The Social Context of the Development of the Proto-Canaanite/Proto-Sinaitic Alphabet from Egyptian Ancestors

The Social Context of the Development of the Proto-Canaanite/Proto-Sinaitic Alphabet from Egyptian Ancestors 

Dustin Elias

This paper’s goal is to answer the question, “in what social context did the early Proto-Sinaitic/Proto-Canaanite alphabet develop out of Egyptian ancestors?” What this means is looking at how the language of the Canaanite/Sinaitic people develop out of Egyptian ancestors by looking at the factors of culture, social relationships, power dynamic, and specific communication situations. This is because it’s obvious that early Proto-Sinaitic/Proto-Canaanite alphabet develop out of Egyptian ancestors. But what people usually don’t talk about is the social interactions that lead to this development, which is the most important detail when studying language development. Throughout this paper, I will give my own insights on the social context that resulted in this transformation. This will be done by analyzing different literature and literature reviews from anthropologists who had theorized about this social context and giving an interpretation of what each author is saying. Each article that is analyzed was going over archaeological findings from sites in the Sinai Peninsula of modern-day Egypt and modern-day coastal Syria and Israel/Palestine that relate to the Canaanite/Sinaitic alphabet, such as inscriptions on clay tablets and sphinxes. After analyzing each article, I realized that the different social contexts all have the same general feature. This was the use of multi-linguistic assimilated Canaanites, who had their native words for Egyptian ideas and took from other languages, either through trade, immigrants, or invaders, to develop proto-Canaanite/Sinaitic alphabet, by ancient Egypt to control the lands of Canaan, which took place at religious temples that served as centers of cultural and diplomatic meetings. And by doing this research, I hope to encourage others to look at the little steps of language development during the Bronze Age more extensively, because the development of the early Proto-Sinaitic/Proto-Canaanite alphabet out of Egyptian ancestors is more complex and detailed than one might realize.