Moabite language


Moabite is an extinct Canaanite language formerly spoken in Moab in the early 1st millennium BC. An altar inscription written in Moabite and dated to 800 BC was revealed in an excavation in Motza. It was written using a variant of the Phoenician alphabet.
Most knowledge about Moabite comes from the Mesha Stele, which is the only known extensive text in the language. In addition, there is the three-line El-Kerak Inscription and a few seals. The main features distinguishing Moabite from fellow Canaanite languages such as Hebrew are: a plural in -în rather than -îm, like Aramaic and Arabic; retention of the feminine ending -at or "-ah", which Biblical Hebrew reduces to -āh only but retains in the construct state nominal form ; and retention of a verb form with infixed -t-, also found in Arabic and Akkadian.
According to Glottolog, referencing Huehnergard & Rubin, Moabite was not a distinct language from Hebrew. Moabite differed only dialectally from Hebrew, and Moabite religion and culture was related to that of the Israelites. On the other hand, although Moabite itself had begun to diverge, the script used in the 9th century BC did not differ from the script used in Hebrew inscriptions at that time.
While knowledge of Moabite is limited primarily to the Mesha Stele and a few seals, it is clear that Moabite, together with Ammonite and Edomite, belonged to the dialect continuum of the Canaanite group of northwest Semitic languages, together with Hebrew and Phoenician.

Alphabet

Moabite appears to use a variant of the Phoenician alphabet, much like Paleo-Hebrew. Most of the letters don't seem to have changed in appearance in Moabite context, however a few have noticeable differences.
PhoenicianMoabiteEnglish name
Aleph
Bet
Gimel
Daleth
He
Vav
Zayin
Heth
Teth
Lamedh
Samekh
Tsade
Qoph