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 millennium), 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 — e.g. Yantin-Dagan, 'Dagon gives' (ntn); Raṣa-Dagan, 'Dagon was pleased' (rṣy). It included a 3rd-person suffix -a (unlike Akkadian or Hebrew), and an imperfect vowel -a-, as in Arabic rather than the Hebrew and Aramaic -i-.
- There was a verb form with geminate second consonant — e.g. Yabanni-Il, 'God creates' (root bny).
- In several cases where Akkadian has š, Amorite, like Hebrew and Arabic, has h, thus hu 'his', -haa 'her', causative h- or ʔ- (I. Gelb 1958).
- The 1st-person perfect is in -ti (singular), -nu (plural), as in the 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.
