Moabite language

Moabite
Moabite
Region	Formerly spoken in northwestern Jordan
Era	early half of 1st millennium BCE
Language family	Afro-Asiatic Semitic West Semitic Central Semitic Northwest Semitic Canaanite Moabite; ; ; ; ; ;
Writing system	Phoenician alphabet
Language codes
ISO 639-3	obm
Linguist List	obm
Glottolog	moab1234

The Moabite language, also known as the Moabite dialect, is an extinct sub-language or dialect of the Canaanite languages, themselves a branch of Northwest Semitic languages, formerly spoken in the region described in the Bible as Moab (modern day central-western Jordan) in the early 1st millennium BC.

The body of Canaanite epigraphy found in the region is described as Moabite; this is a very small corpus limited primarily to the Mesha Stele and a few seals.^[2]

Moabite, together with the similarly poorly-attested Ammonite and Edomite, belonged to the dialect continuum of the Canaanite group of northwest Semitic languages, together with Hebrew and Phoenician.^[3]

^ Moabite at MultiTree on the Linguist List
^ Young, I. (2011). Diversity in Pre-Exilic Hebrew. Forschungen zum Alten Testament. Eisenbrauns. p. 33. ISBN 978-3-16-151676-4. Retrieved 2023-06-03. The major problem with the study of the Moabite language is the lack of material upon which to base a study. We are fortunate to have a major inscription in the Mesha Stone . This is a basalt stele found in Diban, Transjordan, dating from sometime after 850 BC, set up by Mesha, king of Moab, to celebrate his victory over Israel. Apart from this text, however, we have only two other fragmentary ninth century inscriptions, with various seals to represent later Moabite. The better preserved of these two inscriptions seems to be a fragment of another inscription by Mesha… the second preserves only a few letters which can be made into a couple of conjectured words…. our knowledge of the grammar and other linguistic features of Moabite is dependent almost completely on one inscription alone.
^ Simon B.Parker, 'Moabite, Ammonite and Edomite' in John Kaltner, Steven L. McKenzie (eds.), Beyond Babel: A Handbook for Biblical Hebrew and Related Languages, SBL Press, 2019 ISBN 978-0-884-14384-0 pp.43-59 p.46ff.

[linglist-1] Moabite at MultiTree on the Linguist List

[Young_2011-2] Young, I. (2011). Diversity in Pre-Exilic Hebrew. Forschungen zum Alten Testament. Eisenbrauns. p. 33. ISBN 978-3-16-151676-4. Retrieved 2023-06-03. The major problem with the study of the Moabite language is the lack of material upon which to base a study. We are fortunate to have a major inscription in the Mesha Stone . This is a basalt stele found in Diban, Transjordan, dating from sometime after 850 BC, set up by Mesha, king of Moab, to celebrate his victory over Israel. Apart from this text, however, we have only two other fragmentary ninth century inscriptions, with various seals to represent later Moabite. The better preserved of these two inscriptions seems to be a fragment of another inscription by Mesha… the second preserves only a few letters which can be made into a couple of conjectured words…. our knowledge of the grammar and other linguistic features of Moabite is dependent almost completely on one inscription alone.

[3] Simon B.Parker, 'Moabite, Ammonite and Edomite' in John Kaltner, Steven L. McKenzie (eds.), Beyond Babel: A Handbook for Biblical Hebrew and Related Languages, SBL Press, 2019 ISBN 978-0-884-14384-0 pp.43-59 p.46ff.

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Moabite
Region	Formerly spoken in northwestern Jordan
Era	early half of 1st millennium BCE^[1]
Language family	Afro-Asiatic Semitic West Semitic Central Semitic Northwest Semitic Canaanite Moabite
Writing system	Phoenician alphabet
Language codes
ISO 639-3	`obm`
Linguist List	`obm`
Glottolog	`moab1234`