ProtoCanaanite

Proto-Canaanite is the hypothesized ancestral language of the Canaanite subgroup of Northwest Semitic within Afroasiatic. It is not directly attested in a complete corpus; reconstruction relies on comparative evidence from the attested Canaanite languages (Hebrew, Phoenician, Moabite, Edomite, Ammonite) and on early alphabetic inscriptions from the Levant. As such, Proto-Canaanite is a scholarly construct intended to explain shared features and innovations that characterize later Canaanite tongues.

Phonology and lexicon are inferred by applying the comparative method to known Canaanite languages; Proto-Canaanite is described as a Bronze Age stage dating roughly to the middle and late second millennium BCE. It is associated with the Levant coast and inland regions where Canaanite-speaking communities are historically attested. The term also serves to distinguish Canaanite from other Northwest Semitic branches such as Aramaic and the broader Proto-Semitic ancestor.

The development of the Proto-Canaanite script, an early alphabet, is a central piece of the evidence. The shape of its letters and their descendance into Phoenician and Hebrew scripts underlines a shared writing tradition that extended well beyond the Bronze Age. The language is thus viewed as the immediate precursor to the various Canaanite languages spoken during the Iron Age.

Scholarly views vary on how tightly to lump together dialects under Proto-Canaanite, and some prefer to describe them as a cluster of closely related early Canaanite varieties rather than a single uniform language.