Etymology. The English term "Canaan" (pronounced / ˈ k eɪ n ən / since c. 1500, due to the Great Vowel Shift) comes from the Hebrew כנען (knʿn), via the Koine Greek Χανααν Khanaan and the Latin Canaan.It appears as ???????????????????? (KUR ki-na-aḫ-na) in the Amarna letters (14th century BC), and "knʿn" is found on coins from Phoenicia in the last half of the 1st millennium.