Edomite language

{{Short description|Ancient Semitic language of Edom (Jordan)}}{{Cleanup lang|date=November 2024|iso=xdm}}{{Infobox language

| name = Edomite

| region = Idumea (modern-day southwestern Jordan and southern Israel)

| era = early 1st millennium BCE

| ref = linglist

| familycolor = Afro-Asiatic

| fam2 = Semitic

| fam3 = West

| fam4 = Central

| fam5 = Northwest

| fam6 = Canaanite

| fam7 = South

| iso3 = xdm

| linglist = xdm

| glotto = edom1234

| glottorefname = Edomite

| states = Edom

| ethnicity = Edomites

}}

Edomite is a Northwest Semitic Canaanite language, very similar to Biblical Hebrew, Ekronite, Ammonite, Phoenician, Amorite and Sutean, spoken by the Edomites in Idumea (modern-day southwestern Jordan and parts of Israel) in the 2nd and 1st millennium BCE. It is extinct and known only from an extremely small corpus,{{cite encyclopedia |author-last=Lemaire |author-first=André |author-link=André Lemaire |year=2013 |title=Edomite and Hebrew |editor1-last=Khan |editor1-first=Geoffrey |editor1-link=Geoffrey Khan |editor2-last=Bolozky |editor2-first=Shmuel |editor3-last=Fassberg |editor3-first=Steven |editor4-last=Rendsburg |editor4-first=Gary A. |editor4-link=Gary A. Rendsburg |editor5-last=Rubin |editor5-first=Aaron D. |editor5-link=Aaron D. Rubin |editor6-last=Schwarzwald |editor6-first=Ora R. |editor7-last=Zewi |editor7-first=Tamar |encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics |location=Leiden and Boston |publisher=Brill Publishers |doi=10.1163/2212-4241_ehll_EHLL_COM_00000499 |isbn=978-90-04-17642-3}} attested in a scant number of impression seals, ostraca, and a single late 7th or early 6th century BCE letter, discovered in Horvat Uza.{{Cite journal|last=Wilson-Wright|first=Aren M.|date=2019|title=The Canaanite Languages|url=https://sites.utexas.edu/scripts/files/2020/10/2019-AWW-The-Canaanite-Languages.pdf|journal=The Semitic Languages. London, Routledge|pages=509–532|doi=10.4324/9780429025563-20 |isbn=9780429025563 |s2cid=189509857 |via=utexas.edu}}{{Cite book|last=Vanderhooft|first=David S.|title="The Edomite Dialect and Script: A Review of Evidence"|year=1995|pages=142}}{{cite book | last=Young | first=I. | title=Diversity in Pre-Exilic Hebrew | publisher=Eisenbrauns | series=Forschungen zum Alten Testament | year=2011 | isbn=978-3-16-151676-4 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=T2WgeomUlVkC | access-date=2023-06-03 | page=39|quote=While we were fortunate enough to have a major inscription, the Mesha Stone, for Moabite, we are much less fortunate as regards Edomite. Here we are reliant on a few short and fragmentary inscriptions and a number of seals.}}

Like Moabite, but unlike Hebrew, it retained the feminine ending -t in the singular absolute state. In early times, it seems to have been written with a Phoenician alphabet. However, by the 6th century BCE, it adopted the Aramaic alphabet. Meanwhile, Aramaic or Arabic features such as whb ("gave") and tgr/tcr ("merchant") entered the language, with whb becoming especially common in proper names.{{cn|date=May 2021}} Like many other Canaanite languages, Edomite features a prefixed definite article derived from the presentative particle (for example as in h-ʔkl ‘the food’). The diphthong /aw/ contracted to /o/ between the 7th and 5th century BCE, as foreign transcriptions of the divine name "Qos" indicate a transition in pronunciation from Qāws to Qôs.{{cite book | author = W. Randall Garr | date = 2004 | title = Dialect Geography of Syria-Palestine, 1000-586 B.C.E. | publisher = Eisenbrauns | pages = 35| isbn = 978-1-57506-091-0 | oclc = 1025228731 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=02DaEkaJizMC}}