Canaanite languages

Infobox Language family
name=Cana'ani
region=Levant
familycolor=Afro-Asiatic
fam2=Semitic
fam3=West Semitic
fam4=Central Semitic
fam5=Northwest Semitic
child1=Phoenician
child2=Ammonite
child3=Moabite
child4=Edomite
child5=Hebrew ("living")
script=First cuneiform, later Canaanite alphabet

The Canaanite languages or Hebraic languages are a subfamily of the Semitic languages, which were spoken by the ancient peoples of the Canaan region, including Canaanites, Israelites, Phoenicians, and 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
* 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, revived

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 [http://www.proel.org/alfabetos/fenicio19.gif] , Kilamuwa inscription, the Byblos inscription
* in the 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 'unicode|ʼnk' (אנכ - anok(i)) (versus Aramaic - unicode|ʼnʼ/unicode|ʼny) - which is similar to Akkadian, Ancient Egyptian and Berber.
* The *ā > ō vowel shift (Canaanite shift).

References

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

External links

* [http://www.kchanson.com/ANCDOCS/westsem/westsem.html Some West Semitic Inscriptions]
* [http://www.canaanite.org Canaanite.org: Canaanite Language, Encoding and Dictionary]