Amorite: A Northwest Semitic Language?

Abstract

The present paper discusses the problem of the classification of Amorite within the Semitic family. After testing the Amorite corpus of personal names and toponyms for the presence of sixty features that have been proposed as characteristic of the Central, Northwest and East Semitic branches -and viewed as necessary conditions for establishing the relation of a language's belonging to one of these subgroups -the authors conclude that the existing data fail to be conclusive. Since, on the one hand, the available data can link Amorite to the Central, Northwest and East Semitic branches and, on the other hand, as various pieces of evidence are either missing or their interpretation is uncertain, the definite answer to the question of the genetic filiation of Amorite seems to remain beyond the reach of Semitic linguistics. This, in turn, implies that several theories concerning the place of Amorite among Semitic languages should be taken with more caution.1 Most of such proper nouns are names of persons. Names referring to places are significantly less common.