File:Calco_di_tavoletta_in_terracotta_da_Ebla_-_Museo_d'Arte_Orientale_Roma.jpg · Wikimedia Commons · See Wikimedia Commons
Eblaite
Sign in to saveAlso known as Eblan, Eblaite language, Paleo Syrian
Extinct Semitic language spoken in Ebla
Key facts
- Region
- Ebla
- Era
- 3rd millennium BC
- Language family
- Afro-Asiatic Semitic East Semitic Eblaite
- Writing system
- Cuneiform
- Iso 639 3
- xeb
- Linguist list
- xeb
- Glottolog
- ebla1238
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
Show 3 more facts
- Commons category
- Eblaite language
via Wikidata · CC0
~18 min read
Article
Eblaite (/ˈɛblə.aɪt, ˈiːblə-/, also known as Eblan ISO 639-3), or Palaeosyrian, is an extinct East Semitic language used during the 3rd millennium BC in Northern Syria. It was named after the ancient city of Ebla, in modern western Syria. Variants of the language were also spoken in Mari and Nagar. According to Cyrus H. Gordon, although scribes might have spoken it sometimes, Eblaite was probably not spoken much, being rather a written lingua franca with East and West Semitic features.
The language was discovered through cuneiform tablets found in Ebla.