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Eblaite | |
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Region | Ebla |
Era | 3rd millennium BC[1] |
Afro-Asiatic
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Cuneiform | |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | xeb |
xeb | |
Glottolog | ebla1238 |
Eblaite (/ˈɛblə.aɪt, ˈiːblə-/,[2] also known as Eblan ISO 639-3), or Palaeosyrian,[3][4] is an extinct East Semitic language used during the 3rd millennium BC in Northern Syria.[5] It was named after the ancient city of Ebla, in modern western Syria.[5] Variants of the language were also spoken in Mari and Nagar.[5][6] According to Cyrus H. Gordon,[7] 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.