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Eblaite)
Eblaite (also known as Eblan [ISO 639-3]) is an extinct Semitic language, which was spoken in the 3rd millennium BCE in the ancient city of Ebla, at Tell Mardikh (تل مرديخ), between Aleppo and Hama, in western modern Syria.
The language is known from about 17,000 tablets written with cuneiform script which were found between 1974 and 1976 in the ruins of the city of Ebla. The tablets were first translated by Giovanni Pettinato.
Eblaite lies linguistically somewhere between the Eastern Semitic languages represented by contemporary Akkadian and the North Western Semitic languages represented by the later Ugaritic, Aramaic and Canaanite (Phoenician, Hebrew and the like). Note that the cuneiform script may exaggerate the Eastern affinities due to its intrinsic misadaptation to transcribe Semitic languages.
The fact that literary texts are absent from the 17,000 administrative tablets that document the language reduces the scope of what can be known so far about Eblaite.
[edit] References
- A. Archi. 1987. "Ebla and Eblaite," Eblaitica 1. Ed. C.H. Gordon. Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns. Pages 7–17.
- Cyrus H. Gordon. 1990. "Eblaite and Northwest Semitic," Eblaitica 2. Ed. C.H. Gordon. Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns. Pages 127-139.
- Cyrus H. Gordon. 1997. "Amorite and Eblaite," The Semitic Languages. Ed. Robert Hetzron. New York: Routledge. Pages 100-113.
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