Edomite was a Northwest Semitic Canaanite language 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.
Like Moabite, but unlike Hebrew, it retained the feminine ending in the singular absolute state. In early times, it seems to have been written with a Phoenician alphabet, but by the 6th century BC, it had adopted the Aramaic alphabet. Meanwhile, Aramaic or Arabic features such as ("gave") and ("merchant") entered the language, with 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 ‘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 to .
Examples +Edomite as transcribed in Square scriptReconstructed transliteration (per Ahituv 2008)Translation(Thus) said to the king: Say to Bilbel,"Are you well?" and "I bless youby Qos." And now give the foodthat Ahi'immoh [...]And may Sa[u]l lift [it] (up) upon (the) al[tar of Qos,lest] the food become leavened
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