| Canaanite Language |
Index for Canaanite |
Website Links For Canaanite |
Information AboutCanaanite Language |
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|name=Canaanite |region= Levant |familycolor=Afro-Asiatic |fam2= Semitic |fam3= West Semitic |fam4= Central Semitic |fam5= Northwest Semitic |child1= Phoenician |child2= Philistine |child3= Ammonite |child4= Moabite |child5= Edomite |child6= Hebrew (''living'')}} The Canaanite languages are a subfamily of the Semitic Languages , spoken by the ancient peoples of the Canaan region, including Canaanites , Hebrews , Phoenicians , and eventually 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 Jew s, 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.
The main sources for study of Canaanite languages are the Hebrew Bible ( Tanakh ), and inscriptions such as:
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:
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