Philistine language

Infobox Language
name=Philistine
region=Formerly spoken in southwestern Palestine
extinct=5th century BC
familycolor=Afro-Asiatic
fam2=Semitic
fam3=West Semitic
fam4=Central Semitic
fam5=Northwest Semitic
fam6=Canaanite
iso2=sem
iso3=

The Philistine language is the extinct language of the Philistines, spoken— and rarely inscribed— along the coastal strip of southwestern Canaan. Very little is known about the language, of which a handful of words survive as cultural loan-words in Hebrew, describing specifically Philistine institutions, like the "seranim", the "lords" of the Philistine Pentapolis, or the "’argáz" receptacle in 1 Samuel 6 and nowhere else, [E. Sapir, "Hebrew 'argáz, a Philistine Word," "Journal of the American Oriental Society" (1936:272-281), found it to signify the box of a cart "a presumably non-Semitic word" (p. 274).] or the title "padî" ["common IE property" asserts (Sapir 1936:279 note 23) noting Greek πόσις, Lithuanian "–pati-s", "–pats", and Tocharian A "pats".]

There is not enough information of the language of the Philistines to relate it securely to any other languages: possible relations to Indo-European languages, even Mycenaean Greek, support the independently-held theory that immigrant Philistines originated among "sea peoples". There are hints of non-Semitic vocabulary and onomastics, but the inscriptions, not clarified by some modern forgeries, [Joseph Naveh, "Some Recently Forged Inscriptions," "Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research" (Summer 1982:53-58).] are enigmatic: [I. Singer, "Egyptians, Canaanites and Philistines in the Period of the Emergence of Israel", in Finkelstein and Na’aman (eds.), "From Nomadism to Monarchy", 1994:282-338.] a number of miniature "anchor seals" have been found at various Philistine sites. [Simcha Shalom Brooks, "Saul and the Monarchy: A New Look" (Ashgate) 2005:29, noting O. Keel, "Studien zu den Stempelsiegeln aus Palestina/ Israel IV." "Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis" 135 (Freiburg: Universitätsverlag) 1994:21-34.] On the other hand, evidence from the slender corpus of brief inscriptions from Iron Age IIA-IIB Tell es-Safi demonstrate that at some stage during the local Iron Age, the Philistines started using one of the branches (either Phoenician or Hebrew) of the local Canaanite language and script, [At late 9th cenury. BCE Tell es-Safi the West Semitic alphabet script was in use.] which in time masked and replaced the earlier, non-local linguistic traditions, reduced to a linguistic substratum. Towards the end of the local Iron Age, in the eighth to seventh centuries BCE, the primary written language in Philistia was a Canaanite dialect that was written in a version of the the West Semitic alphabet so distinctive that Frank Moore Cross termed it the "Neo-Philistine script". [Frank Moore Cross, "A Philistine Ostracon From Ashkelon", "BAR" 22 (January-February 1996:64-65.] Thus, to judge from the more numerous later inscriptions alone, it could appear that the language is simply part of the local Canaanite dialect continuum. [ [http://www.stefan-jakob-wimmer.de/PhPGIF.html "Philister-Projekt: ""The Cultural Dynamics of the Philistine Culture: A Case Study in the Transformation of an Immigrant Culture"] ] The Ekron inscription, identifying the archaeological site securely as the Biblical Ekron, is the first connected body of text to be identified as Philistine text. However, it is written in a Canaanite dialect similar to Phœnician. [Seymour Gitin, Trude Dothan and Joseph Naveh. "A Royal Dedicatory Inscription from Ekron." "Israel Exploration Journal" 48 (1997:1-18).] [ [http://atto.tau.ac.il/~oyd11/tau/ekron.bez.html The Canaanite Dialect of the Dedicatory Royal Inscription from Ekron - Jaacob Callev ] ]

Philistine as an Indo-European language

There is some limited evidence in favor of the suggestion [First made by Arie Noordtzij, "De Filistijnen" (1905), noted by G. Bonfante, "Who Were the Philistines" "American Journal of Archaeology" 50.2 (April - June 1946:251-262) p. 252 note 4. Bonfante argued for an Illyrian origin for the "Palaistinoi", in Palaeste, an Illyrian toponym in Epirus, with the Illyrian "-ino" suffix for ethnic groups. ] that the Philistines did originally speak some Indo-European language. A number of Philistine-related words found in the Hebrew Bible are not Semitic, and can in some cases, with reservations, be traced back to Proto-Indo-European roots. For example, R.D. Barnett [Barnett, "The Sea Peoples" Sect. IV "The Philistines", "New Cambridge Ancient History" p. 17, critically remarked upon in Michael C. Astour's review article in "Journal of the American Oriental Society", 92.3 (July - September 1972:457f.] traced the Philistine word for captain, "seren," [Only used in Hebrew in connection with Philistine princes; the Philistine etymology of "seren, sranim" was admitted by W.F. Albright in the "New Cambridge Ancient History", vol. I, part I, p. 25, note 3.] may be related to the Greek word "tyrannos", borrowed from one of the languages of western Asia Minor. ["Tyrannos" is not a Greek word. It comes from one of the languages of Asia Minor and may have affinities with Lydian words and names," Robert Drews suggested, "The First Tyrants in Greece" "Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte", 212 (2nd Quarter 1972:129-144) p. 138. Greek tradition recorded Gyges as the first ruler to whom "tyrannos" was applied ("ibid."). ] Some Philistine names, such as Goliath, Achish, and Phicol, appear to be non-Semitic in origin, and Indo-European etymologies have been suggested.who Recently, an inscription dating to the late 10th/early 9th centuries BC with two names, very similar to one of the suggested etymologies of the popular Philistine name Goliath (compare Lydian Alyattes [This connection was made by Georg Hüsing, according to Ferdinand Bork in "AfO" 13 (1939-41:227), noted by G. A. Wainwright, "Some Early Philistine History" "Vetus Testamentum" 9.1 (January 1959:73-84) p. 79 note 3. ] ) was found in the excavations at Tell es-Safi/Gath. The appearance of additional non-Semitic names in Philistine inscriptionswhich from later stages of the Iron Age is an additional indication of the non-Semitic origins of this group.

Notes

External links

* [http://atto.tau.ac.il/~oyd11/tau/ekron.bez.html The Canaanite Dialect of the Dedicatory Royal Inscription from Ekron, 2004] - A summary of articles about the Ekron inscription.