The
Edomite language was a Canaanite language spoken by the Edomites in southwestern
JordanJordan , officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is a country in Western Asia spanning the southern part of the Syrian Desert down to the Gulf of Aqaba. Jordan shares borders with Syria to the north, Iraq to the northeast, Saudi Arabia to the east and south, the Gulf of Aqaba to the southwest,...
in the first millennium BC. It is known only from a very small corpus. In early times, it seems to have been written with a Canaanite alphabet; like the
MoabiteThe Moabite language is an extinct Canaanite language, spoken in Moab in the early first millennium BC. Most of our knowledge about Moabite comes from the Mesha Stele, as well as the ;...
language, it retained feminine
-t. However, in the 6th century BC, it adopted the
Aramaic alphabetThe Aramaic alphabet is adapted from the Phoenician alphabet, and became distinctive from it by the eighth century BCE. The letters all represent consonants, some of which are matres lectionis, which also indicate long vowels....
. Meanwhile,
AramaicAramaic is a Semitic language with a 3,000-year history. It has been the language of administration of empires and the language of divine worship...
or
ArabicArabic is a Central Semitic language, thus related to and classified alongside other Semitic languages such as Hebrew and the Neo-Aramaic languages. In terms of speakers, the Arabic macrolanguage is the largest member of the Semitic language family. It is spoken by more than 280 million people as...
features such as
whb ("gave") and
tgr "merchant" entered the language, with
whb becoming especially common in proper names.
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The
Edomite language was a Canaanite language spoken by the Edomites in southwestern
JordanJordan , officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is a country in Western Asia spanning the southern part of the Syrian Desert down to the Gulf of Aqaba. Jordan shares borders with Syria to the north, Iraq to the northeast, Saudi Arabia to the east and south, the Gulf of Aqaba to the southwest,...
in the first millennium BC. It is known only from a very small corpus. In early times, it seems to have been written with a Canaanite alphabet; like the
MoabiteThe Moabite language is an extinct Canaanite language, spoken in Moab in the early first millennium BC. Most of our knowledge about Moabite comes from the Mesha Stele, as well as the ;...
language, it retained feminine
-t. However, in the 6th century BC, it adopted the
Aramaic alphabetThe Aramaic alphabet is adapted from the Phoenician alphabet, and became distinctive from it by the eighth century BCE. The letters all represent consonants, some of which are matres lectionis, which also indicate long vowels....
. Meanwhile,
AramaicAramaic is a Semitic language with a 3,000-year history. It has been the language of administration of empires and the language of divine worship...
or
ArabicArabic is a Central Semitic language, thus related to and classified alongside other Semitic languages such as Hebrew and the Neo-Aramaic languages. In terms of speakers, the Arabic macrolanguage is the largest member of the Semitic language family. It is spoken by more than 280 million people as...
features such as
whb ("gave") and
tgr "merchant" entered the language, with
whb becoming especially common in proper names.
Biblically, "
EdomEdom is a name given to Esau in the Hebrew Bible, as well as to the nation descending from him. The nation's name in Assyrian was Udumi; in Syriac, ܐܕܘܡ; in Greek, Ἰδουμαία ; in Latin, Idumæa or Idumea....
" is an alternate name of
EsauAccording to the Book of Genesis of the Hebrew Bible, Esau was the fraternal twin brother of Jacob — the patriarch and founder of the Israelites. Esau and Jacob were the sons of Isaac and Rebekah, and the grandsons of Abraham and Sarah...
, a descendant of
EberEber is an ancestor of the Israelites, according to the "Table of Nations" in and . He was a great-grandson of Noah's son Shem and the father of Peleg born when Eber was 34 years old, and of Joktan. He was the son of Shelah a distant ancestor of Abraham...
through
AbrahamAbraham is the founding patriarch of the Israelites, Ishmaelites, Midianites and Edomite peoples, as described in the book of Genesis. He is widely regarded as the patriarch of Jews, Christians, and Muslims....
, and the Edomites are regarded as being a Hebrew people, as are the
MoabMoab is the historical name for a mountainous strip of land in modern-day Jordan running along the eastern shore of the Dead Sea. In ancient times, it was home to the kingdom of the Moabites, a people often in conflict with their Israelite neighbors to the west...
ites and Ammonites.