Hebrew was the spoken and written language
of ancient Israel. It is close to other Canaanite
dialects including Phoenician,
Moabite, Edomite and Ammonite. These "tongues of Canaan"
are close to others in the Northwest Semitic
branch of the Semitic language
family, in particular Ugaritic
and Aramaic. After the exile,
under imperial rule, Aramaic became the language of the land.
This page is part of the Hypertext Bible Commentary - Amos,
© Tim Bulkeley, 1996-2005, Tim
Bulkeley. All rights reserved.