Hi boys,

I'm a Lebanese American woman of Maronite stock. My great grandfather, who was born about 1890 always referred to himself as a Syrian, though my grandmother said her father was from the Lebanese province or Hardeen, if that's how it's spelled. From him my grandmother and her brothers learned to understand, but not speak, a language she assumed was Arabic, but lately on the net I've been reading that the majority of Lebanese aren't Arabs, but Canaanites. Now, I knew about the Phoenicians, but I assumed they went that they went the way of all flesh long ago and had been supplanted by the Arabs, who dominate everywhere from Morocco to Iraq. I know the Biblical Canaanites were the original, um, earlier, inhabitants of the eastern Mediterranean coast and that the Hebrews never quite managed to exterminate them as their Lord commanded, but how is it that they (we) survive to the present day. Obviously the Canaanites are close cousins to other Middle Eastern people, and have intermarried and intermingled their blood to some extent, but please tell me if you know more, or can direct me to a good site.

Thanks,

Merkin

as far as i know the hebrew did not replace the original inhabitants of plaestine and lebanon, the hebrew own the war at ain jalut and the rest of the cananet population kept living there and by time they became christians then became muslims after the islamic conquests,

the arab thing happened later when one of the Umayyads Caliph made arabic as the official languge of the Caliphate.

so basicly most of the non-arab became arabised more than 1000 years ago.

in some places in syria people kept speaking their original language which is Aramaic. a sister language of Arabic and hebrew.

other languges iam not sure if they are still there or not.

i dont remember we had any topic about Canaanites.

but the below thread is about arabic language becomming official language of the empire.

http://www.allempires.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=10931&PN=1 - http://www.allempires.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=10931&am p;PN=1

and this one is about ancient Arabs and their distributiion before islam.

http://www.allempires.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=11251&PN=1 - http://www.allempires.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=11251&am p;PN=1

well yea the ones who did not convert and kept their religion were allowed to speak it in their churches, while the ones who decided to convert didnt see a reason why keeping their languages.