_Zi_,
while a transport was entitled _qauil_, the Phoenician _gol_. The same
name was imported into Greek under the form of _gaulos_, and we are told
that it signified "a Phoenician vessel of rounded shape."

The language of Canaan was practically that which we call Hebrew. Indeed
Isaiah (xix. 18) speaks of the two dialects as identical, and the
so-called Phoenician inscriptions that have been preserved to us show
that the differences between them were hardly appreciable. There were
differences, however; the Hebrew definite article, for instance, is not
found in the Phoenician texts. But the differences are dialectal only,
like the differences which the discovery of the Moabite Stone has shown
to have existed between the languages of Moab and Israel.

How the Israelites came to adopt "the language of Canaan" is a question
into which we cannot here enter. There have been other examples of
conquerors who have abandoned the language of their forefathers and
adopted that of the conquered people. And it must be remembered, on the
one hand, that the ancestors of Israel had lived in Canaan, where they
would have learnt the language of the country, and, on the other hand,
that their original tongue was itself a Semitic form of speech, as
closely related to Hebrew as French or Spanish is to Italian.

The Tel el-Amarna tablets have told us something about the language of
Canaan as it was spoken before the days when the Israelites entered the
land. Some of the letters that were sent from Palestine contain the
Canaanite equivalents of certain Babylonian words that occur in them.
Like the Babylonian words, they are written in cuneiform characters, and
since these denote syllables and not mere letters we know exactly how
the words were pronounced. It is an advantage which is denied us by the
Phoenician alphabet, whether in the inscriptions of Phoenicia or in the
pages of the Old Testament, and we can thus obtain a better idea of the
pronunciation of the Canaanitish language in the century before the
Exodus than we can of the Hebrew language in the age of Hezekiah.

Among the words which have been handed down to us by the correspondents
of the Pharaoh are _maqani_ "cattle," _anay_ "a ship," _susi_ "a horse,"
of which the Hebrew equivalents, according to the Masoretic punctuation,
are _miqneh_, _oni_, and _sus_. The king of Jerusalem says _anuki_, "I,"
the Hebrew _anochi_, while _badiu_, the Hebrew _b'yado_, and _akharunu_,
the Heb