Canaan

Canaan ( – Kənáʿan, in pausa – Kənā́ʿan), according to the Book of Genesis in the Hebrew Bible, was a son of Ham and grandson of Noah, as well as the father of the Canaanites. Etymology The English term Canaan (pronounced since c. AD 1500, due to the Great Vowel Shift) comes from the Hebrew (knʿn), via Greek Khanaan and Latin . It appears as in the Amarna letters (14th century BC), and is found on coins from Phoenicia in the last half of the 1st millennium. It first occurs in Greek in the writings of Hecataeus as Khna(Χνᾶ). Scholars connect the name Canaan with , Kana'an, the general Northwest Semitic name for this region. The etymology is uncertain. One explanation is that it has an original meaning of "lowlands", from a Semitic root "to be low, humble, depressed", in contrast with Aram, "highlands". An alternative suggestion derives the term from Hurrian Kinahhu, purportedly referring to the colour purple, so that Canaan and Phoenicia would be synonyms ("Land of Purple"), but it is just as common to assume that Kinahhu was simply the Hurrian rendition of the Semitic . Descendants of Canaan