaim, Tannaitic Hebrew, Early Rabbinic Hebrew, or Mishnah, Mishnaic Hebrew I), which w ...

well into the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...

and up to the present day as both a liturgical and

literary language Literary language is the Register (sociolinguistics), register of a language used when writing in a formal, academic writing, academic, or particularly polite tone; when speaking or writing in such a tone, it can also be known as formal language. ...

, and they also employed it as a

lingua franca A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, link language or language of wider communication (LWC), is a Natural language, language systematically used to make co ...

for commerce between disparate diasporic communities.

Samaritan Hebrew Samaritan Hebrew () is a reading tradition used liturgically by the Samaritans for reading the Biblical Hebrew, Ancient Hebrew language of the Samaritan Pentateuch. For the Samaritans, Ancient Hebrew ceased to be a spoken everyday language. It ...

remained a liturgical language among

Classification

Analogous to the Romance languages, the Canaanite languages operate on a spectrum of

mutual intelligibility In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between different but related language varieties in which speakers of the different varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. Mutual intelli ...

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 an

alphabet An alphabet is a standard set of letter (alphabet), letters written to represent particular sounds in a spoken language. Specifically, letters largely correspond to phonemes as the smallest sound segments that can distinguish one word from a ...

, derived from the Proto-Canaanite alphabet, to record their writings, as opposed to the far earlier

Cuneiform Cuneiform is a Logogram, logo-Syllabary, syllabic writing system that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Near East. The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era. Cuneiform script ...

logographic In a written language, a logogram (from Ancient Greek 'word', and 'that which is drawn or written'), also logograph or lexigraph, is a written character that represents a semantic component of a language, such as a word or morpheme. Chinese c ...

/ syllabic writing of the region, which originated in

Mesopotamia Mesopotamia is a historical region of West Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent. Today, Mesopotamia is known as present-day Iraq and forms the eastern geographic boundary of ...

and was used to record Sumerian, Akkadian, Eblaite,

Elamite Elamite, also known as Hatamtite and formerly as Scythic, Median, Amardian, Anshanian and Susian, is an extinct language that was spoken by the ancient Elamites. It was recorded in what is now southwestern Iran from 2600 BC to 330 BC. Elamite i ...

Hurrian The Hurrians (; ; also called Hari, Khurrites, Hourri, Churri, Hurri) were a people who inhabited the Ancient Near East during the Bronze Age. They spoke the Hurro-Urartian language, Hurrian language, and lived throughout northern Syria (region) ...

and Hittite. They are heavily attested in Canaanite inscriptions throughout the

Anatolia Anatolia (), also known as Asia Minor, is a peninsula in West Asia that makes up the majority of the land area of Turkey. It is the westernmost protrusion of Asia and is geographically bounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Aegean ...

and the

Eastern Mediterranean The Eastern Mediterranean is a loosely delimited region comprising the easternmost portion of the Mediterranean Sea, and well as the adjoining land—often defined as the countries around the Levantine Sea. It includes the southern half of Turkey ...

, and after the founding of

Carthage Carthage was an ancient city in Northern Africa, on the eastern side of the Lake of Tunis in what is now Tunisia. Carthage was one of the most important trading hubs of the Ancient Mediterranean and one of the most affluent cities of the classic ...

Phoenicia Phoenicians were an Ancient Semitic-speaking peoples, ancient Semitic group of people who lived in the Phoenician city-states along a coastal strip in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean, primarily modern Lebanon and the Syria, Syrian ...

n colonists, in coastal regions of

and

also. Dialects have been labelled primarily with reference to Biblical geography:

Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...

( Israelian, Judean/

Biblical The Bible is a collection of religious texts that are central to Christianity and Judaism, and esteemed in other Abrahamic religions such as Islam. The Bible is an anthology (a compilation of texts of a variety of forms) biblical languages ...

, Samaritan), Phoenician/ Punic, Amorite,

Ammonite Ammonoids are extinct, (typically) coiled-shelled cephalopods comprising the subclass Ammonoidea. They are more closely related to living octopuses, squid, and cuttlefish (which comprise the clade Coleoidea) than they are to nautiluses (family N ...

, Moabite, Sutean and Edomite; the dialects were all mutually intelligible, being no more differentiated than geographical varieties of Modern English. The Canaanite languages or dialects can be split into the following:: "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."

North Canaan

Philistine Philistines (; Septuagint, LXX: ; ) were ancient people who lived on the south coast of Canaan during the Iron Age in a confederation of city-states generally referred to as Philistia. There is compelling evidence to suggest that the Philist ...

– attested by several dozen inscriptions in Phoenician script scattered along Israel's southwest coast, in particular the Ekron Royal Dedicatory Inscription. It is noted as being similar to Phoenician, in particular the Byblian dialect.Jaacob Callev, "The Canaanite Dialect of the Dedicatory Royal Inscription from Ekron"
* Phoenician – The main sources are the Ahiram sarcophagus inscription, the sarcophagus of Eshmunazar II, the Tabnit sarcophagus, the Kilamuwa Stela, the Cippi of Melqart, and the other Byblian royal inscriptions. There were two main dialects of Phoenician, with Byblian being confined to Byblos, and Tyro-Sidonian being spread as Phoenician settlements were founded along the Mediterranean. Tyro-Sidonian is further split into eastern and western dialects, the latter being that from which the

Punic language The Punic language, also called Phoenicio-Punic or Carthaginian, is an extinct variety of the Phoenician language, a Canaanite languages, Canaanite language of the Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic branch of the Semitic languages. An ...

would emerge. For later Punic: in

Plautus Titus Maccius Plautus ( ; 254 – 184 BC) was a Roman playwright of the Old Latin period. His comedies are the earliest Latin literary works to have survived in their entirety. He wrote Palliata comoedia, the genre devised by Livius Andro ...

' play ''

Poenulus ''Poenulus'', also called ''The Little Carthaginian'' or ''The Little Punic Man'', is a Latin comedic play for the early Roman theatre by Titus Maccius Plautus, probably written between 195 and 189 BC. The play is noteworthy for containing text ...

'' at the beginning of the fifth act.

South Canaan

– an extinct Canaanite dialect of the Ammonite people mentioned in the Bible. The main sources are the Amman Citadel Inscription and Tel Siran inscription. * Edomite – an extinct Canaanite dialect of the Edomite people mentioned in the Bible and Egyptian texts. *

– the only Canaanite language that is a living language, and the most successful example of a revived dead language. * Moabite – an extinct Canaanite dialect of the Moabite people mentioned in the Bible. The main sources are the Mesha Stele and El-Kerak Stela.

Other

Other possible Canaanite languages: *

is possibly also a Northwest Semitic language, but likely not Canaanitic. * The Deir Alla inscription, written in a dialect with

and South Canaanitic characteristics, which is classified as Canaanite in Hetzron. * Sutean, a Semitic language, possibly of the Canaanite branch. * Amarna Canaanite – attested only through the Canaano-Akkadian language of the Amarna letters. Hetzron notes that it has distinctive features that mark it as a separate language from the other Canaanite dialects rather than a direct ancestor to any of them. * In 2022, two large, 3,800-year-old, Amorite- Akkadian bilingual tablets were published, yielding a large corpus of

Northwest Semitic Northwest Semitic is a division of the Semitic languages comprising the indigenous languages of the Levant. It emerged from Proto-Semitic language, Proto-Semitic in the Early Bronze Age. It is first attested in proper names identified as Amorite l ...

. The Amorite text is notably very similar to other Canaanite languages. Until then, Amorite was only known from personal names attested in Akkadian texts and its position within Northern Semitic languages was vague.

Comparison to Aramaic

Some distinctive typological features of Canaanite in relation to the still spoken Aramaic are: *The prefix ''h-'' is the definite article (Aramaic has a postfixed ''-a''), which seems to be an innovation of Canaanite. *The first person pronoun is ''ʼnk'' ( ''anok(i)'', which is similar to Akkadian,

Ancient Egyptian Ancient Egypt () was a cradle of civilization concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in Northeast Africa. It emerged from prehistoric Egypt around 3150BC (according to conventional Egyptian chronology), when Upper and Lower E ...

and

Berber Berber or Berbers may refer to: Ethnic group * Berbers, an ethnic group native to Northern Africa * Berber languages, a family of Afro-Asiatic languages Places * Berber, Sudan, a town on the Nile People with the surname * Ady Berber (1913–196 ...

, versus Aramaic ''ʾnʾ/ʾny''. *The change of *''ā'' > ''ō'', called the Canaanite shift.

Descendants

, revived in the modern era from an extinct dialect of the ancient

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

, a variety formerly spoken by the

. The main sources of Classical Hebrew are the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' Gezer calendar and Khirbet Qeiyafa pottery shard. All of the other Canaanite languages seem to have become extinct by the early first millennium AD except Punic, which survived into

late antiquity Late antiquity marks the period that comes after the end of classical antiquity and stretches into the onset of the Early Middle Ages. Late antiquity as a period was popularized by Peter Brown (historian), Peter Brown in 1971, and this periodiza ...

(or possibly even longer). Slightly varying forms of Hebrew preserved from the first millennium BC until modern times include: *

Tiberian Hebrew Tiberian Hebrew is the canonical pronunciation of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) committed to writing by Masoretic scholars living in the Jewish community of Tiberias in ancient Galilee under the Abbasid Caliphate. They wrote in the form of Tib ...

– Masoretic scholars living in the Jewish community of

Tiberias Tiberias ( ; , ; ) is a city on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee in northern Israel. A major Jewish center during Late Antiquity, it has been considered since the 16th century one of Judaism's Four Holy Cities, along with Jerusalem, Heb ...

c. 750–950. * Mizrahi Hebrew –

Mizrahi Jews Mizrahi Jews (), also known as ''Mizrahim'' () in plural and ''Mizrahi'' () in singular, and alternatively referred to as Oriental Jews or ''Edot HaMizrach'' (, ), are terms used in Israeli discourse to refer to a grouping of Jews, Jewish c ...

, liturgical *

Yemenite Hebrew Yemenite Hebrew (), also referred to as Temani Hebrew, is the pronunciation system for Hebrew language, Hebrew traditionally used by Yemenite Jews. Yemenite Hebrew has been studied by language scholars, many of whom believe it retains older phonet ...

–

Yemenite Jews Yemenite Jews, also known as Yemeni Jews or Teimanim (from ; ), are a Jewish diaspora group who live, or once lived, in Yemen, and their descendants maintaining their customs. After several waves of antisemitism, persecution, the vast majority ...

, liturgical *

Sephardi Hebrew Sephardi Hebrew (or Sepharadi Hebrew; , ) is the pronunciation system for Biblical Hebrew favored for liturgical use by Sephardi Jews. Its phonology was influenced by contact languages such as Spanish and Portuguese, Judaeo-Spanish (Ladino), Jud ...

–

Sephardi Jews Sephardic Jews, also known as Sephardi Jews or Sephardim, and rarely as Iberian Peninsular Jews, are a Jewish diaspora population associated with the historic Jewish communities of the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal) and their descendant ...

, liturgical *Ashkenazi Hebrew – Ashkenazi Jews, liturgical *

– Jews, liturgical, rabbinical, any of the Hebrew dialects found in the Talmud. *Medieval Hebrew – Jews, liturgical, poetical, rabbinical, scientific, literary; lingua franca based on the Bible, Mishnah, and neologisms created by translators and commentators *Haskalah Hebrew – Jews, scientific, literary and journalistic language based on Biblical but enriched with neologisms created by writers and journalists, a transition to the later *

used in Israel today *Samaritan Hebrew – Samaritans, liturgical The Phoenician and Punic expansion spread the Phoenician language and the Punic variety spoken in the colonies in antiquity, antique-era colonies in Western Mediterranean for a time, but there too it died out, although it seems to have survived longer than in

itself.

Sources

The primary modern reference book for the many extra-biblical Canaanite inscriptions, together with

inscriptions, is the German-language book ''Kanaanäische und Aramäische Inschriften'', from which inscriptions are often referenced as KAI ''n'' (for a number ''n'').For example, the Mesha Stele is "KAI 181".

References

Bibliography

*''The Semitic Languages. Routledge Language Family Descriptions.'' Edited by Robert Hetzron. New York: Routledge, 1997. * * *

External links

How the Alphabet Was Born from Hieroglyphs
Biblical Archaeology Review {{Authority control Canaanite languages, Languages extinct in the 1st millennium 1st-millennium disestablishments in Asia