A CANAANITE-LANGUAGE DISCUSSION LIST is being launched by Yitzhak Sapir:

Dear all,

I would like to invite you all to a new discussion list that I created -- Canaanite! This discussion list will concentrate on the Canaanite family of languages, which for the purposes of the list includes Phoenician, Punic Neo-Punic, Ugaritic, all varieties of ancient Hebrew (even Mishnaic and Late Samaritan Hebrew), but not Modern Hebrew, and other attested 1st and 2nd millennium Canaanite dialects, including Amarna Canaanite, Ammonite, etc. I suppose that a major topic of discussion -- if the list takes off -- would be Biblical Hebrew, as would academically oriented discussions of Biblical passages. However, I really hope that similar discussions of Ugaritic or Phoenician would also take place. Thus, the recent discussions on ANE-2, where Phoenician ZYB vs Hebrew ZW or where Ugaritic vs Hebrew RP? were discussed would really have benefited from more expert input from scholars in those fields. This list would also form an important needed discussion list of one major subfamily of Northwest Semitic -- the other being covered by the Aramaic list.

So like I said, I invite everyone to join! You can do so with this link:

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/canaanite/join

Also, if any scholars in relevant fields would like to take part in moderation of the list, and feel they have the time and resources to do so, please feel free to contact me privately in that regard.

Best,
Yitzhak Sapir
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/canaanite

(From the Aramaic list.)