Book Title: Alphabet Key To History Of Mankind
Author(s): David Diringer
Publisher: Hutchinsons Scientific and Technical Publications
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CHAPTER 111
CANAANITE BRANCH
CANAANITES
The term "Canaan" (Hebr. Kena'an; hierogl. K-n'-n'; cuneif. Ki-na-akh-khi or Ki-na-akh-na; Greek and Latin Chanaan) appears as the ancient name of Palestine. Its etymology is unknown, the common explanation as "Lowland" (from the Hebr. root kn", "to be low") has now been abandoned by serious scholars, as the name seems to be of non-Semitic origin. (See Walter Baumgartner, Was wir heute von der hebræischen Sprache und ihrer Geschichte wissen, in "ANTHROPOS," XXXV-Xxxvi, 1940-1941, p. 611). In the Biblical Table of Nations (Gen., ch. 10), Canaan, the eponymous ancestor of the Canaanites, is not considered as a "Semite," but as son of Ham. However, the Biblical review of peoples known to the Hebrews was clearly planned on lines that were neither primarily ethnological nor primarily linguistic, but, to use a modern term, political. Thus, the descendants of Ham include hostile peoples, amongst them certain non-Araman peoples of Palestine (the Canaanites, the Hittites and the Philistines). On the other hand, the expression "the language of Canaan" of Isaiah, xix, 18, indicates obviously the Hebrew tongue. On the whole, the term "Canaanites" was somewhat loosely employed.
The ethnic problem of the Canaanites is still far from being solved. Some scholars consider them as the pre-Semitic aborigines of Palestine, others as the Semitic pre-Israelitic inhabitants of that country. However, broadly speaking. modern archæology and philology consider the Canaanites to be the main group of the "Second Semitic immigration" which invaded Palestine and Syria at the beginning of the third millennium B.C. and were, during the second millennium, partly extinguished and partly assimilated to the peoples of the "Third Semitic. immigration," such as the Hebrews and the Arameans. According to Professor W. F. Albright, the word "Canaanite" is historically, geographically, and culturally synonymous with "Phoenician," although he himself, for convenience, employs "Canaanite" to designate the North-west Semitic people and culture of western Syria and Palestine before the twelfth century B.C., and the term "Phoenician" to indicate the same people and culture after this date.
From the modern philological point of view, "Canaanite" is one of the two main branches of the North-west Semitic group of languages, the other being the Aramaic branch. The "Canaanite" group includes Hebrew, Phoenician-the Phoenicians, and even the Carthaginians, considered themselves as Chanan, down to the fifth century A.D.-and some secondary branches such as Moabite and Ammonite. (See Z. S. Harris, Development of the Canaanite Dialects, "AMERICAN ORIENTAL SERIES," Vol. 16, 1939). Although this use of the word "Canaanite" may not be exact, for the lack of a more suitable term I am employing it here in its conventional sense.
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