Of particular interest to language students is the fact that the Amarna
Letters frequently contain Canaanite words or expressions which are
inserted to clarify the meaning of the Akkadian text, which was a
foreign language to the scribe. These glosses are our earliest examples
of the language which became Biblical Hebrew. While the language of
Laban, and that branch of Abraham's family which settled in northern
Mesopotamia, was Aramaic (cf. Gen. 31:47 where Laban uses an Aramaic
name), the Patriarchs who entered Canaan came to speak "the language of
Canaan" (cf. Isa. 19:18) which became the classical language of the Old
Testament. The cuneiform syllabary in which the Amarna texts were
written indicates vowel sounds which are not expressed in the alphabetic
Hebrew script. In this way philologists are able to reconstruct some of
the sounds of the ancient language.