Phoenician language

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Template:Short description Template:Use dmy datesTemplate:Use British English Template:Infobox language Template:Contains special characters Template:SpecialChars Phoenician (Template:IPAc-en Template:Respell; Template:Langx Template:Lit<ref name=Krahmalkov>Template:Cite book</ref>) is an extinct Canaanite Semitic language originally spoken in the region surrounding the cities of Tyre and Sidon. Extensive Tyro-Sidonian trade and commercial dominance led to Phoenician becoming a lingua franca of the maritime Mediterranean during the Iron Age. The Phoenician alphabet spread to Greece during this period, where it became the source of all modern European scripts.

Phoenician belongs to the Canaanite languages and as such is quite similar to Biblical Hebrew and other languages of the group, at least in its early stages, and is therefore mutually intelligible with them.

The area in which Phoenician was spoken, which the Phoenicians called Pūt,<ref name=Krahmalkov /> includes the northern Levant, specifically the areas now including Lebanon, the Western Galilee, parts of Cyprus, some parts of Syria, some adjacent areas of Anatolia, and, at least as a prestige language, the rest of Anatolia.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Phoenician was also spoken in the Phoenician colonies along the coasts of the southwestern Mediterranean Sea, including those of modern Tunisia, Morocco, Libya and Algeria as well as Malta, the west of Sicily, southwest Sardinia, the Balearic Islands and southernmost Spain.

In modern times, the language was first decoded by Jean-Jacques Barthélemy in 1758, who noted that the name "Phoenician" was first given to the language by Samuel Bochart in his Geographia Sacra seu Phaleg et Canaan.<ref>[1]Template:Full citation needed: "Les anciennes lettres Grecques, suivant Hérodote, et les monumens que nous avons fous les yeux, venoient de Phénicie: or les lettres Samaritaines ne diffèrent pas des anciennes lettres Grecques; par conséquent les lettres Phéniciennes ne doivent pas, différer des Samaritaines. Ils voyoient for des médailles frappées en Phénicie, des lettres qui reflémbloient aux Samaritaines; nouvelle preuve, disoit-on, que les unes etc les autres font les mêmes. Sur un pareil fondement , Scaliger et Bochart ont donné le nom dé Samaritain et de Phénicien au même alphabet; d'autres, comme Edouard Bernard et le P. de Montfaucon, pour rendre' leur alphabet plus riche et plus général, ont joint aux caractères Samaritains des formes de lettres tirées des médailles Phéniciennes ou Puniques ; mais l'explication qu'on avoit donnée de ces médailles, étant fouvent arbitraire, il eft aifé de voir à quelle erreur s'expofent ceux qui, au lieu de travailler sur les monumens mêmes, ne confoltent que les alphabets publiés jusqu a présent"</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

History

The Phoenicians were the first state-level society to make extensive use of the Semitic alphabet. The Phoenician alphabet is one of the oldest verified consonantal alphabets, or abjad.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> It has become conventional to refer to the script as "Proto-Canaanite" until the mid-11th century BC, when it is first attested on inscribed bronze arrowheads, and as "Phoenician" only after 1050 BC.<ref>Markoe, Glenn E., Phoenicians. University of California Press. Template:ISBN (2000) (hardback) p. 111.</ref> The Phoenician phonetic alphabet is generally believed to be at least the partial ancestor of almost all modern alphabets.

The most important Phoenician trade routes and cities in the Mediterranean Basin

From a traditional linguistic perspective, Phoenician was composed of a variety of dialects.<ref name="Glenn Markoe p108">Glenn Markoe.Phoenicians. p. 108. University of California Press, 2000.</ref><ref name="Zellig Sabbettai Harris p6">Zellig Sabbettai Harris. A grammar of the Phoenician language. p. 6. 1990.</ref> According to some sources, Phoenician developed into distinct Tyro-Sidonian and Byblian dialects. By this account, the Tyro-Sidonian dialect, from which the Punic language eventually emerged, spread across the Mediterranean through trade and colonisation, whereas the ancient dialect of Byblos, known from a corpus of only a few dozen extant inscriptions, played no expansionary role.<ref>Charles R. Krahmalkov. Phoenician-Punic Dictionary. p. 10. 2000.</ref> However, the very slight differences in language and the insufficient records of the time make it unclear whether Phoenician formed a separate and united dialect or was merely a superficially defined part of a broader language continuum. Through their maritime trade, the Phoenicians spread the use of the alphabet to the Maghreb and Europe, where it was adopted by the Greeks.<ref>Peckham, J. Brian (2014). Phoenicia: Episodes and Anecdotes From the Ancient Mediterranean. Eisenbrauns.</ref> Later, the Etruscans adopted a modified version for their own use, which, in turn, was modified and adopted by the Romans and became the Latin alphabet.<ref>Edward Clodd, Story of the Alphabet (Kessinger) 2003:192ff</ref> In the east of the Mediterranean region, the language was in use as late as the 1st century BC,<ref>Template:Harvnb. "In the Eastern Mediterranean, Phoenician was used until the first century BCE. In North Africa it survived until the fifth century CE."</ref> when it seems to have gone extinct there.

Punic colonisation spread Phoenician to the western Mediterranean, where the distinct Punic language developed. Punic also died out, but it seems to have survived far longer than Phoenician, until the sixth century, perhaps even into the ninth century.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Writing system

Template:Main

Phoenician was written with the Phoenician script, an abjad (consonantary) originating from the Proto-Canaanite alphabet that also became the basis for the Greek alphabet and, via an Etruscan adaptation, the Latin alphabet. The Punic form of the script gradually developed somewhat different and more cursive letter shapes; in the 3rd century BC, 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,<ref>Jongeling, K. and Robert Kerr. Late Punic epigraphy. P.10.</ref> which gave rise to a variety referred to as Neo-Punic and existed alongside the more conservative form and became predominant some time after the destruction of Carthage (c. 149 BC).<ref name=benz>Benz, Franz L. 1982. Personal Names in the Phoenician and Punic Inscriptions. P.12-14</ref> Neo-Punic, in turn, tended to designate vowels with matres lectionis ("consonantal letters") more frequently than the previous systems had and also began to systematically use different letters for different vowels,<ref name=benz/> in the way explained in more detail below. Finally, a number of late inscriptions from what is now Constantine, Algeria dated to the first 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.<ref>Jongeling, K. and Robert Kerr. Late Punic epigraphy. P.2.</ref>

In Phoenician writing, unlike that of abjads such as those of Aramaic, Biblical Hebrew and Arabic, even long vowels remained generally unexpressed, regardless of their origin (even if they originated from diphthongs, as in bt Template:IPA 'house', for earlier *bayt-; Hebrew spelling has byt). Eventually, Punic writers began to implement systems of marking of vowels by means of matres lectionis. In the 3rd century BC appeared the practice of using final 'ālep to mark the presence of any final vowel and, occasionally, of yōd to mark a final long Template:IPA.

Later, mostly after the destruction of Carthage in the so-called "Neo-Punic" inscriptions, that was supplemented by a system in which wāw denoted Template:IPA, yōd denoted Template:IPA, 'ālep denoted Template:IPA and Template:IPA, ʿayin denoted Template:IPATemplate:Sfn and hē and [[Heth|Template:Translit]] could also be used to signify Template:IPA.<ref>Jongeling, K., Robert M. Kerr. 2005. Late Punic epigraphy: an introduction to the study of Neo-Punic and Latino-Punic Inscriptions</ref> 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 had occurred in the original adaptation of the Phoenician alphabet to Greek and Latin, which was apparently still transparent to Punic writers: hē for Template:IPA and 'ālep for Template:IPA.Template:Sfn

Later, Punic inscriptions began to be written in the Latin alphabet, which also indicated the vowels. Those later inscriptions, in addition with some inscriptions in Greek letters and transcriptions of Phoenician names into other languages, represent the main source of knowledge about Phoenician vowels.

Phonology

Consonants

The following table presents the consonant phonemes of the Phoenician language as represented in the Phoenician alphabet, alongside their standard Semiticist transliteration and reconstructed phonetic values in the International Phonetic Alphabet:<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name=":0">Template:Cite book</ref>

Phoenician consonants (Traditional School)
Type Bilabial Alveolar Palatal Velar Uvular Pharyngeal Glottal
plain emphaticTemplate:Efn
Nasal Template:Lang m Template:IPAslink Template:Lang n Template:IPAslink
Stop /
Affricate 		voiceless Template:Lang p Template:IPAslink Template:Lang t Template:IPAslink Template:Lang ṭ /Template:IPA link◌/ Template:Lang k Template:IPAslink Template:Lang q Template:IPAslink Template:Lang ʾ Template:IPAslink
voiced Template:Lang b Template:IPAslink Template:Lang d Template:IPAslink Template:Lang g Template:IPAslink
Fricative voiceless Template:Lang s Template:IPAslink Template:Lang ṣ /Template:IPA link◌/ Template:Lang š Template:IPAslink Template:Lang ḥ Template:IPAslink Template:Lang h Template:IPAslink
voiced Template:Lang z Template:IPAslink Template:Lang ʿ Template:IPAslink
Trill / Tap Template:Lang r Template:IPAslink
Approximant Template:Lang l Template:IPAslink Template:Lang j Template:IPAslink Template:Lang w Template:IPAslink

Template:Notelist

The system reflected in the abjad above is the product of several mergers. From Proto-Northwest Semitic to Canaanite, Template:Translit and Template:Translit have merged into Template:Translit, Template:Translit and Template:Translit have merged into Template:Translit, and Template:Translit, Template:Translit and Template:Translit have merged into Template:Translit. Next, from Canaanite to Phoenician, the sibilants Template:Translit and Template:Translit were merged as Template:Translit, Template:Translit and Template:Translit were merged as Template:Translit, and *Template:Translit and *Template:Translit were merged as *Template:Translit.Template:Sfn<ref name=":0" /> For the phonetic values of the sibilants, see below. These latter developments also occurred in Biblical Hebrew at one point or another, except that Template:Translit merged into Template:Translit there.

Sibilants

The original value of the Proto-Semitic sibilants, and accordingly of their Phoenician counterparts, is disputed. While the traditional sound values are Template:IPA for Template:Translit, Template:IPA for Template:Translit, Template:IPA for Template:Translit, and Template:IPA for Template:Translit,Template:Sfn recent scholarship argues that Template:Translit was Template:IPA, Template:Translit was Template:IPA, Template:Translit was Template:IPA, and Template:Translit was Template:IPA.Template:Sfn Krahmalkov, too, suggests that Phoenician *z may have been [dz] or even [zd] based on Latin transcriptions such as esde for the demonstrative Template:Script z.<ref name=":0" />

On the other hand, it is debated whether šīn and sāmek , which are mostly well distinguished by the Phoenician orthography, also eventually merged at some point, either in Classical Phoenician or in Late Punic.<ref>Kerr, Robert M. 2010. Latino-Punic Epigraphy: A Descriptive Study of the Inscriptions. P.126</ref>

Postvelars

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.

Lenition

There is no consensus on whether Phoenician-Punic ever underwent the lenition of stop consonants that happened in most other Northwest Semitic languages such as Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic (cf. HackettTemplate:Sfn vs SegertTemplate:Sfn and Lyavdansky).<ref name="lyavd" /> The consonant Template:IPA may have been generally transformed into Template:IPA in Punic and in late Phoenician, as it was in Proto-Arabic.<ref name="lyavd">Лявданский, А.К. 2009. Финикийский язык. Языки мира: семитские языки. Аккадский язык. Северозапазносемитские языки. ред. Белова, А.Г. и др. P.283</ref> Certainly, Latin-script renditions of late Punic include many spirantised 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 the original *p.<ref>Kerr, Robert M. 2010 Latino-Punic Epigraphy: A Descriptive Study of the Inscriptions. P.105 ff.</ref> However, in Neo-Punic, *b lenited to /v/ contiguous to a following consonant, as in the Latin transcription lifnim for Template:Script *lbnm "for his son".<ref name=":0" />

Vowels

Knowledge of the vowel system is very imperfect because of the characteristics of the writing system. During most of its existence, Phoenician writing showed no vowels at all, and even as vowel notation systems did eventually arise late in its history, they never came to be applied consistently to native vocabulary. It is thought that Phoenician had the short vowels Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA and the long vowels Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn The Proto-Semitic diphthongs Template:IPA and Template:IPA are realised as Template:IPA and Template:IPA. That must have happened earlier than in Biblical Hebrew since the resultant long vowels are not marked with the semivowel letters (bēt "house" was written Template:Script bt, in contrast to Biblical Hebrew Template:Script/Hebrew byt).

The most conspicuous vocalic development in Phoenician is the so-called Canaanite shift, shared by Biblical Hebrew, but going further in Phoenician. The Proto-Northwest Semitic Template:IPA and Template:IPA became not merely Template:IPA as in Tiberian Hebrew, but Template:IPA. Stressed Proto-Semitic Template:IPA became Tiberian Hebrew Template:IPA (Template:IPA in other traditions), but Phoenician Template:IPA. The shift is proved by Latin and Greek transcriptions like rūs/ρους for "head, cape" 𐤓𐤀𐤔 /ruːʃ/ (Tiberian Hebrew rōš /roːʃ/, Template:Script/Hebrew); similarly notice stressed Template:IPA (corresponding to Tiberian Hebrew Template:IPA) samō/σαμω for "he heard" 𐤔𐤌𐤏 /ʃaˈmoʕ/ (Tiberian Hebrew šāmaʻ /ʃɔːˈmaʕ/, Template:Script/Hebrew); similarly the word for "eternity" is known from Greek transcriptions to have been ūlōm/ουλομ 𐤏𐤋𐤌 /ʕuːˈloːm/, corresponding to Biblical Hebrew ʻōlām עולם /ʕoːlɔːm/ and Proto-Semitic ʻālam /ˈʕaːlam/ (in Arabic: ʻālam عالم /ˈʕaːlam/). The letter Y used for words such as 𐤀𐤔 /ʔəʃ/ ys/υς "which" and 𐤀𐤕 /ʔət/ yth/υθ (definite accusative marker) in Greek and Latin alphabet inscriptions can be interpreted as denoting a reduced schwa vowelTemplate:Sfn that occurred in pre-stress syllables in verbs and two syllables before stress in nouns and adjectives,Template:Sfn while other instances of Y as in chyl/χυλ and even chil/χιλ for 𐤊𐤋 /kull/ "all" in Poenulus can be interpreted as a further stage in the vowel shift resulting in fronting (Template:IPA) and even subsequent delabialisation of Template:IPA and Template:IPA.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Short Template:IPA in originally-open syllables was lowered to Template:IPA and was also lengthened if it was accented.Template:Sfn

Possible vowel system in Phoenician
Short Long
Front Back Front Back
Close Template:IPAslink Template:IPAslink Template:IPAslink Template:IPAslink
Mid Template:IPAslink Template:IPAslink
Open Template:IPAslink Template:IPAslink

Suprasegmentals

Stress-dependent vowel changes indicate that stress was probably mostly final, as in Biblical Hebrew.Template:Sfn Long vowels probably occurred only in open syllables.Template:Sfn

Grammar

As is typical for the Semitic languages, Phoenician words are usually built around consonantal roots and vowel changes are used extensively to express morphological distinctions. However, unlike most Semitic languages, Phoenician preserved (or, possibly, re-introduced) numerous uniconsonantal and biconsonantal roots seen in Proto-Afro-Asiatic: compare the verbs 𐤊𐤍 kn "to be" vs Arabic كون kwn, 𐤌𐤕 mt "to die" vs Hebrew and Arabic מות/موت mwt and 𐤎𐤓 sr "to remove" vs Hebrew סרר srr.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

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 being nouns that are followed by their possessors) and also have the category definiteness. There is some evidence for remains of the Proto-Semitic genitive grammatical case 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:<ref>Segert, Stanislav. 2007. Phoenician and Punic Morphology. In Morphologies of Asia and Philippines Morphologies of Asia and Africa. ed. by Alan S. Kaye. P.79</ref>

Singular Dual Plural
Masculine Absolute ∅ Template:Script m /-ēm/ Template:Script m /-īm/
Construct ∅ ∅ /-ē/ ∅ /-ē/
Feminine Absolute Template:Script t /-(a/i/o)t/ Template:Script tm /-tēm/ Template:Script t /-ūt/
Construct Template:Script t /-(a/i/o)t/ Template:Script tn /-tēn/ Template:Script t /-ūt/

In late Punic, the final Template:IPA of the feminine was apparently dropped: Template:Script Template:Translit "son of the queen" or Template:Script Template:Translit "brother of the queen" rendered in Latin as HIMILCO.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Template:IPA was also assimilated to following consonants: e.g. 𐤔𐤕 Template:Translit "year" for earlier 𐤔𐤍𐤕 Template:Translit.Template:Sfn

The case endings in general must have been lost between the 9th century BC and the 7th century BC: the personal name rendered in Akkadian as ma-ti-nu-ba-Template:Translita-li "Gift of Baal", with the case endings -u and -i, was written ma-ta-an-baTemplate:Translita-al (likely Phoenician spelling *𐤌𐤕𐤍𐤁𐤏𐤋) two centuries later. However, evidence has been found for a retention of the genitive case in the form of the first-singular possessive suffix: 𐤀𐤁𐤉 Template:Translit /Template:Translitabiya/ "of my father" vs 𐤀𐤁 Template:Translit /Template:Translitabī/ "my father". If true, this may suggest that cases were still distinguished to some degree in other forms as well.

The written forms and the reconstructed pronunciations of the personal pronouns are as follows:Template:Sfn<ref name=":1">Template:Cite book</ref>

Singular:
1st: /Template:Translit/ 𐤀𐤍𐤊 Template:Translit (Punic sometimes 𐤀𐤍𐤊𐤉 Template:Translit), also attested as /Template:Translit/
2nd masc. /Template:Translit/ 𐤀𐤕 Template:Translit
2nd fem. /Template:Translit/ 𐤀𐤕 Template:Translit
3rd masc. /Template:Translit/ 𐤄𐤀 Template:Translit, also [[[:Template:Translit]]] (?) 𐤄𐤉 Template:Translit and /Template:Translit/ 𐤄𐤀𐤕 Template:Translit
3rd fem. /Template:Translit/ 𐤄𐤀 Template:Translit

Plural:
1st: /Template:Translit/ 𐤀𐤍𐤇𐤍 Template:Translit
2nd masc. /Template:Translit/ 𐤀𐤕𐤌 Template:Translit
2nd fem. unattested, perhaps /Template:Translit/ 𐤀𐤕𐤍 Template:Translit
3rd masc. and feminine /Template:Translit/ 𐤄𐤌𐤕 Template:Translit

Enclitic personal pronouns were added to nouns (to encode possession) and to prepositions, as shown below for "Standard Phoenician" (the predominant dialect, as distinct from the Byblian and the late Punic varieties). They appear in a slightly different form depending on whether or not they follow plural-form masculine nouns (and so are added after a vowel). The former is given in brackets with the abbreviation a.V.

Singular:
1st: /Template:Translit/ Template:Translit, also 𐤉 Template:Translit (a.V. /Template:Translit/ Template:Translit)
2nd masc. /Template:Translit/ 𐤊 Template:Translit
2nd fem. /Template:Translit/ 𐤊 Template:Translit
3rd masc. /Template:Translit/ Template:Translit, Punic 𐤀 Template:Translit, (a.V. /Template:Translit/ Template:Translit)
3rd fem. /Template:Translit/ Template:Translit, Punic 𐤀 Template:Translit (a.V. /Template:Translit/ Template:Translit)

Plural:
1st: /Template:Translit/ 𐤍 Template:Translit
2nd masc. /Template:Translit/ 𐤊𐤌 Template:Translit
2nd fem. unattested, perhaps /Template:Translit/ 𐤊𐤍 Template:Translit
3rd masc. /Template:Translit/ 𐤌 Template:Translit (a.V. /Template:Translit/ 𐤍𐤌 Template:Translit)
3rd fem. /Template:Translit/ 𐤌 Template:Translit (a.V. /Template:Translit/ 𐤍𐤌 Template:Translit)

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 Template:IPA, whereas the plural version ended in Template:IPA). Their pronunciation can then be reconstructed somewhat differently: first-person singular /Template:Translit/ 𐤉 Template:Translit, third-person singular masculine and feminine /Template:Translit/ 𐤉 Template:Translit and /Template:Translit/ 𐤉 Template:Translit. The third-person plural singular and feminine must have pronounced the same in both cases, i.e. /Template:Translit/ 𐤍𐤌 Template:Translit and /Template:Translit/ 𐤍𐤌 Template:Translit.

These enclitic forms vary between the dialects. In the archaic Byblian dialect, the third person forms are 𐤄 h and 𐤅 w /Template:Translit/ for the masculine singular (a.V. 𐤅 w /Template:Translit/), 𐤄 h /Template:Translit/ for the feminine singular and 𐤅𐤌 hm /Template:Translit/ for the masculine plural. In late Punic, the 3rd masculine singular is usually /Template:Translit/ 𐤌 Template:Translit.

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 /Template:Translit/ 𐤍 Template:Translit and probably first plural /Template:Translit/.

The near demonstrative pronouns ("this") are written, in standard Phoenician, 𐤆 z [za] for the singular and 𐤀𐤋 Template:Translit [ʔilːa] for the plural. Cypriot Phoenician displays 𐤀𐤆 Template:Translit [ʔizːa] instead of 𐤆 z [za]. Byblian still distinguishes, in the singular, a masculine Template:Translit [zan] / Template:Translit [za] from a feminine 𐤆𐤕 Template:Translit [zuːt] / 𐤆𐤀 Template:Translit [zuː]. There are also many variations in Punic, including 𐤎𐤕 st [suːt] and 𐤆𐤕 zt [zuːt] for both genders in the singular. The far demonstrative pronouns ("that") are identical to the independent third-person pronouns. The interrogative pronouns are Template:IPA or perhaps Template:IPA 𐤌𐤉 Template:Translit "who" and Template:IPA 𐤌 Template:Translit "what". The indefinite pronouns are written 𐤌𐤍𐤌 mnm ("anything/something/nothing," possibly pronounced [miːnumːa], similar to Akkadian [miːnumːeː]) and 𐤌𐤍𐤊 mnk (possibly pronounced [miːnukːa]). The relative pronoun is a 𐤔 Template:Translit [ʃi], either followed or preceded by a vowel.

The definite article was Template:IPA, and the first consonant of the following word was doubled. It was written 𐤄 h but in late Punic also 𐤀 Template:Translit and 𐤏 Template:Translit because of the weakening and coalescence of the gutturals. Much as in Biblical Hebrew, the initial consonant of the article is dropped after the prepositions 𐤁 b-, 𐤋 l- and 𐤊 k-; it could also be lost after various other particles and function words, such the direct object marker 𐤀𐤉𐤕 Template:Translit and the conjunction 𐤅 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 all distinguish gender: 𐤀𐤇𐤃 Template:Translit, 𐤀𐤔𐤍𐤌/𐤔𐤍𐤌 Template:Translit<ref>Dictionary of the North-West Semitic Inscriptions: M-T Front Cover Jacob Hoftijzer, Karel Jongeling, Richard C. Steiner, Bezalel Porten, Adina Mosak Moshavi P.1176</ref> (construct state 𐤀𐤔𐤍/𐤔𐤍 Template:Translit), 𐤔𐤋𐤔 Template:Translit, 𐤀𐤓𐤁𐤏 Template:Translit, 𐤇𐤌𐤔 Template:Translit, 𐤔𐤔 Template:Translit, 𐤔𐤁𐤏 Template:Translit, 𐤔𐤌𐤍/𐤔𐤌𐤍𐤄 Template:Translit, 𐤕𐤔𐤏 Template:Translit, 𐤏𐤔𐤓/𐤏𐤎𐤓 Template:Translit<ref>Ugaritische Grammatik, Josef Tropper P.73-80, Template:ISBN</ref><ref name="ReferenceA">Die Keilalphabete: die phönizisch-kanaanäischen und altarabischen Alphabete in Ugarit P.162, Template:ISBN</ref> vs 𐤀𐤇𐤕 Template:Translit, 𐤔𐤕𐤌 Template:Translit,<ref>Phoenician Sphinx inscription, See Template:Cite journal</ref> 𐤔𐤋𐤔𐤕 Template:Translit, 𐤀𐤓𐤁𐤏𐤕 Template:Translit, 𐤇𐤌𐤔𐤕 Template:Translit, 𐤔𐤔𐤕 Template:Translit, 𐤔𐤁𐤏𐤕 Template:Translit, 𐤔𐤌𐤍𐤕 Template:Translit,<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> unattested, 𐤏𐤔𐤓𐤕 Template:Translit.<ref>Dictionary of the North-West Semitic Inscriptions: M-T Front Cover Jacob Hoftijzer, Karel Jongeling, Richard C. Steiner, Bezalel Porten, Adina Mosak Moshavi P.893</ref> The tens are morphologically masculine plurals of the ones: 𐤏𐤔𐤓𐤌/𐤏𐤎𐤓𐤌 Template:Translit,<ref name="ReferenceA"/><ref>Phönizisch-Punische Grammatik 3. Auflange P.171, Template:ISBN</ref> 𐤔𐤋𐤔𐤌 Template:Translit, 𐤀𐤓𐤁𐤏𐤌 Template:Translit, 𐤇𐤌𐤔𐤌 Template:Translit, 𐤔𐤔𐤌 Template:Translit, 𐤔𐤁𐤏𐤌 Template:Translit, 𐤔𐤌𐤍𐤌 Template:Translit, 𐤕𐤔𐤏𐤌 Template:Translit. "One hundred" is 𐤌𐤀𐤕 Template:Translit, two hundred is its dual form 𐤌𐤀𐤕𐤌 Template:Translit, whereas the rest are formed as in 𐤔𐤋𐤔 𐤌𐤀𐤕 Template:Translit (three hundred). One thousand is 𐤀𐤋𐤐 Template:Translit. Ordinal numerals are formed by the addition of *ij 𐤉 Template:Translit.<ref>Segert, Stanislav. 2007. Phoenician and Punic Morphology. In Morphologies of Asia and Africa. Morphologies of Asia and Africa. ed. by Alan S. Kaye. P.80</ref> Composite numerals are formed with w- 𐤅 "and", e.g. 𐤏𐤔𐤓 𐤅𐤔𐤍𐤌 Template:Translit for "twelve".

Verbal morphology

The verb inflects for person, number, gender, tense and mood. Like for 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 𐤐𐤏𐤋 p-ʻ-l "to do" (a "neutral", G-stem).Template:Sfn<ref>The spellings are based mostly on Segert, Stanislav. 2007. Phoenician and Punic Morphology. In Morphologies of Asia and Africa. Morphologies of Asia and Africa. ed. by Alan S. Kaye. P.82</ref><ref name=":1" />

Singular:

Plural:

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 p-ʻ-l.

Plural:

The imperative endings were presumably Template:IPA, Template:Translit and Template:Translit<ref name=segert82/> for the second-person singular masculine, second-person singular feminine and second-person plural masculine respectively, but all three forms surface in the orthography as /Template:Translit/ 𐤐𐤏𐤋 Template:Translit: Template:Translit. 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 is usually combined with the preposition 𐤋 l- "to", as in 𐤋𐤐𐤏𐤋 Template:Translit "to do"; in contrast, the infinitive absolute 𐤐𐤏𐤋 (paʻōl)Template:Sfn is mostly used to strengthen the meaning of a subsequent finite verb with the same root: 𐤐𐤕𐤇 𐤕𐤐𐤕𐤇 Template:Translit "you will indeed open!",<ref name=segert82/> accordingly /𐤐𐤏𐤋 𐤕𐤐𐤏𐤋 Template:Translit/ "you will indeed do!".

The participles had, in the G-stem, the following forms:

Active:

Passive:

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 *Template:Translit.

The derived stems are:

  • the N-stem (functioning as a passive), e.g. /Template:Translit/ 𐤍𐤐𐤏𐤋 npʻl, the N-formant being lost in the prefix conjugation while assimilating and doubling the first root consonant 𐤉𐤐𐤏𐤋 (ypʻl).
  • the D-stem (functioning as a factitive): the forms must have been 𐤐𐤏𐤋 /piʻʻil/ in the suffix conjugation, 𐤉𐤐𐤏𐤋 /yapaʻʻil/ in the prefix conjugation, 𐤐𐤏𐤋 /paʻʻil/ in the imperative and the infinitive construct, 𐤐𐤏𐤋 /paʻʻōl/ in the infinitive absolute and 𐤌𐤐𐤏𐤋 /mapaʻʻil/ 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 𐤄 *ha- prefix has produced 𐤉 *yi- rather than the Hebrew ה *hi-. The forms were apparently 𐤉𐤐𐤏𐤋 /yipʻil/ in the suffix conjugation 𐤀𐤐𐤏𐤋(Template:Translit/ in late Punic), 𐤉𐤐𐤏𐤋 /yapʻil/ in the prefix conjugation, and the infinitive is also 𐤉𐤐𐤏𐤋 /yapʻil/, while the participle was probably 𐤌𐤐𐤏𐤋 /mapʻil/ or, in late Punic at least, 𐤌𐤐𐤏𐤋 /mipʻil/.Template:Sfn

Most of the stems apparently also had passive and reflexive counterparts, the former differing through vowels, the latter also through the infix 𐤕 -t-. The G stem passive is attested as 𐤐𐤉𐤏𐤋 pyʻl, Template:Translit < *Template:Translit;<ref name=segert82/> t-stems can be reconstructed as 𐤉𐤕𐤐𐤏𐤋 ytpʻl /yitpaʻil/ (tG) and 𐤉𐤕𐤐𐤏𐤋 yptʻʻl /yiptaʻʻil/ (Dt).Template:Sfn

Prepositions and particles

Some prepositions are always prefixed to nouns, deleting, if present, the initial Template:IPA of the definite article: such are 𐤁 b- "in", 𐤋 l- "to, for", 𐤊 k- "as" and 𐤌 m- /Template:Translit/ "from". They are sometimes found in forms extended through the addition of 𐤍 -n or 𐤕 -t. Other prepositions are not like that: 𐤀𐤋Template:Translit "upon", .𐤏𐤃 Template:Translit "until", 𐤀𐤇𐤓 Template:Translit "after", 𐤕𐤇𐤕 Template:Translit "under", 𐤁𐤉𐤍, 𐤁𐤍 Template:Translit "between". New prepositions are formed with nouns: 𐤋𐤐𐤍 lpn "in front of", from 𐤋 l- "to" and 𐤐𐤍 pn "face". There is a special preposited marker of a definite object 𐤀𐤉𐤕 Template:Translit (/Template:Translit/?), which, unlike Hebrew, is clearly distinct from the preposition את Template:Translit (/Template:Translit/).

The most common negative marker is 𐤁𐤋 Template:Translit (/Template:Translit/), negating verbs but sometimes also nouns; another one is 𐤀𐤉 Template:Translit (/Template:Translit/), expressing both nonexistence and the negation of verbs. Negative commands or prohibitions are expressed with 𐤀𐤋 Template:Translit (/Template:Translit/). "Lest" is 𐤋𐤌 Template:Translit. Some common conjunctions are 𐤅 Template:Translit (originally perhaps /Template:Translit/, but certainly /Template:Translit/ in Late Punic), "and" 𐤀𐤌 Template:Translit (Template:Translit), "when", and 𐤊 Template:Translit (Template:Translit), "that; because; when". There was also a conjunction 𐤀𐤐/𐤐 Template:Translit (Template:Translit"also". 𐤋 Template:Translit (/Template:Translit/) could (rarely) be used to introduce desiderative constructions ("may he do X!"). 𐤋 Template:Translit could also introduce vocatives. Both prepositions and conjunctions could form compounds.Template:Sfn

Syntax

The basic word order is verb-subject-object. 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

Most nouns are formed by a combination of consonantal roots and vocalic patterns, but they can be formed also with prefixes (𐤌 Template:IPA, expressing actions or their results, and rarely 𐤕 Template:IPA) and suffixes Template:IPA. Abstracts can be formed with the suffix 𐤕 -t (probably Template:IPA, Template:IPA).<ref name=lyavd293>Лявданский, А.К. 2009. Финикийский язык. Языки мира: семитские языки. Аккадский язык. Северозапазносемитские языки. ред. Белова, А.Г. и др. P.293</ref> Adjectives can be formed following the familiar Semitic nisba suffix Template:IPA 𐤉 y 𐤑𐤃𐤍𐤉 (e.g. ṣdny "Sidonian").

Like the grammar, the vocabulary is very close to Biblical Hebrew, but some peculiarities attract attention. For example, the copula verb "to be" is 𐤊𐤍 kn (as in Arabic, as opposed to Hebrew and Aramaic היה hyh) and the verb "to do" is 𐤐𐤏𐤋 pʿl (as in Aramaic פעל pʿl and Arabic فعل fʿl, as opposed to Hebrew עשה ʿśh, though in Hebrew פעל pʿl has the similar meaning "to act").

Standard Phoenician
Sarcophagus inscription of Tabnit of Sidon, 5th century BC<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name=proelal>Template:Cite web</ref>
Text Transliteration Transcription
Template:Script ʾnk tbnt khn ʿštrt mlk ṣdnm bn
ʾšmnʿzr khn ʿštrt mlk ṣdnm škb bʾrn z
mj ʾt kl ʾdm ʾš tpq ʾjt hʾrn z
ʾl ʾl tptḥ ʿltj wʾl trgzn
k ʾj ʾrln ksp ʾj ʾr ln ḥrṣ wkl mnm mšd
blt ʾnk škb bʾrn z
ʾl ʾl tptḥ ʿltj wʾl trgzn
k tʿbt ʿštrt hdbr hʾ
wʾm ptḥ tptḥ ʿltj wrgz trgzn
ʾl jkn zrʿ bḥjm tḥt šmš
wmškb ʾt rpʾm 		ʾanōk(ī) Tabnīt kōhēn ʿAštart mīlk Ṣīdūnīm bīn
ʾEšmūnʿūzēr kōhēn ʿAštart mīlk Ṣīdūnīm šūkēb bāʾarūn ze(h)
mī ʾata kūl ʾadōm ʾīš tūpaq ʾījat hāʾarūn ze
ʾal ʾal tīptaḥ ʿalōtīja waʾal targīzenī
kī ʾīj ʾarū[ ]lanī kesep waʾal ʾīj ʾarū lanī ḥūreṣ wakūl manīm mašōd
būltī ʾanōk(ī) šūkēb bāʾarūn ze
ʾal ʾal tīptaḥ ʿalōtīja waʾal targīzenī
kī tōʿebūt ʿAštart hadōbōr hīʾa
wāʾīm pōtōḥ tīptaḥ ʿalōtīja waragōz targīzenī
ʾal jakūn zeraʿ baḥajīm taḥat šamš
wamīškōb ʾet Repaʾīm
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 Rephaites.
Late Punic
1st century BC<ref name=diako>Template:Cite book</ref>
Text Greek transliteration Reconstruction (by Igor Diakonov)<ref name=diako/> Inferred transcription
ΛΑΔΟΥΝ ΛΥΒΑΛ ΑΜΟΥΝ
ΟΥ ΛΥΡΥΒΑΘΩΝ ΘΙΝΙΘ ΦΑΝΕ ΒΑΛ
ΥΣ ΝΑΔΩΡ ΣΩΣΙΠΑΤΙΟΣ ΒΥΝ ΖΟΠΥΡΟΣ
ΣΑΜΩ ΚΟΥΛΩ ΒΑΡΑΧΩ 		Ladun liBal Amun
u liribathōn Thīnīth phane Bal
is nadōr Sōsīpatīos bin Zopuros
samō kulō barakhō 		Template:Script lʾdn lbʿl ḥmn
wlrbtn tnt pn bʿl
ʾš ndr S. bn Z.
šmʾ qlʾ brkʾ 		lāʾadūn līBaʿl Ḥamūn
wūlīrībatōn(ū) Tīnīt pāne Baʿl
ʾīš nadōr S(osipatius) bīn Z(opyrus)
šamōʾ qūlōʾ barakōʾ
Translation
To the master Baal Hammon
and to our mistress Tanit, the face of Baal,
[that] which consecrated Sosipatius, son of Zopyrus.
He heard his voice and blessed him.

Survival and influences of Punic

Template:Main The significantly divergent later form of the language that was spoken in the Tyrian Phoenician colony of Carthage is known as Punic and remained in use there for considerably longer than Phoenician did in Phoenicia itself by arguably surviving into Augustine of Hippo's time. Throughout its existence, Punic co-existed with the Berber languages, which were then native to Tunisia (including Carthage) and North Africa. It is possible that Punic may have survived the Muslim conquest of the Maghreb in some small isolated area: the geographer al-Bakri describes a people speaking a language that was not Berber, Latin or Coptic in the city of Sirte in rural Ifriqiya, a region in which spoken Punic survived well past its written use.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> However, it is likely that arabisation of the Punics was facilitated by their language belonging to the same group (both being Semitic languages) as that of the conquerors and thus having many grammatical and lexical similarities.

The ancient Libyco-Berber alphabet that is still in irregular use by modern Berber groups such as the Tuareg is known by the native name Tifinagh, possibly a derived form of a cognate of the name "Punic".<ref>Penchoen, Thomas G. (1973). Tamazight of the Ayt Ndhir. Los Angeles: Undena Publications. P.3</ref> Still, a direct derivation from the Phoenician-Punic script is debated and far from established since the two 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 of the theories, is derived from the Punic I-Shaphan meaning "coast of hyraxes", in turn a misidentification on the part of Phoenician explorers of its numerous rabbits as hyraxes.<ref>Zvi Herman, קרתגו המעצמה הימית [= “Carthage, the Maritime Empire”] (Massadah Ltd, 1963), 105.</ref><ref>Living floors: The animal world in the mosaics of Israel and its surroundings / Ami Tamir,(Tel-Aviv, 2019),131;רצפות חיות: עולם החי בפסיפסי ארץ ישראל וסביבתה</ref> 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 those 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.

Surviving examples

Phoenician, together with Punic, is primarily known from approximately 10,000 surviving inscriptions,Template:Sfn supplemented by occasional glosses in books written in other languages. In addition to their many inscriptions, the Phoenicians are believed to have left numerous other types of written sources, but most have not survived.Template:Blockquote

Roman authors, such as Sallust, allude to some books written in the Punic language, 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, a bilingual inscription in Ancient Greek and Carthaginian discovered in Malta in 1694, was the key which allowed French scholar Jean-Jacques Barthélemy to decipher and reconstruct the alphabet in 1758.Template:Sfn Even as late as 1837 only 70 Phoenician inscriptions were known to scholars. These were compiled in Wilhelm Gesenius's Scripturae linguaeque Phoeniciae monumenta, which comprised all that was known of Phoenician by scholars at that time.Template:Blockquote Some key surviving inscriptions of Phoenician are:

Since the bilingual Pyrgi Tablets were found in 1964 with inscriptions in both Etruscan and Phoenician dating from around 500 BC, more Etruscan has been deciphered through comparison to the more fully understood Phoenician.

See also

References

Template:Reflist

Sources

Further reading

Template:NIE Poster Template:Library resources box

  • Fox, Joshua. "A Sequence of Vowel Shifts in Phoenician and Other Languages." Journal of Near Eastern Studies 55, no. 1 (1996): 37–47. https://www.jstor.org/stable/545378.
  • Holmstedt, Robert D., and Aaron Schade. Linguistic Studies In Phoenician: In Memory of J. Brian Peckham. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2013.
  • Krahmalkov, Charles R. A Phoenician-Punic Grammar. Leiden: Brill, 2001.
  • Schmitz, Philip C. "Phoenician-Punic Grammar and Lexicography in the New Millennium." Journal of the American Oriental Society 124, no. 3 (2004): 533–47. Template:Doi
  • Segert, S. A Grammar of Phoenician and Punic. München: C.H. Beck, 1976.
  • Template:Cite book
  • Tomback, Richard S. A Comparative Semitic Lexicon of the Phoenician and Punic Languages. Missoula, MT: Scholars Press for the Society of Biblical Literature, 1978.
  • Tribulato, Olga. Language and Linguistic Contact In Ancient Sicily. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.
  • Woodard, Roger D. The Ancient Languages of Syria-Palestine and Arabia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008.

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