Moabite language
| Moabite | |
|---|---|
| Region | Formerly spoken in northwestern Jordan |
| Era | early half of 1st millennium BC |
| Phoenician alphabet | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | obm |
obm | |
| Glottolog | moab1234 |
The Moabite language, also known as the Moabite dialect, is an extinct sub-language or dialect of the Canaanite languages, themselves a branch of Northwest Semitic languages, formerly spoken in the region described in the Bible as Moab (modern day central-western Jordan) in the early 1st millennium BC.
The body of Canaanite epigraphy found in the region is described as Moabite; this is a very small corpus limited primarily to the Mesha Stele and a few seals.
Moabite, together with the similarly poorly-attested Ammonite and Edomite, belonged to the dialect continuum of the Canaanite group of northwest Semitic languages, together with Hebrew and Phoenician.