Canaanite shift
Encyclopedia
In historical linguistics
, the Canaanite shift is a sound change
that took place in the Canaanite dialects
, which belong to the Northwest Semitic
branch of the Semitic languages
family. This sound change caused Proto-NW-Semitic *ā (long a) to turn into ō (long o) in Proto-Canaanite. It accounts, for example, for the difference between the second vowel of Hebrew שלום (, Tiberian
) and its Arabic cognate سلام (). The original word was probably }, with the ā preserved in Arabic, but transformed into ō in Hebrew. The change is attested in records from the Amarna period
, dating it to the mid-2nd millennium BCE.
is well attested in Hebrew and other Canaanite languages, but its exact nature is unclear and contested.
, they often assume that the shift was conditional and took place only in stressed syllables and that later, many words changed their form in analogy
to other words in the same paradigm
. As a result, the conditional nature of the shift became indistinct.
A parallel may be found in the pre-classical history of Latin
, where a phenomenon called rhotacism
affected all instances of intervocalic /s/ turning them into /r/. Thus rus (countryside,) for example, took the oblique form ruri from *rusi. The phenomenon, naturally, failed to affect instances of intervocalic /s/ formed after it had become productive. Thus essus was not rhotacized because, as a leveling of *ed-tus, it did not have an /s/ to be transformed at the time of the rhotic phenomenon.
In much the same way the shape of such words as שמאלי may, in fact, represent a secondary process occurring after the Canaanite shift ceased to be productive.
ات- vs. Tiberian Hebrew
ות-
فعال vs. Tiberian Hebrew
פעול
Classical Arabic
فأل vs. Tiberian Hebrew
פול
In two of the above lexical items ( and ) one will notice that the shift did not only affect original long vowels, but also original short vowels occurring in the vicinity of a historically attested glottal stop
in Canaanite.
The Ashkenazi Hebrew
pronunciation of qamaṣ gadōl as [ɔ] instead of [aː] (as found in other dialects) is regarded by Abraham Zevi Idelsohn
as a further extension of the Canaanite shift (on his theory, the Ashkenazic dialect is derived from that of Galilee in the early centuries CE). A similar shift is observable in the coastal dialects of Syrian Arabic
(see Levantine Arabic
).
and waw, even in a defective consonantal script. In languages where the shift occurs, it also gives historical linguists reason to suppose that other shifts may have taken place.
Historical linguistics
Historical linguistics is the study of language change. It has five main concerns:* to describe and account for observed changes in particular languages...
, the Canaanite shift is a sound change
Sound change
Sound change includes any processes of language change that affect pronunciation or sound system structures...
that took place in the Canaanite dialects
Canaanite languages
The Canaanite languages are a subfamily of the Semitic languages, which were spoken by the ancient peoples of the Canaan region, including Canaanites, Israelites and Phoenicians...
, which belong to the Northwest Semitic
Northwest Semitic languages
The Northwest Semitic languages form a medium-level division of the Semitic language family. The languages of this group are spoken by approximately eight million people today. The group is generally divided into three branches: Ugaritic , Canaanite and Aramaic...
branch of the Semitic languages
Semitic languages
The Semitic languages are a group of related languages whose living representatives are spoken by more than 270 million people across much of the Middle East, North Africa and the Horn of Africa...
family. This sound change caused Proto-NW-Semitic *ā (long a) to turn into ō (long o) in Proto-Canaanite. It accounts, for example, for the difference between the second vowel of Hebrew שלום (, Tiberian
Tiberian Hebrew
Tiberian Hebrew is the extinct canonical pronunciation of the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh and related documents in the Roman Empire. This traditional medieval pronunciation was committed to writing by Masoretic scholars based in the Jewish community of Tiberias , in the form of the Tiberian vocalization...
) and its Arabic cognate سلام (). The original word was probably }, with the ā preserved in Arabic, but transformed into ō in Hebrew. The change is attested in records from the Amarna period
Amarna Period
The Amarna Period was an era of Egyptian history during the latter half of the Eighteenth Dynasty when the royal residence of the pharaoh and his queen was shifted to Akhetaten in what is now modern-day Amarna...
, dating it to the mid-2nd millennium BCE.
Nature and cause
This vowel shiftVowel shift
A vowel shift is a systematic sound change in the pronunciation of the vowel sounds of a language.The best-known example in the English language is the Great Vowel Shift, which began in the 15th century...
is well attested in Hebrew and other Canaanite languages, but its exact nature is unclear and contested.
Theory of unconditioned shift
Many scholars consider this shift to be unconditioned. This position states that there were no conditioning factors such as stress or surrounding consonants which affected whether or not any given Proto-Semitic *ā became ō in Canaanite. Such scholars point to the fact that Proto-Semitic *ā virtually always reflects as ō in Hebrew.Theory of stress conditioning
Some other scholars point to Hebrew words like שמאלי, in which the original *ā is thought to be preserved. Since such a preservation would be hard to explain by secondary processes like borrowing or analogyAnalogy
Analogy is a cognitive process of transferring information or meaning from a particular subject to another particular subject , and a linguistic expression corresponding to such a process...
, they often assume that the shift was conditional and took place only in stressed syllables and that later, many words changed their form in analogy
Analogy
Analogy is a cognitive process of transferring information or meaning from a particular subject to another particular subject , and a linguistic expression corresponding to such a process...
to other words in the same paradigm
Inflection
In grammar, inflection or inflexion is the modification of a word to express different grammatical categories such as tense, grammatical mood, grammatical voice, aspect, person, number, gender and case...
. As a result, the conditional nature of the shift became indistinct.
Responses to stress conditioning theory
Those who support a theory of unconditioned shift contend that stress conditioning does not account for the fact that often *ā became ō even in positions where it was neither stressed nor part of an inflectional or derivational paradigm, and that such forms as שמאלי may indeed be a secondary development, since שמאל, the unsuffixed underlying form of the word, actually does contain an o. The a of שמאלי, therefore could be explained as having occurred after the vowel shift had ceased to be synchronically productive.A parallel may be found in the pre-classical history of Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
, where a phenomenon called rhotacism
Rhotacism
Rhotacism refers to several phenomena related to the usage of the consonant r :*the excessive or idiosyncratic use of the r;...
affected all instances of intervocalic /s/ turning them into /r/. Thus rus (countryside,) for example, took the oblique form ruri from *rusi. The phenomenon, naturally, failed to affect instances of intervocalic /s/ formed after it had become productive. Thus essus was not rhotacized because, as a leveling of *ed-tus, it did not have an /s/ to be transformed at the time of the rhotic phenomenon.
In much the same way the shape of such words as שמאלי may, in fact, represent a secondary process occurring after the Canaanite shift ceased to be productive.
Hebrew-Arabic parallels
The shift was so productive in Canaanite languages that it altered their inflectional and derivational morphologies wherever they contained the reflex of a pre-Canaanite *ā, as can be seen in Hebrew, the most attested of Canaanite languages, by comparing it with Arabic, a well-attested non-Canaanite Semitic language.Present participle of Qal verbs
Arabic فاعل vs. Hebrew פועל| Arabic | Translation | Hebrew | Translation |
|---|---|---|---|
| كاتب | Writer | כותב | One who is writing |
| راقص | Dancer | רוקד | Dancer, dancing (attrib.) |
| كاهن | Soothsayer, augur, priest | כהן | Priest, male descendant of Aaron Aaron In the Hebrew Bible and the Qur'an, Aaron : Ααρών ), who is often called "'Aaron the Priest"' and once Aaron the Levite , was the older brother of Moses, and a prophet of God. He represented the priestly functions of his tribe, becoming the first High Priest of the Israelites... |
Feminine plural
Classical ArabicClassical Arabic
Classical Arabic , also known as Qur'anic or Koranic Arabic, is the form of the Arabic language used in literary texts from Umayyad and Abbasid times . It is based on the Medieval dialects of Arab tribes...
ات- vs. Tiberian Hebrew
Tiberian Hebrew
Tiberian Hebrew is the extinct canonical pronunciation of the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh and related documents in the Roman Empire. This traditional medieval pronunciation was committed to writing by Masoretic scholars based in the Jewish community of Tiberias , in the form of the Tiberian vocalization...
ות-
| Arabic | Hebrew | Translation |
|---|---|---|
| بَنَات | בָּנוֹת | Girls, daughters |
| مِئَات | מֵאוֹת | Hundreds |
| أتَانَات | אֲתֹנוֹת | Female-donkeys |
| مَجَلاًّت | מְגִלּוֹת | Scrolls |
Noun
Classical ArabicClassical Arabic
Classical Arabic , also known as Qur'anic or Koranic Arabic, is the form of the Arabic language used in literary texts from Umayyad and Abbasid times . It is based on the Medieval dialects of Arab tribes...
فعال vs. Tiberian Hebrew
Tiberian Hebrew
Tiberian Hebrew is the extinct canonical pronunciation of the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh and related documents in the Roman Empire. This traditional medieval pronunciation was committed to writing by Masoretic scholars based in the Jewish community of Tiberias , in the form of the Tiberian vocalization...
פעול
| Arabic | Hebrew | Akkadian | Translation |
|---|---|---|---|
| حمار | חמור | donkey | |
| سلام | שלום | peace | |
| لسان | לשון | tongue | |
| أَتَان | אתון | female donkey |
Classical Arabic
Classical Arabic
Classical Arabic , also known as Qur'anic or Koranic Arabic, is the form of the Arabic language used in literary texts from Umayyad and Abbasid times . It is based on the Medieval dialects of Arab tribes...
فأل vs. Tiberian Hebrew
Tiberian Hebrew
Tiberian Hebrew is the extinct canonical pronunciation of the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh and related documents in the Roman Empire. This traditional medieval pronunciation was committed to writing by Masoretic scholars based in the Jewish community of Tiberias , in the form of the Tiberian vocalization...
פול
| Arabic | Hebrew | Akkadian | Translation |
|---|---|---|---|
| كأس | כוס | glass |
Other words
| Arabic | Hebrew | Translation |
|---|---|---|
| لا | לא | No |
| رأس | ראש | Head |
| ذراع | זרוע | Arm |
| عالم | עולם | World, Universe |
In two of the above lexical items ( and ) one will notice that the shift did not only affect original long vowels, but also original short vowels occurring in the vicinity of a historically attested glottal stop
Aleph
* Aleph or Alef is the first letter of the Semitic abjads descended from Proto-Canaanite, Arabic alphabet, Phoenician alphabet, Hebrew alphabet, Syriac alphabet-People:*Aleph , an Italo disco artist and alias of Dave Rodgers...
in Canaanite.
The Ashkenazi Hebrew
Ashkenazi Hebrew
Ashkenazi Hebrew , is the pronunciation system for Biblical and Mishnaic Hebrew favored for liturgical use by Ashkenazi Jewish practice. Its phonology was influenced by languages with which it came into contact, such as Yiddish, German, and various Slavic languages...
pronunciation of qamaṣ gadōl as [ɔ] instead of [aː] (as found in other dialects) is regarded by Abraham Zevi Idelsohn
Abraham Zevi Idelsohn
Abraham Zevi Idelsohn was a prominent Jewish ethnologist and musicologist, who conducted several comprehensive studies of Jewish music around the world....
as a further extension of the Canaanite shift (on his theory, the Ashkenazic dialect is derived from that of Galilee in the early centuries CE). A similar shift is observable in the coastal dialects of Syrian Arabic
Syrian Arabic
Syrian Arabic is a variety of Arabic spoken in Syria.-History:Syrian Arabic proper is a form of Levantine Arabic, and may be divided into South Syrian Arabic, spoken in the cities of Damascus, Homs and Hama, and North Syrian Arabic, spoken in the region of Aleppo. Allied dialects are spoken in...
(see Levantine Arabic
Levantine Arabic
Levantine Arabic is a broad variety of Arabic spoken in the 100 to 200 km-wide Eastern Mediterranean coastal strip...
).
Uses of the shift
Often when new source material in an old Semitic language is uncovered, the Canaanite shift may be used to date the source material or to establish that the source material is written in a specifically Canaanite language. The shift is especially useful since it affects long vowels whose presence is likely to be recorded by matres lectionis such as alephAleph
* Aleph or Alef is the first letter of the Semitic abjads descended from Proto-Canaanite, Arabic alphabet, Phoenician alphabet, Hebrew alphabet, Syriac alphabet-People:*Aleph , an Italo disco artist and alias of Dave Rodgers...
and waw, even in a defective consonantal script. In languages where the shift occurs, it also gives historical linguists reason to suppose that other shifts may have taken place.