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 and
Phoenicians. 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.
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
