Endnote 1 – Queries & Comments

In Semitic languages nouns have different endings to indicate their function in the sentence. These case endings were still in use in Ugaritic (c. 1500 B.C.E.) and in the Amama letters (c. 1350 B.C.E.). Z Harris, The Development of the Canaanite Dialects (New Haven, Conn.: American Oriental Society [American Oriental Series, vol. 16], 1939) dates the loss of case endings in western Semitic to between 1100–1000 B.C.E. In Akkadian the loss of case endings as a regular feature took place in the latter part of the Middle Babylonian Period (c. 1530–1000 B.C.E.; cf. W. von Soden, Grundriss der Akkadischen Grammatik [Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute (Analecta Orientalia 33/47), 1969], p. 80, 63e). At any event, case endings were still in use for a millennium after the Ebla texts were written, hence any Eblaite word that is to be compared with Hebrew must first lose its case ending.