Amorite language
The Amorite language is the term used for the early (North)West Semitic language, spoken by the north Semitic Amorite tribes prominent in early Middle Eastern history. It is known exclusively from non-Akkadian proper names recorded by Akkadian scribes during periods of Amorite rule in Babylonia (end of the 3rd and beginning of the 1st millennia), notably from Mari, and to a lesser extent Alalakh, Harmal, and Khafaya. Occasionally such names are also found in early Egyptian texts; and one place-name - "Snir" (שְׂנִיר) for Mount Hermon - is known from the Bible (Deut. 3:9). Notable characteristics include:
- The usual Semitic imperfect-perfect distinction is found - eg Yantin-Dagan, Dagon gives (ntn); Raṣa-Dagan, Dagon was pleased (rṣy). It included a 3rd-person suffix -a (unlike Akkadian or Hebrew), and imperfect vowel -a- as in Arabic rather than Hebrew and Aramaic -i-.
- There was a verb form with geminate second consonant (eg Yabanni-Il, God creates, root bny).
- In several cases where Akkadian has ?, Amorite, like Hebrew and Arabic, has h - thus -hu his, -haa her, causative h- or ʔ-. (I. Gelb 1958).
- The first person perfect is in -ti (singular), -nu (plural) as in Canaanite languages.
Sources
- D. Cohen, Les langues chamito-semitiques, CNRS: Paris 1985.
- I. Gelb, "La lingua degli amoriti", Academia Nazionale dei Lincei. Rendiconti 1958, no. 8, 13, pp. 143-163.
- H. B. Huffmon. Amorite Personal Names in the Mari Texts. A Structural and Lexical Study, Baltimore 1965.
