Proto-Canaanite is the name given to
:(a) the
Proto-Sinaitic script
Proto-Sinaitic (also referred to as Sinaitic, Proto-Canaanite when found in Canaan, the North Semitic alphabet, or Early Alphabetic) is considered the earliest trace of alphabetic writing and the common ancestor of both the Ancient South Arabian ...
when found in
Canaan
Canaan (; Phoenician: 𐤊𐤍𐤏𐤍 – ; he, כְּנַעַן – , in pausa – ; grc-bib, Χανααν – ;The current scholarly edition of the Greek Old Testament spells the word without any accents, cf. Septuaginta : id est Vetus T ...
, dating to about the 17th century BC and later.
:(b) a hypothetical ancestor of the Phoenician script before some cut-off date, typically 1050 BCE, with an undefined affinity to
Proto-Sinaitic. No extant "Phoenician" inscription is older than 1000 BCE.
The
Phoenician,
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 ...
, and other
Canaanite dialects were largely indistinguishable before that time.
[.]
References
External links
Precursor to Paleo-Hebrew Script Discovered in Jerusalem
Bronze Age writing systems
Canaanite languages
Canaanite writing systems
Semitic writing systems
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