Edomite is a Northwest Semitic Canaanite language, very similar to Biblical Hebrew, Ekronite, Ammonite, Phoenician, Amorite and Sutean, spoken by the Edomites in Idumea (modern-day southwestern Jordan and parts of Israel) in the 2nd and 1st millennium BC. It is extinct and known only from an extremely small corpus, attested in a scant number of impression seals, ostraca, and a single late 7th or early 6th century BC letter, discovered in Horvat Uza.
[[Ostracon written in the Edomite language dated to the 6th century BC|upright|thumb]]
Like Moabite, but unlike Hebrew, it retained the feminine ending -t in the singular absolute state. In early times, it seems to have been written with a Phoenician alphabet. However, by the 6th century BC, it adopted the Aramaic alphabet. Meanwhile, Aramaic or Arabic features such as whb ("gave") and tgr/tcr ("merchant") entered the language, with whb becoming especially common in proper names.
Like many other Canaanite languages, Edomite features a prefixed definite article derived from the presentative particle (for example as in h-ʔkl ‘the food’). The diphthong /aw/ contracted to /o/ between the 7th and 5th century BC, as foreign transcriptions of the divine name "Qos" indicate a transition in pronunciation from Qāws to Qôs.
Examples
{|
|+
!Edomite as transcribed in Square script
!Reconstructed transliteration (per Ahituv 2008)
!Translation
|-
|אמר למלך אמר לבלבל
|ʾōmēr lammeleḵ ʾĕmōr ləḆīlbēl
|(Thus) said to the king: Say to Bilbel,
|-
|השלם את והברכתך
|hăšālōm ʾattā wəhīḇraḵəttīḵā
|"Are you well?" and "I bless you
|-
|לקוס ועת תן את האכל
|ləQōs wəʿattā tēn ʾet hāʾoḵel
|by Qos." And now give the food
|-
|[ ] אשר עמד אחאמה
|ʾăšer ʿīmmaḏ ʾĂḥīʾīmmō [...]
|that Ahi'immoh [...]
|-
|והרם ש[א]ל על מז[בח קוס
|wəhērīm Šā[ʾu]l ʿal mīz[baḥ Qōs
|And may Sa[u]l lift [it] (up) upon (the) al[tar of Qos,
|-
|פן י]חמד האכל
|pen ye]ḥmad hāʾoḵel
|lest] the food become leavened
|}