Phoenician languages
Encyclopedia
Phoenician was a language originally spoken in the coastal (Mediterranean) region then called "Canaan
" in Phoenician, Arabic
, Hebrew
, and Aramaic, "Phoenicia
" in Greek
and Latin
, and "Pūt" in Ancient Egyptian. Phoenician is a Semitic language
of the Canaanite
subgroup; its closest living relative is Hebrew
, to which it is very similar; then Aramaic
, then Arabic
. The area where Phoenician was spoken includes modern-day Lebanon
, coastal Syria
, Palestine
, northern Israel
(as well as parts of Cyprus
– along with Greek
– and, at least as a prestige language, in some adjacent areas of Anatolia
). It was also spoken in the area of Phoenician colonization along the coasts of the South-Western Mediterranean, including, notably, those of modern Tunisia
and Algeria
, as well as Malta
, the west of Sicily
, Sardinia
, Corsica
and southernmost Spain
.
Phoenician is currently known only from brief and unvaried inscriptions of official and religious character and occasional glosses in books written in other languages; Roman authors such as Sallust
allude to some books written in Punic, but none have survived except occasionally in translation (e.g., Mago's treatise) or in snippets (e.g., in Plautus
' plays). The Cippi of Melqart
, discovered in Malta
in 1694, were inscribed in two languages, Ancient Greek and Carthaginian. This made it possible for French scholar Abbé Barthelemy
to decipher and reconstruct the Carthaginian alphabet. Further, since a trade agreement was found in 1964 written between the Etruscans and a group of Phoenicians, more Etruscan has been deciphered.
(consonantary) originating from the Proto-Canaanite script
that also became the basis for the Greek
and hence the Latin alphabet
s. The Western Mediterranean (Punic) area form of the script gradually developed somewhat different and more cursive letter shapes; in the 3rd century AD, it also began to exhibit a tendency to mark the presence of vowels, especially final vowels, with an aleph
or sometimes an ayin
. Furthermore, around the time of the Second Punic War
, an even more cursive form began to develop and it gave rise to a variety referred to as Neo-Punic, which existed alongside the more conservative form and became predominant some time after the destruction of Carthage
(146 BC). Neo-Punic in turn tended to designate vowels with matres lectionis more frequently than the previous systems had and also began to systematically use different letters for different vowels, in the way explained in more detail in the next section. Finally, a number of late inscriptions from El-Hofra (Constantine), in the 1st century BC, make use of the Greek alphabet to write Punic, and many inscriptions from Tripolitania
, in the third and fourth centuries AD, use the Latin alphabet for that purpose.
In Phoenician writing, unlike that of most later abjads such as those of Aramaic, Biblical Hebrew and Arabic, even long vowels remained generally unexpressed, and that regardless of their origin. Eventually Punic writers did begin to implement systems of marking of vowels by means of consonantal letters (matres lectionis): first, beginning in the third century BC, there appeared the practice of using final to mark the presence of any final vowel and, occasionally, of y to mark a final long [iː]. Later, mostly after the destruction of Carthage, in the so-called "Neo-Punic" inscriptions, this was supplemented by a system in which w denoted [u], y denoted [i], denoted [e] and [o], denoted [a] and h and could also be used to signify [a]. This latter system was used first with foreign words and was then extended to many native words as well. A third practice reported in the literature is the use of the consonantal letters for vowels in the same way as that had occurred in the original adaptation of the Phoenician alphabet to Greek and Latin, which was apparently still transparent to Punic writers: i.e. h for [e] and for [a]. Later, Punic inscriptions began to be written in the Latin alphabet, which also indicated the vowels. These later inscriptions, in addition with some inscriptions in Greek letters and transcriptions of Phoenician names into other languages, represent the main source for Phoenician vowels.
) distinguishes the consonants conventionally transcribed as follows:
Laryngeals: ,
Pharyngeals: ,
Velar stops: , ,
Dental stops: , ,
Labial stops: ,
Sibilants: , , ,
Liquids: ,
Nasals: ,
Approximants: ,
The original value of the Proto-Semitic sibilants, and accordingly of their Phoenician counterparts, is disputed, with many scholars arguing that was [s], was [ts], was [dz] and was [tsʼ], while others stick to the traditional sound values of [ʃ], [s], [z] and [sˤ] as reflected in the transcription.
The system reflected in the abjad above is the product of several mergers. From Proto-Northwest Semitic to Canaanite, and have merged into , and have merged into , and , and have merged into . Next, from Canaanite to Phoenician, the sibilants and were merged as , and were merged as , and } and } were merged as }. These latter developments also occurred in Biblical Hebrew at one point or another.
On the other hand, it is debated whether šin and samekh, which are mostly well distinguished by the Phoenician orthography, also eventually merged at some point, either in Classical Phoenician or in Late Punic. In later Punic, the laryngeals and pharyngeals seem to have been entirely lost. Neither these nor the emphatics could be adequately represented by the Latin alphabet, but there is also evidence to that effect from Punic script transcriptions..
There is no consensus on whether Phoenician-Punic ever underwent the plosive consonantal lenition
process that most other Northwest Semitic languages (such as Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic) did (cf. Hackett vs Segert and Lyavdansky) The consonant /p/ may have been generally transformed into /f/ in Punic, as it was in Proto-Arabic. Certainly Latin-script renditions of late Punic include many "spirantized" transcriptions with ph, th and kh in various positions – although the interpretation of these spellings is not entirely clear – as well as the letter f for original *p.
The most conspicuous vocalic development in Phoenician is the so-called Canaanite shift, which is partly shared by Biblical Hebrew but has gone much further than in it: thus, Proto-Northwest Semitic /aː/ and /aw/ became not merely /oː/ as in Tiberian Hebrew
, but /uː/. Stressed Proto-Semitic /a/, which rendered Tiberian Hebrew /aː/, became /oː/. The shift is proved by Latin and Greek transcriptions like rūs for "head, cape" (Tiberian Hebrew rōš, ראש), samō for "he heard" (Tiberian Hebrew šāmāʻ, שמע); similarly the word for "eternity" is known from Greek transcriptions to have been ʻūlōm, corresponding to Biblical Hebrew ʻōlām and Proto-Semitic ʻālam. The letter Y used for words such as ys "which" and yth (definite accusative marker) in Greek and Latin alphabet inscriptions can be interpreted as denoting a reduced schwa
vowel that occurred in pre-stress syllables in verbs and two syllables before stress in nouns and adjectives, while other instances of Y as in chyl and even chil for /kull/ "all" in Poenulus
can be interpreted as a further stage in the vowel shift resulting in fronting ([y]) and even subsequent delabialization of /u/ and /uː/. Short /*i/ in originally open syllables was lowered to [e] and was also lengthened if accented.
as well. While many of the endings coalesce in the standard orthography, inscriptions in the Latin and Greek alphabet permit the reconstruction of the noun endings (which are also the adjective endings) as follows:
Masculine: absolute singular -∅, dual /-ēm/ m, plural /-īm/ m
construct singular -∅, dual /-ē/ ∅, plural /-ē/ ∅
Feminine: absolute singular /-(o)t/ t, dual /-tēm/ tm, plural /-ūt/ t
construct singular /-(o)t/ t, dual } tn?, plural /-ūt/ t
In late Punic, the final /-t/ of the feminine was apparently dropped: "son of the queen" or "brother of the queen" rendered in Latin as HIMILCO. /n/ was also assimilated to following consonants: e.g. "year" for earlier .
The case endings in general must have been lost between the 9th c. BCE and the 7th c. BCE: e.g. the personal name rendered in Akkadian
as ma-ti-nu-ba-a-li "Gift of Baal
", with the case endings -u and -i, was written ma-ta-an-baa-al two centuries later. However, we do find evidence of a retention of the genitive case in the form of the first singular possessive suffix: /abiya/ "of my father" vs /abī/ "my father".
The written forms and the reconstructed pronunciations of the personal pronouns are as follows:
Singular:
1st: // (Punic sometimes ), also attested as //
2nd masc. //
2nd fem. //
3rd masc. // , also [] (?) and //
3rd fem. //
Plural:
1st: //
2nd masc. unattested
2nd fem. unattested
3rd masc. // ,
3rd fem. //
Enclitic personal pronouns are added to nouns (to encode possession) and to prepositions, as shown below for "standard Phoenician" (the predominant dialect, as distinct from the Byblian
and late Punic varieties). They appear in a slightly different form depending on whether they follow the plural form masculine nouns (and therefore are added after a vowel) or not. The former case is given in brackets with the abbreviation a.V..
Singular:
1st: // , also (a.V. // )
2nd masc. //
2nd fem. //
3rd masc. // , Punic , (a.V. // )
3rd fem. // , Punic (a.V. // )
Plural:
1st: /n}}/
2nd masc. unattested
2nd fem. unattested
3rd masc. // (a.V. // )
3rd fem. // (a.V. // )
In addition, according to some research, the same written forms of the enclitics that are attested after vowels are also found after a singular noun in what must have been the genitive case (which ended in /-i/, whereas the plural version ended in /-ē/). In this case, their pronunciation can be reconstructed somewhat differently: 1st singular // , 3rd singular masculine and feminine // and // . The 3rd plural singular and feminine must have pronounced the same in both cases, i.e. // and // .
These enclitic forms vary between the dialects. In the archaic Byblian
dialect, the third person forms are h and w // for the maculine singular (a.V. w //), h // for the feminine singular and hm // for the masculine plural. In late Punic, the 3rd masculine singular is usually // .
The same enclitic pronouns are also attached to verbs to denote direct objects. In that function some of them have slightly divergent forms: first singular // and probably first plural //.
The near demonstrative pronouns ("this") are written, in standard Phoenician, z for the singular and for the plural. Cypriot Phoenician displays instead of z. Byblian still distinguishes, in the singular, a masculine / from a feminine / . There are also many variations in Punic, including st and zt for both genders in the singular. The far demonstrative pronouns ("that") are identical to the independent third person pronouns. The interrogative pronouns are /miya/ or perhaps /mi/ "who" and /mū/ "what". An indefinite pronoun "anything" is written mnm. The relative pronoun is a , either followed or preceded by a vowel.
The definite article was /ha-/ and the first consonant of the following word was doubled. It was written h, but in late Punic also and , due to the weakening and coalescence of the gutturals. Much as in Biblical Hebrew, the initial consonant of the article is dropped after the prepositions b-, l- and k; it could also be lost after various other particles and function words such the direct object marker and the conjunction w- "and".
Of the cardinal numerals from 1 to 10, 1 is an adjective, 2 is formally a noun in the dual and the rest are nouns in the singular. They distinguish gender: , (construct state ), , , , , , , , vs (, unattested, , , , , , unattested, unattested, . The tens are morphologically masculine plurals of the ones: ), , , , , , , . "One hundred" is , two hundred is its dual form , whereas the rest are formed as in (three hundred). One thousand is . Ordinal numerals are formed by the addition of *iy . Composite numerals are formed with w- "and", e.g. for "twelve".
The perfect or suffix-conjugation, which expresses the past tense, is exemplified below with the root q-t-l "to kill" (a "neutral", G-stem).
Singular:
1st: //
2nd masc. //
2nd fem. //
3rd masc. //
3rd fem. // , also , Punic
Plural:
1st: //
2nd masc. unattested
2nd fem. unattested
3rd masc. / , Punic
3rd fem. unattested
The imperfect or prefix-conjugation, which expresses the present and future tense (and which is not distinguishable from the descendant of the Proto-Semitic jussive expressing wishes), is exemplified below, again with the root q-t-l.
1st: //
2nd masc. //
2nd fem. //
3rd masc. //
3rd fem. //
Plural:
1st: *//?
2nd masc. // , Punic
2nd fem. //
3rd masc. /
3rd fem. unattested
The imperative endings were presumably /-∅/, and for the second singular masculine, second singular feminine and second plural masculine respectively, but all three forms surface in the orthography as , i.e. . The old Semitic jussive, which originally differed slightly from the prefix conjugation, is no longer possible to separate from it in Phoenician with the present data.
The non-finite forms are the infinitive construct, the infinitive absolute and the active and passive participles. In the G-stem, the infinitive construct would usually be combined with the preposition l- "to" as in "to kill"; in contrast, the infinitive absolute (qatōl) is mostly used to strengthen the meaning of a subsequent finite verb with the same root: "you will indeed open!", accordingly // "you will indeed kill!".
The participles had, in the G-stem, the following forms:
Active:
Masculine singular // or // , plural // or //
Feminine singular , plural }
Passive:
Masculine singular // or // , plural //
Feminine singular , plural //
The missing forms above can be inferred from the correspondences between the Proto-Northwest Semitic ancestral forms and the attested Phoenician counterparts: the PNWS participle forms are }.
The derived stems are:
Most of the stems apparently also had passive and reflexive counterparts, the former differing through vowels, the latter also through the infix -t-. The G stem passive is attested as qytl, < }.; t-stems can be reconstructed as /yitqatil/ ytqtl (tG) and /yiqtattil/ (Dt) yqttl.
Like the grammar, the vocabulary is very close to Biblical Hebrew, though some peculiarities attract attention. For example, the copula
verb "to be" is kn (as in Arabic, as opposed to Hebrew and Aramaic HYH) and the verb "to do" is pʿl (as in Aramaic pʿl and Arabic fʿl, as opposed to Hebrew 'ʿśh).
Transliteration:
Translation:
I, Tabnit, priest of Astarte
, king of Sidon
, the son of Eshmunazar, priest of Astarte, king of Sidon, am lying in this sarcophagus.
Whoever you are, any man that might find this sarcophagus,
don't, don't open it and don't disturb me,
for no silver is gathered with me, no gold is gathered with me, nor anything of value whatsoever,
only I am lying in this sarcophagus.
Don't, don't open it and don't disturb me,
for this thing is an abomination to Astarte.
And if you do indeed open it and do indeed disturb me,
may you not have any seed among the living under the sun,
nor a resting-place with the Rephaite
s.
Late Punic (1st century BC):
Greek alphabet text:
ΛΑΔΟΥΝ ΛΥΒΑΛ ΑΜΟΥΝ
ΟΥ ΛΥΡΥΒΑΘΩΝ ΘΙΝΙΘ ΦΑΝΕ ΒΑΛ
ΥΣ ΝΑΔΩΡ ΣΩΣΙΠΑΤΙΟΣ ΒΥΝ ΖΟΠΥΡΟΣ
ΣΑΜΩ ΚΟΥΛΩ ΒΑΡΑΧΩ
Reconstructed Neo-Punic script counterpart (by Igor Diakonoff):
Translation:
To the master Baal Hammon and
to our mistress Tanit
, the face of Baal
,
[the thing] which consecrated Sosipatius, son
of Zopyrus. He heard his voice and blessed him.
is known as Punic
; it remained in use there for considerably longer than Phoenician did in Phoenicia
itself, arguably surviving into Augustine
's time. It may have even survived the Arab
ic conquest of North Africa
: the geographer al-Bakrī describes a people speaking a language that was not Berber
, Latin
or Coptic
in the city of Sirte
in northern Libya
, a region where spoken Punic survived well past written use. However it is likely that Arabization of the Punics was facilitated by their language belonging to the same group (the Semitic languages
group) as that of the conquerors, and thus having many grammatical and lexical similarities.
The ancient Lybico-Berber alphabet still in irregular use by modern Berber groups such as the Tuareg is known by the native name tifinaġ
, possibly a derived form of a cognate of the name "Punic". Still, a direct derivation from the Phoenician-Punic script is debated and far from established, since both writing systems are very different. As far as language (not the script) is concerned, some borrowings from Punic appear in modern Berber dialects: one interesting example is agadir "wall" from Punic gader.
Perhaps the most interesting case of Punic influence is that of the name of Hispania
(the Iberian Peninsula
, comprising Portugal
and Spain
), which according to one theory among many derived from the Punic I-Shaphan meaning "coast of hyrax
es", in turn a misidentification on the part of Phoenician explorers of its numerous rabbit
s as hyraxes. Another case is the name of a tribe of hostile "hairy people" that Hanno the Navigator
found in the Gulf of Guinea
. The name given to these people by Hanno the Navigator
's interpreters was transmitted from Punic into Greek as gorillai and was applied in 1847 by Thomas S. Savage
to the Western Gorilla
.
Canaan
Canaan is a historical region roughly corresponding to modern-day Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, and the western parts of Jordan...
" in Phoenician, Arabic
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
, Hebrew
Hebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
, and Aramaic, "Phoenicia
Phoenicia
Phoenicia , was an ancient civilization in Canaan which covered most of the western, coastal part of the Fertile Crescent. Several major Phoenician cities were built on the coastline of the Mediterranean. It was an enterprising maritime trading culture that spread across the Mediterranean from 1550...
" in Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
and Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
, and "Pūt" in Ancient Egyptian. Phoenician is a Semitic language
Semitic languages
The Semitic languages are a group of related languages whose living representatives are spoken by more than 270 million people across much of the Middle East, North Africa and the Horn of Africa...
of the Canaanite
Canaanite languages
The Canaanite languages are a subfamily of the Semitic languages, which were spoken by the ancient peoples of the Canaan region, including Canaanites, Israelites and Phoenicians...
subgroup; its closest living relative is Hebrew
Hebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
, to which it is very similar; then Aramaic
Aramaic language
Aramaic is a group of languages belonging to the Afroasiatic language phylum. The name of the language is based on the name of Aram, an ancient region in central Syria. Within this family, Aramaic belongs to the Semitic family, and more specifically, is a part of the Northwest Semitic subfamily,...
, then Arabic
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
. The area where Phoenician was spoken includes modern-day Lebanon
Lebanon
Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...
, coastal Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
, Palestine
Palestine
Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....
, northern Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
(as well as parts of Cyprus
Cyprus
Cyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is a Eurasian island country, member of the European Union, in the Eastern Mediterranean, east of Greece, south of Turkey, west of Syria and north of Egypt. It is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea.The earliest known human activity on the...
– along with Greek
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...
– and, at least as a prestige language, in some adjacent areas of Anatolia
Anatolia
Anatolia is a geographic and historical term denoting the westernmost protrusion of Asia, comprising the majority of the Republic of Turkey...
). It was also spoken in the area of Phoenician colonization along the coasts of the South-Western Mediterranean, including, notably, those of modern Tunisia
Tunisia
Tunisia , officially the Tunisian RepublicThe long name of Tunisia in other languages used in the country is: , is the northernmost country in Africa. It is a Maghreb country and is bordered by Algeria to the west, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Its area...
and Algeria
Algeria
Algeria , officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria , also formally referred to as the Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of Northwest Africa with Algiers as its capital.In terms of land area, it is the largest country in Africa and the Arab...
, as well as Malta
Malta
Malta , officially known as the Republic of Malta , is a Southern European country consisting of an archipelago situated in the centre of the Mediterranean, south of Sicily, east of Tunisia and north of Libya, with Gibraltar to the west and Alexandria to the east.Malta covers just over in...
, the west of Sicily
Sicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...
, Sardinia
Sardinia
Sardinia is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea . It is an autonomous region of Italy, and the nearest land masses are the French island of Corsica, the Italian Peninsula, Sicily, Tunisia and the Spanish Balearic Islands.The name Sardinia is from the pre-Roman noun *sard[],...
, Corsica
Corsica
Corsica is an island in the Mediterranean Sea. It is located west of Italy, southeast of the French mainland, and north of the island of Sardinia....
and southernmost Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
.
Phoenician is currently known only from brief and unvaried inscriptions of official and religious character and occasional glosses in books written in other languages; Roman authors such as Sallust
Sallust
Gaius Sallustius Crispus, generally known simply as Sallust , a Roman historian, belonged to a well-known plebeian family, and was born at Amiternum in the country of the Sabines...
allude to some books written in Punic, but none have survived except occasionally in translation (e.g., Mago's treatise) or in snippets (e.g., in Plautus
Plautus
Titus Maccius Plautus , commonly known as "Plautus", was a Roman playwright of the Old Latin period. His comedies are the earliest surviving intact works in Latin literature. He wrote Palliata comoedia, the genre devised by the innovator of Latin literature, Livius Andronicus...
' plays). The Cippi of Melqart
Cippi of Melqart
The Cippi of Melqart is the collective name for two white marble cippi that were unearthed at Tas-Silġ, Marsaxlokk, Malta by the Knights Hospitaller in the late 17th century...
, discovered in Malta
Malta
Malta , officially known as the Republic of Malta , is a Southern European country consisting of an archipelago situated in the centre of the Mediterranean, south of Sicily, east of Tunisia and north of Libya, with Gibraltar to the west and Alexandria to the east.Malta covers just over in...
in 1694, were inscribed in two languages, Ancient Greek and Carthaginian. This made it possible for French scholar Abbé Barthelemy
Jean-Jacques Barthélemy
Jean-Jacques Barthélemy was a French writer and numismatist.-Early life:Barthélemy was born at Cassis, in Provence, and began his classical studies at the College of Oratory in Marseilles. He took up philosophy and theology at the Jesuits' college, and finally attended the seminary of the Lazarists...
to decipher and reconstruct the Carthaginian alphabet. Further, since a trade agreement was found in 1964 written between the Etruscans and a group of Phoenicians, more Etruscan has been deciphered.
Writing system
Phoenician was written with the Phoenician script, an abjadAbjad
An abjad is a type of writing system in which each symbol always or usually stands for a consonant; the reader must supply the appropriate vowel....
(consonantary) originating from the Proto-Canaanite script
Proto-Canaanite alphabet
Proto-Canaanite is the name given to the Proto-Sinaitic script when found in Canaan. the early Phoenician script before some cut-off date, typically 1050 BCE. The Phoenician, Hebrew, and other Canaanite dialects were largely indistinguishable before that time...
that also became the basis for the Greek
Greek alphabet
The Greek alphabet is the script that has been used to write the Greek language since at least 730 BC . The alphabet in its classical and modern form consists of 24 letters ordered in sequence from alpha to omega...
and hence the Latin alphabet
Latin alphabet
The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most recognized alphabet used in the world today. It evolved from a western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumaean alphabet, which was adopted and modified by the Etruscans who ruled early Rome...
s. The Western Mediterranean (Punic) area form of the script gradually developed somewhat different and more cursive letter shapes; in the 3rd century AD, it also began to exhibit a tendency to mark the presence of vowels, especially final vowels, with an aleph
Aleph
* Aleph or Alef is the first letter of the Semitic abjads descended from Proto-Canaanite, Arabic alphabet, Phoenician alphabet, Hebrew alphabet, Syriac alphabet-People:*Aleph , an Italo disco artist and alias of Dave Rodgers...
or sometimes an ayin
Ayin
' or ' is the sixteenth letter in many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew and Arabic . It is the twenty-first letter in the new Persian alphabet...
. Furthermore, around the time of the Second Punic War
Second Punic War
The Second Punic War, also referred to as The Hannibalic War and The War Against Hannibal, lasted from 218 to 201 BC and involved combatants in the western and eastern Mediterranean. This was the second major war between Carthage and the Roman Republic, with the participation of the Berbers on...
, an even more cursive form began to develop and it gave rise to a variety referred to as Neo-Punic, which existed alongside the more conservative form and became predominant some time after the destruction of Carthage
Battle of Carthage (c.149 BC)
The Battle of Carthage was the major act of the Third Punic War between the Phoenician city of Carthage in Africa and the Roman Republic...
(146 BC). Neo-Punic in turn tended to designate vowels with matres lectionis more frequently than the previous systems had and also began to systematically use different letters for different vowels, in the way explained in more detail in the next section. Finally, a number of late inscriptions from El-Hofra (Constantine), in the 1st century BC, make use of the Greek alphabet to write Punic, and many inscriptions from Tripolitania
Tripolitania
Tripolitania or Tripolitana is a historic region and former province of Libya.Tripolitania was a separate Italian colony from 1927 to 1934...
, in the third and fourth centuries AD, use the Latin alphabet for that purpose.
In Phoenician writing, unlike that of most later abjads such as those of Aramaic, Biblical Hebrew and Arabic, even long vowels remained generally unexpressed, and that regardless of their origin. Eventually Punic writers did begin to implement systems of marking of vowels by means of consonantal letters (matres lectionis): first, beginning in the third century BC, there appeared the practice of using final to mark the presence of any final vowel and, occasionally, of y to mark a final long [iː]. Later, mostly after the destruction of Carthage, in the so-called "Neo-Punic" inscriptions, this was supplemented by a system in which w denoted [u], y denoted [i], denoted [e] and [o], denoted [a] and h and could also be used to signify [a]. This latter system was used first with foreign words and was then extended to many native words as well. A third practice reported in the literature is the use of the consonantal letters for vowels in the same way as that had occurred in the original adaptation of the Phoenician alphabet to Greek and Latin, which was apparently still transparent to Punic writers: i.e. h for [e] and for [a]. Later, Punic inscriptions began to be written in the Latin alphabet, which also indicated the vowels. These later inscriptions, in addition with some inscriptions in Greek letters and transcriptions of Phoenician names into other languages, represent the main source for Phoenician vowels.
Consonants
The Phoenician orthography (see Phoenician alphabetPhoenician alphabet
The Phoenician alphabet, called by convention the Proto-Canaanite alphabet for inscriptions older than around 1050 BC, was a non-pictographic consonantal alphabet, or abjad. It was used for the writing of Phoenician, a Northern Semitic language, used by the civilization of Phoenicia...
) distinguishes the consonants conventionally transcribed as follows:
Laryngeals: ,
Pharyngeals: ,
Velar stops: , ,
Dental stops: , ,
Labial stops: ,
Sibilants: , , ,
Liquids: ,
Nasals: ,
Approximants: ,
The original value of the Proto-Semitic sibilants, and accordingly of their Phoenician counterparts, is disputed, with many scholars arguing that was [s], was [ts], was [dz] and was [tsʼ], while others stick to the traditional sound values of [ʃ], [s], [z] and [sˤ] as reflected in the transcription.
The system reflected in the abjad above is the product of several mergers. From Proto-Northwest Semitic to Canaanite, and have merged into , and have merged into , and , and have merged into . Next, from Canaanite to Phoenician, the sibilants and were merged as , and were merged as , and } and } were merged as }. These latter developments also occurred in Biblical Hebrew at one point or another.
On the other hand, it is debated whether šin and samekh, which are mostly well distinguished by the Phoenician orthography, also eventually merged at some point, either in Classical Phoenician or in Late Punic. In later Punic, the laryngeals and pharyngeals seem to have been entirely lost. Neither these nor the emphatics could be adequately represented by the Latin alphabet, but there is also evidence to that effect from Punic script transcriptions..
There is no consensus on whether Phoenician-Punic ever underwent the plosive consonantal lenition
Lenition
In linguistics, lenition is a kind of sound change that alters consonants, making them "weaker" in some way. The word lenition itself means "softening" or "weakening" . Lenition can happen both synchronically and diachronically...
process that most other Northwest Semitic languages (such as Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic) did (cf. Hackett vs Segert and Lyavdansky) The consonant /p/ may have been generally transformed into /f/ in Punic, as it was in Proto-Arabic. Certainly Latin-script renditions of late Punic include many "spirantized" transcriptions with ph, th and kh in various positions – although the interpretation of these spellings is not entirely clear – as well as the letter f for original *p.
Vowels
Our knowledge of the vowel system is very imperfect because of the characteristics of the writing system, which were explained above; during most of its existence, Phoenician writing didn't express any vowels at all, and even as vowel notation systems did eventually arise late in its history, they never came to be applied consistently to the native word stock. It is thought that Phoenician had the short vowels /a/, /i/, /u/ and the long vowels /aː/, /iː/, /uː/, /eː/, /oː/. The Proto-Semitic diphthongs /aj/ and /aw/ are realized as /eː/ and /oː/; this must have happened earlier than in Biblical Hebrew, because the resultant long vowels are not marked with the semi-vowel letters (bēt "house" was written bt in contrast to Biblical Hebrew byt).The most conspicuous vocalic development in Phoenician is the so-called Canaanite shift, which is partly shared by Biblical Hebrew but has gone much further than in it: thus, Proto-Northwest Semitic /aː/ and /aw/ became not merely /oː/ as in Tiberian Hebrew
Tiberian Hebrew
Tiberian Hebrew is the extinct canonical pronunciation of the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh and related documents in the Roman Empire. This traditional medieval pronunciation was committed to writing by Masoretic scholars based in the Jewish community of Tiberias , in the form of the Tiberian vocalization...
, but /uː/. Stressed Proto-Semitic /a/, which rendered Tiberian Hebrew /aː/, became /oː/. The shift is proved by Latin and Greek transcriptions like rūs for "head, cape" (Tiberian Hebrew rōš, ראש), samō for "he heard" (Tiberian Hebrew šāmāʻ, שמע); similarly the word for "eternity" is known from Greek transcriptions to have been ʻūlōm, corresponding to Biblical Hebrew ʻōlām and Proto-Semitic ʻālam. The letter Y used for words such as ys "which" and yth (definite accusative marker) in Greek and Latin alphabet inscriptions can be interpreted as denoting a reduced schwa
Schwa
In linguistics, specifically phonetics and phonology, schwa can mean the following:*An unstressed and toneless neutral vowel sound in some languages, often but not necessarily a mid-central vowel...
vowel that occurred in pre-stress syllables in verbs and two syllables before stress in nouns and adjectives, while other instances of Y as in chyl and even chil for /kull/ "all" in Poenulus
Poenulus
Poenulus, also called The Little Carthaginian or The Puny Punic, is a Latin comedic play for the early Roman theatre by Titus Maccius Plautus. The play is noteworthy for containing text in Carthaginian Punic, spoken by the character Hanno in the fifth act.-Plot:Agorastocles is in love with...
can be interpreted as a further stage in the vowel shift resulting in fronting ([y]) and even subsequent delabialization of /u/ and /uː/. Short /*i/ in originally open syllables was lowered to [e] and was also lengthened if accented.
Suprasegmentals
Judging from stress-dependent vowel changes, stress was probably mostly final, as in Biblical Hebrew. Long vowels probably only occurred in open syllables.Grammar
As is typical for the Semitic languages, Phoenician words are usually built around triconsonantal roots and vowel changes are used extensively to express morphological distinctions.Nominal morphology
Nouns are marked for gender (masculine and feminine), number (singular, plural and vestiges of the dual) and state (absolute and construct, the latter characterizing nouns followed by their possessors) and also have the category definiteness. There is some evidence for remains of the Proto Semitic genitive grammatical caseGrammatical case
In grammar, the case of a noun or pronoun is an inflectional form that indicates its grammatical function in a phrase, clause, or sentence. For example, a pronoun may play the role of subject , of direct object , or of possessor...
as well. While many of the endings coalesce in the standard orthography, inscriptions in the Latin and Greek alphabet permit the reconstruction of the noun endings (which are also the adjective endings) as follows:
Masculine: absolute singular -∅, dual /-ēm/ m, plural /-īm/ m
construct singular -∅, dual /-ē/ ∅, plural /-ē/ ∅
Feminine: absolute singular /-(o)t/ t, dual /-tēm/ tm, plural /-ūt/ t
construct singular /-(o)t/ t, dual } tn?, plural /-ūt/ t
In late Punic, the final /-t/ of the feminine was apparently dropped: "son of the queen" or "brother of the queen" rendered in Latin as HIMILCO. /n/ was also assimilated to following consonants: e.g. "year" for earlier .
The case endings in general must have been lost between the 9th c. BCE and the 7th c. BCE: e.g. the personal name rendered in Akkadian
Akkadian language
Akkadian is an extinct Semitic language that was spoken in ancient Mesopotamia. The earliest attested Semitic language, it used the cuneiform writing system derived ultimately from ancient Sumerian, an unrelated language isolate...
as ma-ti-nu-ba-a-li "Gift of Baal
Baal
Baʿal is a Northwest Semitic title and honorific meaning "master" or "lord" that is used for various gods who were patrons of cities in the Levant and Asia Minor, cognate to Akkadian Bēlu...
", with the case endings -u and -i, was written ma-ta-an-baa-al two centuries later. However, we do find evidence of a retention of the genitive case in the form of the first singular possessive suffix: /abiya/ "of my father" vs /abī/ "my father".
The written forms and the reconstructed pronunciations of the personal pronouns are as follows:
Singular:
1st: // (Punic sometimes ), also attested as //
2nd masc. //
2nd fem. //
3rd masc. // , also [] (?) and //
3rd fem. //
Plural:
1st: //
2nd masc. unattested
2nd fem. unattested
3rd masc. // ,
3rd fem. //
Enclitic personal pronouns are added to nouns (to encode possession) and to prepositions, as shown below for "standard Phoenician" (the predominant dialect, as distinct from the Byblian
Byblos
Byblos is the Greek name of the Phoenician city Gebal . It is a Mediterranean city in the Mount Lebanon Governorate of present-day Lebanon under the current Arabic name of Jubayl and was also referred to as Gibelet during the Crusades...
and late Punic varieties). They appear in a slightly different form depending on whether they follow the plural form masculine nouns (and therefore are added after a vowel) or not. The former case is given in brackets with the abbreviation a.V..
Singular:
1st: // , also (a.V. // )
2nd masc. //
2nd fem. //
3rd masc. // , Punic , (a.V. // )
3rd fem. // , Punic (a.V. // )
Plural:
1st: /n}}/
2nd masc. unattested
2nd fem. unattested
3rd masc. // (a.V. // )
3rd fem. // (a.V. // )
In addition, according to some research, the same written forms of the enclitics that are attested after vowels are also found after a singular noun in what must have been the genitive case (which ended in /-i/, whereas the plural version ended in /-ē/). In this case, their pronunciation can be reconstructed somewhat differently: 1st singular // , 3rd singular masculine and feminine // and // . The 3rd plural singular and feminine must have pronounced the same in both cases, i.e. // and // .
These enclitic forms vary between the dialects. In the archaic Byblian
Byblos
Byblos is the Greek name of the Phoenician city Gebal . It is a Mediterranean city in the Mount Lebanon Governorate of present-day Lebanon under the current Arabic name of Jubayl and was also referred to as Gibelet during the Crusades...
dialect, the third person forms are h and w // for the maculine singular (a.V. w //), h // for the feminine singular and hm // for the masculine plural. In late Punic, the 3rd masculine singular is usually // .
The same enclitic pronouns are also attached to verbs to denote direct objects. In that function some of them have slightly divergent forms: first singular // and probably first plural //.
The near demonstrative pronouns ("this") are written, in standard Phoenician, z for the singular and for the plural. Cypriot Phoenician displays instead of z. Byblian still distinguishes, in the singular, a masculine / from a feminine / . There are also many variations in Punic, including st and zt for both genders in the singular. The far demonstrative pronouns ("that") are identical to the independent third person pronouns. The interrogative pronouns are /miya/ or perhaps /mi/ "who" and /mū/ "what". An indefinite pronoun "anything" is written mnm. The relative pronoun is a , either followed or preceded by a vowel.
The definite article was /ha-/ and the first consonant of the following word was doubled. It was written h, but in late Punic also and , due to the weakening and coalescence of the gutturals. Much as in Biblical Hebrew, the initial consonant of the article is dropped after the prepositions b-, l- and k; it could also be lost after various other particles and function words such the direct object marker and the conjunction w- "and".
Of the cardinal numerals from 1 to 10, 1 is an adjective, 2 is formally a noun in the dual and the rest are nouns in the singular. They distinguish gender: , (construct state ), , , , , , , , vs (, unattested, , , , , , unattested, unattested, . The tens are morphologically masculine plurals of the ones: ), , , , , , , . "One hundred" is , two hundred is its dual form , whereas the rest are formed as in (three hundred). One thousand is . Ordinal numerals are formed by the addition of *iy . Composite numerals are formed with w- "and", e.g. for "twelve".
Verbal morphology
The verb inflects for person, number, gender, tense and mood. Like other Semitic languages, Phoenician verbs have different "verbal patterns" or "stems", expressing manner of action, level of transitivity and voice.The perfect or suffix-conjugation, which expresses the past tense, is exemplified below with the root q-t-l "to kill" (a "neutral", G-stem).
Singular:
1st: //
2nd masc. //
2nd fem. //
3rd masc. //
3rd fem. // , also , Punic
Plural:
1st: //
2nd masc. unattested
2nd fem. unattested
3rd masc. / , Punic
3rd fem. unattested
The imperfect or prefix-conjugation, which expresses the present and future tense (and which is not distinguishable from the descendant of the Proto-Semitic jussive expressing wishes), is exemplified below, again with the root q-t-l.
1st: //
2nd masc. //
2nd fem. //
3rd masc. //
3rd fem. //
Plural:
1st: *//?
2nd masc. // , Punic
2nd fem. //
3rd masc. /
3rd fem. unattested
The imperative endings were presumably /-∅/, and for the second singular masculine, second singular feminine and second plural masculine respectively, but all three forms surface in the orthography as , i.e. . The old Semitic jussive, which originally differed slightly from the prefix conjugation, is no longer possible to separate from it in Phoenician with the present data.
The non-finite forms are the infinitive construct, the infinitive absolute and the active and passive participles. In the G-stem, the infinitive construct would usually be combined with the preposition l- "to" as in "to kill"; in contrast, the infinitive absolute (qatōl) is mostly used to strengthen the meaning of a subsequent finite verb with the same root: "you will indeed open!", accordingly // "you will indeed kill!".
The participles had, in the G-stem, the following forms:
Active:
Masculine singular // or // , plural // or //
Feminine singular , plural }
Passive:
Masculine singular // or // , plural //
Feminine singular , plural //
The missing forms above can be inferred from the correspondences between the Proto-Northwest Semitic ancestral forms and the attested Phoenician counterparts: the PNWS participle forms are }.
The derived stems are:
- the N-stem (functioning as a passive), e.g. nqtl, the N-formant being lost in the prefix conjugation while assimilating and doubling the first root consonant (yqtl).
- the D-stem (functioning as a factitive): the forms must have been /qittil/ in the suffix conjugation, /yaqattil/ in the prefix conjugation, /qattil/ in the imperative and the infinitive construct, /qattōl/ in the infinitive absolute and /maqattil/ in the participle. The characteristic doubling of the middle consonant is only identifiable in foreign alphabet transcriptions.
- the C-stem (functioning as a causative): the original *ha- prefix has produced *yi- rather than the Hebrew *hi-. The forms were apparently /yiqtil/ in the suffix conjugation (// in late Punic), /yaqtil/ in the prefix conjugation, and the infinitive is also /yaqtil/, while the participle was probably /maqtil/ or, in late Punic at least, /miqtil/.
Most of the stems apparently also had passive and reflexive counterparts, the former differing through vowels, the latter also through the infix -t-. The G stem passive is attested as qytl, < }.; t-stems can be reconstructed as /yitqatil/ ytqtl (tG) and /yiqtattil/ (Dt) yqttl.
Prepositions and particles
Some prepositions are always appended to nouns, deleting the initial /h/ of the definite article if present: such are b- "in", l- "to, for", k- "as" and m- // "from". They are sometimes found in forms extended through the addition of -n or -t. Other prepositions are not like this, e.g. "upon", . "until", "after", "under", "between". New prepositions are formed with nouns: lpn "in front of", from l- "to" and pn "face". There is special preposited marker of a definite object (//?), which, unlike Hebrew, is clearly distinct from the preposition (//). The most common negative marker is (//), negating verbs, but sometimes also nouns; another one is (//), expressing both non-existence and negation of verbs. Negative commands / prohibitions are expressed with (//). "Lest" is . Some common conjunctions are (originally perhaps //, but certainly // in Late Punic), "and" , "when", and , "that; because; when". There was also a conjunction ("also". (//) could (rarely) be used to introduce desiderative constructions ("may he do X!"). could also introduce vocatives. Both prepositions and conjunctions could form compounds.Syntax
The basic word order is VSO. There is no verb "to be" in the present tense; in clauses that would have used a copula, the subject may come before the predicate. Nouns precede their modifiers (such as adjectives and possessors).Vocabulary and word formation
Nouns are mostly formed by a combination of consonantal roots and vocalic patterns, but they can also be formed with prefixes (/m-/, expressing actions or their results; rarely /t-/) and suffixes /-ūn/. Abstracts can be formed with the suffix -t (probably /-īt/, /-ūt/). Adjectives can be formed following the familiar Semitic nisba suffix /-īy/ y (e.g. ṣdny "Sidonian").Like the grammar, the vocabulary is very close to Biblical Hebrew, though some peculiarities attract attention. For example, the copula
Copula
In linguistics, a copula is a word used to link the subject of a sentence with a predicate . The word copula derives from the Latin noun for a link or tie that connects two different things.A copula is often a verb or a verb-like word, though this is not universally the case...
verb "to be" is kn (as in Arabic, as opposed to Hebrew and Aramaic HYH) and the verb "to do" is pʿl (as in Aramaic pʿl and Arabic fʿl, as opposed to Hebrew 'ʿśh).
Sample text
Standard Phoenician (sarcophagus inscription of Tabnit of Sidon, 5th century BC):Transliteration:
Translation:
I, Tabnit, priest of Astarte
Astarte
Astarte is the Greek name of a goddess known throughout the Eastern Mediterranean from the Bronze Age to Classical times...
, king of Sidon
Sidon
Sidon or Saïda is the third-largest city in Lebanon. It is located in the South Governorate of Lebanon, on the Mediterranean coast, about 40 km north of Tyre and 40 km south of the capital Beirut. In Genesis, Sidon is the son of Canaan the grandson of Noah...
, the son of Eshmunazar, priest of Astarte, king of Sidon, am lying in this sarcophagus.
Whoever you are, any man that might find this sarcophagus,
don't, don't open it and don't disturb me,
for no silver is gathered with me, no gold is gathered with me, nor anything of value whatsoever,
only I am lying in this sarcophagus.
Don't, don't open it and don't disturb me,
for this thing is an abomination to Astarte.
And if you do indeed open it and do indeed disturb me,
may you not have any seed among the living under the sun,
nor a resting-place with the Rephaite
Rephaite
Rephaim is a Northwest Semitic term that occurs in the Hebrew Bible as well as other, non-Jewish ancient texts from the region...
s.
Late Punic (1st century BC):
Greek alphabet text:
ΛΑΔΟΥΝ ΛΥΒΑΛ ΑΜΟΥΝ
ΟΥ ΛΥΡΥΒΑΘΩΝ ΘΙΝΙΘ ΦΑΝΕ ΒΑΛ
ΥΣ ΝΑΔΩΡ ΣΩΣΙΠΑΤΙΟΣ ΒΥΝ ΖΟΠΥΡΟΣ
ΣΑΜΩ ΚΟΥΛΩ ΒΑΡΑΧΩ
Reconstructed Neo-Punic script counterpart (by Igor Diakonoff):
Translation:
To the master Baal Hammon and
to our mistress Tanit
Tanit
Tanit was a Phoenician lunar goddess, worshipped as the patron goddess at Carthage. Tanit was worshiped in Punic contexts in the Western Mediterranean, from Malta to Gades into Hellenistic times. From the fifth century BCE onwards Tanit is associated with that of Baal Hammon...
, the face of Baal
Baal
Baʿal is a Northwest Semitic title and honorific meaning "master" or "lord" that is used for various gods who were patrons of cities in the Levant and Asia Minor, cognate to Akkadian Bēlu...
,
[the thing] which consecrated Sosipatius, son
of Zopyrus. He heard his voice and blessed him.
Survival and influences of Punic
The significantly divergent later-form of the language that was spoken in the Tyrian Phoenician colony of CarthageCarthage
Carthage , implying it was a 'new Tyre') is a major urban centre that has existed for nearly 3,000 years on the Gulf of Tunis, developing from a Phoenician colony of the 1st millennium BC...
is known as Punic
Punic language
The Punic language or Carthagian language is an extinct Semitic language formerly spoken in the Mediterranean region of North Africa and several Mediterranean islands, by people of the Punic culture.- Description :...
; it remained in use there for considerably longer than Phoenician did in Phoenicia
Phoenicia
Phoenicia , was an ancient civilization in Canaan which covered most of the western, coastal part of the Fertile Crescent. Several major Phoenician cities were built on the coastline of the Mediterranean. It was an enterprising maritime trading culture that spread across the Mediterranean from 1550...
itself, arguably surviving into Augustine
Augustine of Hippo
Augustine of Hippo , also known as Augustine, St. Augustine, St. Austin, St. Augoustinos, Blessed Augustine, or St. Augustine the Blessed, was Bishop of Hippo Regius . He was a Latin-speaking philosopher and theologian who lived in the Roman Africa Province...
's time. It may have even survived the Arab
Arab
Arab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...
ic conquest of North Africa
North Africa
North Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, linked by the Sahara to Sub-Saharan Africa. Geopolitically, the United Nations definition of Northern Africa includes eight countries or territories; Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, South Sudan, Sudan, Tunisia, and...
: the geographer al-Bakrī describes a people speaking a language that was not Berber
Berber languages
The Berber languages are a family of languages indigenous to North Africa, spoken from Siwa Oasis in Egypt to Morocco , and south to the countries of the Sahara Desert...
, Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
or Coptic
Coptic language
Coptic or Coptic Egyptian is the current stage of the Egyptian language, a northern Afro-Asiatic language spoken in Egypt until at least the 17th century. Egyptian began to be written using the Greek alphabet in the 1st century...
in the city of Sirte
Sirte
Sirte is a city in LibyaSirte may also refer to:* Sirte Declaration, a 1999 resolution to create the African Union* Sirte Oil Company, a Libyan oil companyIn geography:* Gulf of Sirte, alias for Gulf of Sidra on Libya's coast...
in northern Libya
Libya
Libya is an African country in the Maghreb region of North Africa bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad and Niger to the south, and Algeria and Tunisia to the west....
, a region where spoken Punic survived well past written use. However it is likely that Arabization of the Punics was facilitated by their language belonging to the same group (the Semitic languages
Semitic languages
The Semitic languages are a group of related languages whose living representatives are spoken by more than 270 million people across much of the Middle East, North Africa and the Horn of Africa...
group) as that of the conquerors, and thus having many grammatical and lexical similarities.
The ancient Lybico-Berber alphabet still in irregular use by modern Berber groups such as the Tuareg is known by the native name tifinaġ
Tifinagh
Tifinagh is a series of abjad and alphabetic scripts used by some Berber peoples, notably the Tuareg, to write their language.A modern derivate of the traditional script, known as Neo-Tifinagh, was introduced in the 20th century...
, possibly a derived form of a cognate of the name "Punic". Still, a direct derivation from the Phoenician-Punic script is debated and far from established, since both writing systems are very different. As far as language (not the script) is concerned, some borrowings from Punic appear in modern Berber dialects: one interesting example is agadir "wall" from Punic gader.
Perhaps the most interesting case of Punic influence is that of the name of Hispania
Hispania
Another theory holds that the name derives from Ezpanna, the Basque word for "border" or "edge", thus meaning the farthest area or place. Isidore of Sevilla considered Hispania derived from Hispalis....
(the Iberian Peninsula
Iberian Peninsula
The Iberian Peninsula , sometimes called Iberia, is located in the extreme southwest of Europe and includes the modern-day sovereign states of Spain, Portugal and Andorra, as well as the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar...
, comprising Portugal
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
and Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
), which according to one theory among many derived from the Punic I-Shaphan meaning "coast of hyrax
Hyrax
A hyrax is any of four species of fairly small, thickset, herbivorous mammals in the order Hyracoidea. The rock hyrax Procavia capensis, the yellow-spotted rock hyrax Heterohyrax brucei, the western tree hyrax Dendrohyrax dorsalis, and the southern tree hyrax, Dendrohyrax arboreus live in Africa...
es", in turn a misidentification on the part of Phoenician explorers of its numerous rabbit
Rabbit
Rabbits are small mammals in the family Leporidae of the order Lagomorpha, found in several parts of the world...
s as hyraxes. Another case is the name of a tribe of hostile "hairy people" that Hanno the Navigator
Hanno the Navigator
Hanno the Navigator was a Carthaginian explorer c. 500 BC, best known for his naval exploration of the African coast...
found in the Gulf of Guinea
Gulf of Guinea
The Gulf of Guinea is the northeasternmost part of the tropical Atlantic Ocean between Cape Lopez in Gabon, north and west to Cape Palmas in Liberia. The intersection of the Equator and Prime Meridian is in the gulf....
. The name given to these people by Hanno the Navigator
Hanno the Navigator
Hanno the Navigator was a Carthaginian explorer c. 500 BC, best known for his naval exploration of the African coast...
's interpreters was transmitted from Punic into Greek as gorillai and was applied in 1847 by Thomas S. Savage
Thomas S. Savage
Thomas Staughton Savage was an American Protestant clergyman, missionary, physician and naturalist.Born June 7, 1804 in Cromwell, Connecticut, died December 27, 1880 in Rinebeck, New York. First marriage to Susan A...
to the Western Gorilla
Western Gorilla
The western gorilla is a great ape and the most populous species of the genus Gorilla.-Taxonomy:Nearly all of the individuals of this taxon belong to the western lowland gorilla subspecies whose population is approximately 95,000 individuals...
.
Surviving examples
- AhiramAhiramAhiram or, more correctly, Ahirom was a Phoenician king of Byblos Ahirom is not attested in any other Ancient Oriental source. He became famous only by his Phoenician inscribed sarcophagus which was discovered in 1923 by the French excavator Pierre Montet in tomb V of the royal necropolis of Byblos...
- BodashtartBodashtartBodashtart was a Phoenician king of Sidon ....
- Çineköy inscriptionÇineköy inscriptionThe Çineköy inscription is a Hieroglyphic Luwian-Phoenician bilingual, uncovered from Çineköy, Adana Province, Turkey , dating to the 8th century BC...
- Cippi of MelqartCippi of MelqartThe Cippi of Melqart is the collective name for two white marble cippi that were unearthed at Tas-Silġ, Marsaxlokk, Malta by the Knights Hospitaller in the late 17th century...
- EshmunazarEshmunazarEshmunazar was the name of several Phoenician kings of Sidon.The sarcophagus of Eshmunazar II, which is now in the Louvre, was unearthed in 1855 in a site near Sidon, and contains an inscription - known as KAI-14 , in Phoenician Canaanite, inscribed using the Phoenician alphabet. Now located in...
- KaratepeKaratepeKaratepe is a late Hittite fortress and open air museum in Osmaniye Province in southern Turkey lying at a distance of about 23 km from the district center of Kadirli. It is sited in the Taurus Mountains, on the right bank of the Ceyhan River...
- Kilamuwa StelaKilamuwa StelaThe Kilamuwa Stela is a 9th century BC stele of King Kilamuwa, from the Kingdom of Sam'al. He claims to have succeeded where his ancestors had failed, in providing for his kingdom....
- Nora StoneNora StoneThe Nora Stone or Nora Inscription is an ancient inscription found at Nora on the south coast of Sardinia in 1773. Though its precise finding place has been forgotten, it has been dated by palaeographic methods to the late 9th century to early 8th century BCE and is still considered the oldest...
- Pyrgi TabletsPyrgi TabletsThe Pyrgi Tablets, found in a 1964 excavation of a sanctuary of ancient Pyrgi on the Tyrrhenian coast of Italy , are three golden leaves that record a dedication made around 500 BC by Thefarie Velianas, king of Caere, to the Phoenician goddess ʻAshtaret. Pyrgi was the port of the southern Etruscan...
- Temple of Eshmun
See also
- Punic languagePunic languageThe Punic language or Carthagian language is an extinct Semitic language formerly spoken in the Mediterranean region of North Africa and several Mediterranean islands, by people of the Punic culture.- Description :...
- Phoenician alphabetPhoenician alphabetThe Phoenician alphabet, called by convention the Proto-Canaanite alphabet for inscriptions older than around 1050 BC, was a non-pictographic consonantal alphabet, or abjad. It was used for the writing of Phoenician, a Northern Semitic language, used by the civilization of Phoenicia...
- Extinct languageExtinct languageAn extinct language is a language that no longer has any speakers., or that is no longer in current use. Extinct languages are sometimes contrasted with dead languages, which are still known and used in special contexts in written form, but not as ordinary spoken languages for everyday communication...
- List of extinct languages of Asia
Further reading
.- J. Friedrich – W. Röllig (1999). Phönizisch-punische Grammatik (III ed., neu bearbeitet von M.G. Amadasi Guzzo unter Mitarbeit von W.R. Meyer)