The Philistine language () is the extinct

language Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of ...

of the

Philistines The Philistines ( he, פְּלִשְׁתִּים, Pəlīštīm; Koine Greek (Septuagint, LXX): Φυλιστιείμ, romanized: ''Phulistieím'') were an ancient people who lived on the south coast of Canaan from the 12th century BC until 6 ...

. Very little is known about the language, of which a handful of words survived as cultural loanwords in Biblical Hebrew, describing specifically Philistine institutions, like the ''seranim'', the "lords" of the Philistine five cities ("

Pentapolis A pentapolis (from Ancient Greek, Greek ''penta-'', 'five' and ''polis'', 'city') is a geographic and/or institutional grouping of five cities. Cities in the ancient world probably formed such groups for political, commercial and military reaso ...

"), or the ''’argáz'' receptacle, which occurs in 1 Samuel 6 and nowhere else, or the title ''padî''.

Classification

To judge from inscriptions alone, it could appear that the Philistine language is simply part of the local Canaanite

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 varie ...

which includes Hebrew, Edomite, Moabite, Ekronite and Phoenician. For instance, the

Ekron inscription The Ekron Royal Dedicatory Inscription, or simply the Ekron inscription, is a royal dedication inscription found in its primary context in the ruins of a temple during the 1996 excavations of Ekron.Gitin, Dothan, and Naveh, 1997, p. 1 It is known ...

, identifying the archaeological site securely as the Biblical Ekron, is the first connected body of text to be identified as Philistine, on the basis of its location. However, it is written in a Canaanite dialect similar to Phoenician and Hebrew. There is not enough information about the language of the Philistines to relate it confidently to any other languages. Possible relations to

Indo-European languages The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, ...

, even Mycenaean Greek, support the theory that

immigrant Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. Commuters, tourists, ...

originated among "

sea peoples The Sea Peoples are a hypothesized seafaring confederation that attacked ancient Egypt and other regions in the East Mediterranean prior to and during the Late Bronze Age collapse (1200–900 BCE).. Quote: "First coined in 1881 by the F ...

". There are hints of non-Semitic vocabulary and

onomastics Onomastics (or, in older texts, onomatology) is the study of the etymology, history, and use of proper names. An '' orthonym'' is the proper name of the object in question, the object of onomastic study. Onomastics can be helpful in data mining, ...

, but the inscriptions, not clarified by some modern forgeries, are enigmatic: a number of inscribed miniature "anchor seals" have been found at various Philistine sites. On the other hand, evidence from the slender corpus of brief inscriptions from Iron Age IIA-IIB

Tell es-Safi Tell es-Safi ( ar, تل الصافي, Tall aṣ-Ṣāfī, "White hill"; he, תל צפית, ''Tel Tzafit'') was an Arab Palestinian village, located on the southern banks of Wadi 'Ajjur, northwest of Hebron which had its Arab population expelled ...

( Tell es-Safi inscription) demonstrates that at some stage during the local

Iron Age The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age (Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age (Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostly appl ...

, the Philistines started using one of the dialects (either Phoenician 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 ...

) of the local Canaanite language and script, which in time masked and replaced the earlier, non-local linguistic traditions, which doubtless became reduced to a linguistic substratum, for it ceased to be recorded in inscriptions. Towards the end of the Philistine settlement in the area, in the 8th and the 7th centuries BC before their destruction by

Assyria Assyria (Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , romanized: ''māt Aššur''; syc, ܐܬܘܪ, ʾāthor) was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization which existed as a city-state at times controlling regional territories in the indigenous lands of the As ...

, the primary written language in

Philistia Philistia (; Koine Greek ( LXX): Γῆ τῶν Φυλιστιείμ, romanized: ''gê tôn Phulistieìm''), also known as the Philistine Pentapolis, was a confederation of cities in the Southwest Levant, which included the cities of Ashdod, Ash ...

was a Canaanite dialect that was written in a version of the

West Semitic 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 alpha ...

so distinctive that Frank Moore Cross termed it the "Neo-Philistine script". The Assyrian and Babylonian conquests destroyed the Philistine presence on the coast. When documentation resumes, under the

Achaemenid Empire The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire (; peo, 𐎧𐏁𐏂, , ), also called the First Persian Empire, was an ancient Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great in 550 BC. Based in Western Asia, it was contemporarily the largest em ...

(Persian Empire), it is in the

Aramaic language 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 ...

, the lingua franca of the Assyria, Babylonian and Achaemenid empires.

Philistine as an Indo-European language

There is some evidence in favour of the suggestion that the Philistines did originally speak some

Indo-European language The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, D ...

, which would help explain the markedly Aegean

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

origin of Philistine pottery styles and decorative motifs, particularly Philistine Bichrome ware, which differ markedly from the local Semitic artistic styles. A number of Philistine-related words found in the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''. Hebrew: ''Tān ...

are not local

Semitic Semitic most commonly refers to the Semitic languages, a name used since the 1770s to refer to the language family currently present in West Asia, North and East Africa, and Malta. Semitic may also refer to: Religions * Abrahamic religions ** ...

, and can in some cases, with reservations, be traced back to

Proto-Indo-European Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo- ...

roots. R.D. Barnett related the Philistine word for captain, '' seren,'' to the Greek word ''tyrannos'' (which may be related to the

Neo-Hittite The states that are called Syro-Hittite, Neo-Hittite (in older literature), or Luwian-Aramean (in modern scholarly works), were Luwian and Aramean regional polities of the Iron Age, situated in southeastern parts of modern Turkey and northwester ...

''sarawanas''/''tarawanas'') and

Edward Sapir Edward Sapir (; January 26, 1884 – February 4, 1939) was an American Jewish anthropologist- linguist, who is widely considered to be one of the most important figures in the development of the discipline of linguistics in the United States. Sa ...

made a case for relating ''kōbá`''/''qōbá`'' ("helmet", used of Goliath's copper helmet in ) to Hittite ''kupahis''. Both these words have been adopted into Hebrew. Some Philistine names, such as

Goliath Goliath ( ) ''Goləyāṯ''; ar, جُليات ''Ǧulyāt'' (Christian term) or (Quranic term). is a character in the Book of Samuel, described as a Philistine giant defeated by the young David in single combat. The story signified King Saul's ...

, Achish, and

Phicol Phicol, also spelled Phichol (KJV) or Phikol, ( he, פִיכֹל, meaning "great"; la, Phicol) was a Philistine military leader. Phicol was the chief captain of the army of Abimelech, the Philistine king of Gerar. He entered into an alliance with ...

, appear to be non-Semitic in origin, and Indo-European etymologies have been suggested. Recently, an

inscription Epigraphy () is the study of inscriptions, or epigraphs, as writing; it is the science of identifying graphemes, clarifying their meanings, classifying their uses according to dates and cultural contexts, and drawing conclusions about the wr ...

dating to the late 10th/early 9th centuries BC with two names, very similar to one of the suggested etymologies of the popular Philistine name Goliath (compare Lydian ''Alyattes'',This connection was made by Georg Hüsing, according to Ferdinand Bork in ''AfO'' 13 (1939–1941:227), noted by G. A. Wainwright, "Some Early Philistine History" '' Vetus Testamentum'' 9.1 (January 1959:73–84) p. 79 note 3. Greek ''Kalliades'', Carian ''Wljat'') was found in the excavations at

/ Gath.

Notes

External links

The Canaanite Dialect of the Dedicatory Royal Inscription from Ekron, 2004
– A summary of articles about the Ekron inscription. {{Eurasian languages Philistines Philistine language Unclassified languages of Asia Extinct languages of Asia Languages extinct in the 9th century BC