Amorite is an extinct early Semitic language, formerly spoken during the Bronze Age by the Amorite tribes prominent in ancient Near Eastern history.
It is known from Ugaritic, which is classed by some as its westernmost dialect,[1][2][3] and from non-Akkadian proper names recorded by Akkadian scribes during periods of Amorite rule in Babylonia (the end of the 3rd and the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC), notably from Mari and to a lesser extent Alalakh, Tell Harmal and Khafajah.
Occasionally, such names are also found in early Egyptian texts; and one place name, "Sənīr" (שְׂנִיר) for Mount Hermon, is known from the Bible (Book of Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy 3:9).
[1] Amorite is considered an archaic Northwest Semitic language.
[4] The text, in the Amorite/Canaanite languages, bears a recognizable similarity to Hebrew, and demonstrates that a spoken language very close to Hebrew existed by the second millennium BCE, rather than the first millennium BCE.