Samalian was a
Semitic language spoken and first attested in
Samʼal.
Samalian is primarily known from
three inscriptions, the
Hadad Statue and the
Panamuwa II inscription (
KAI 214–215), both unearthed in the late 19th century, and a third known as the
Kuttamuwa stele, unearthed in 2008.
Classification
Among the Semitic languages, Samalian shows most similarities to
Aramaic
Aramaic (; ) is a Northwest Semitic language that originated in the ancient region of Syria and quickly spread to Mesopotamia, the southern Levant, Sinai, southeastern Anatolia, and Eastern Arabia, where it has been continually written a ...
. It has been earlier often considered an outright early dialect of Aramaic, possibly influenced by
Canaanite. Strong evidence is however absent, and Samalian is best considered an independent member of the
Northwest Semitic
Northwest Semitic is a division of the Semitic languages comprising the indigenous languages of the Levant. It emerged from Proto-Semitic language, Proto-Semitic in the Early Bronze Age. It is first attested in proper names identified as Amorite l ...
group, or, together with the
Deir Alla Inscription, a sister variety of Aramaic in an "Aramoid" or "Syrian" group.
Linguistic features
Features connecting Samalian with Aramaic include:
* a change *n > ''r'' in the word ''br'' 'son', though this is attested only as a part of personal names and may not have been the native word. The same phenomenon appears also in a Phoenician text from Sam'al (the
Kilamuwa Stela).
* loss of *ʔ in the word ''ḥd'' (< *ʔḥd) 'one'. This occurs sporadically also in biblical Hebrew and in the Phoenician dialect of
Byblos
Byblos ( ; ), also known as Jebeil, Jbeil or Jubayl (, Lebanese Arabic, locally ), is an ancient city in the Keserwan-Jbeil Governorate of Lebanon. The area is believed to have been first settled between 8800 and 7000BC and continuously inhabited ...
.
* a change *ɬʼ > ''q'', e.g. ''ʔrq'' 'earth', known as an orthographic device also in
Old Aramaic
Old Aramaic refers to the earliest stage of the Aramaic language, known from the Aramaic inscriptions discovered since the 19th century.
Emerging as the language of the city-states of the Arameans in the Fertile Crescent in the Early Iron Age, ...
(in later Aramaic, Proto-Semitic *ɬʼ shifts instead to ).
* appearance of ''n'' for final ''m''.
Pat-El & Wilson-Wright propose as additional general characteristics of Samalian the development of nasal vowels, as expected word-final ''n'' after long vowels is systematically absent in the Panamuwa inscriptions; as well as an object marker ''wt'', cognate with Aramean ''ləwāt'' 'with'.
See also
*
Dialect continuum
A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of Variety (linguistics), language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are Mutual intelligibility, mutually intelligible, but the differences accumulat ...
Notes
References
*
*
*
Further reading
* Accessed 6 July 2023.
*
*
*
* Accessed 6 July 2023.
* Accessed 6 July 2023.
Northwest Semitic languages
Languages attested from the 1st millennium BC
Extinct languages of Asia
Languages extinct in the 8th century BC
{{semitic-lang-stub