Phoenician language

Phoenician ( ; ) is an extinct Canaanite language of the Semitic language family 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, 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. It developed into the Punic language in North Africa.

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.

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. 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. The Phoenician phonetic alphabet is generally believed to be at least the partial ancestor of almost all modern alphabets.

thumb|350px|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. 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. 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. 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. In the east of the Mediterranean region, the language was in use as late as the 1st century BC, 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.

Writing system

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, 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). 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,

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 '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 .

Later, mostly after the destruction of Carthage in the so-called "Neo-Punic" inscriptions, that was supplemented by a system in which wāw denoted , yōd denoted , 'ālep denoted and , ʿayin denoted and hē and Heth| could also be used to signify . 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 and 'ālep for .

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:

{| class="wikitable" style=text-align:center

|+ Phoenician consonants (Traditional School)

! colspan="2" rowspan="2" | Type

! rowspan="2" | Bilabial

!colspan=2| Alveolar

! rowspan="2" | Palatal

! rowspan="2" | Velar

! rowspan="2" | Uvular

! rowspan="2" | Pharyngeal

! rowspan="2" | Glottal

!plain

!emphatic

! colspan="2" | Nasal

| m

| n

! rowspan="2" | Stop / Affricate

! voiceless

| p

| t

| ṭ /◌/

| k

| q

| ʾ

! voiced

| b

| d

| g

! rowspan="2" | Fricative

!voiceless

| s

| ṣ /◌/

| š

| ḥ

| h

! voiced

| z

| ʿ

! colspan="2" |Trill / Tap

| r

! colspan="2" | Approximant

| l

| j

| w

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 *.

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. Hackett vs Segert and Lyavdansky). 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. However, in Neo-Punic, *b lenited to /v/ contiguous to a following consonant, as in the Latin transcription lifnim for *lbnm "for his son".

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:

{| class="wikitable"

!Singular

!Dual

!Plural

| rowspan="2" |Masculine

|Absolute

|∅

| m /-ēm/

| m /-īm/

|Construct

|∅

|∅ /-ē/

| rowspan="2" |Feminine

|Absolute

| t /-(a/i/o)t/

| tm /-tēm/

| t /-ūt/

|Construct

| t /-(a/i/o)t/

| tn /-tēn/

| t /-ūt/

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

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-a-li "Gift of Baal", with the case endings -u and -i, was written ma-ta-an-baa-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 /abiya/ "of my father" vs 𐤀𐤁 /abī/ "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:

Singular:

1st: // 𐤀𐤍𐤊 (Punic sometimes 𐤀𐤍𐤊𐤉 ), also attested as //

2nd masc. // 𐤀𐤕

2nd fem. // 𐤀𐤕

3rd masc. // 𐤄𐤀 , also [] (?) 𐤄𐤉 and // 𐤄𐤀𐤕

3rd fem. // 𐤄𐤀

Plural:

1st: // 𐤀𐤍𐤇𐤍

2nd masc. // 𐤀𐤕𐤌

2nd fem. unattested, perhaps // 𐤀𐤕𐤍

3rd masc. and feminine // 𐤄𐤌𐤕

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: // , also 𐤉 (a.V. // )

2nd masc. // 𐤊

2nd fem. // 𐤊

3rd masc. // , Punic 𐤀 , (a.V. // )

3rd fem. // , Punic 𐤀 (a.V. // )

Plural:

1st: // 𐤍

2nd masc. // 𐤊𐤌

2nd fem. unattested, perhaps // 𐤊𐤍

3rd masc. // 𐤌 (a.V. // 𐤍𐤌 )

3rd fem. // 𐤌 (a.V. // 𐤍𐤌 )

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

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

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 // 𐤍 and probably first plural //.

The near demonstrative pronouns ("this") are written, in standard Phoenician, 𐤆 z [za] for the singular and 𐤀𐤋 [ʔilːa] for the plural. Cypriot Phoenician displays 𐤀𐤆 [ʔizːa] instead of 𐤆 z [za]. Byblian still distinguishes, in the singular, a masculine [zan] / [za] from a feminine 𐤆𐤕 [zuːt] / 𐤆𐤀 [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 or perhaps 𐤌𐤉 "who" and 𐤌 "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 [ʃi], either followed or preceded by a vowel.

The definite article was , and the first consonant of the following word was doubled. It was written 𐤄 h but in late Punic also 𐤀 and 𐤏 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 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 , 𐤀𐤔𐤍𐤌/𐤔𐤍𐤌 (construct state 𐤀𐤔𐤍/𐤔𐤍 ), 𐤔𐤋𐤔 , 𐤀𐤓𐤁𐤏 , 𐤇𐤌𐤔 , 𐤔𐤔 , 𐤔𐤁𐤏 , 𐤔𐤌𐤍/𐤔𐤌𐤍𐤄 , 𐤕𐤔𐤏 , 𐤏𐤔𐤓/𐤏𐤎𐤓 vs 𐤀𐤇𐤕 , 𐤔𐤕𐤌 , 𐤔𐤋𐤔𐤕 , 𐤀𐤓𐤁𐤏𐤕 , 𐤇𐤌𐤔𐤕 , 𐤔𐤔𐤕 , 𐤔𐤁𐤏𐤕 , 𐤔𐤌𐤍𐤕 , unattested, 𐤏𐤔𐤓𐤕 . The tens are morphologically masculine plurals of the ones: 𐤏𐤔𐤓𐤌/𐤏𐤎𐤓𐤌 , 𐤔𐤋𐤔𐤌 , 𐤀𐤓𐤁𐤏𐤌 , 𐤇𐤌𐤔𐤌 , 𐤔𐤔𐤌 , 𐤔𐤁𐤏𐤌 , 𐤔𐤌𐤍𐤌 , 𐤕𐤔𐤏𐤌 . "One hundred" is 𐤌𐤀𐤕 , two hundred is its dual form 𐤌𐤀𐤕𐤌 , whereas the rest are formed as in 𐤔𐤋𐤔 𐤌𐤀𐤕 (three hundred). One thousand is 𐤀𐤋𐤐 . Ordinal numerals are formed by the addition of *ij 𐤉 . Composite numerals are formed with w- 𐤅 "and", e.g. 𐤏𐤔𐤓 𐤅𐤔𐤍𐤌 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). also 𐤐𐤏𐤋 , Punic 𐤐𐤏𐤋𐤀

Plural:

1st: // 𐤐𐤏𐤋𐤍
2nd masc. // 𐤐𐤏𐤋𐤕𐤌
2nd fem. unattested, perhaps // 𐤐𐤏𐤋𐤕𐤍
3rd masc. // 𐤐𐤏𐤋 , Punic 𐤐𐤏𐤋𐤀
3rd fem. // 𐤐𐤏𐤋 , Punic 𐤐𐤏𐤋𐤀

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.

1st: // 𐤀𐤐𐤏𐤋
2nd masc. // 𐤕𐤐𐤏𐤋
2nd fem. // 𐤕𐤐𐤏𐤋𐤉
3rd masc. // 𐤉𐤐𐤏𐤋
3rd fem. // 𐤕𐤐𐤏𐤋

Plural:

1st: // 𐤍𐤐𐤏𐤋
2nd masc. // 𐤕𐤐𐤏𐤋 , Punic 𐤕𐤐𐤏𐤋𐤀
2nd fem. // 𐤕𐤐𐤏𐤋𐤍
3rd masc. // 𐤉𐤐𐤏𐤋
3rd fem. *// 𐤉𐤐𐤏𐤋𐤍

The imperative endings were presumably , and Adjectives can be formed following the familiar Semitic nisba suffix 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").

{| class=wikitable style="margin:auto"

|+Standard Phoenician Sarcophagus inscription of Tabnit of Sidon, 5th century BC

! Text

! Transliteration

! Transcription

| align=right| || 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

! colspan="3" | Translation

| colspan="3" align="center" |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.

{| class=wikitable style="margin:auto"

|+Late Punic 1st century BC

! Text

!Greek transliteration

! colspan="2"| Reconstruction (by Igor Diakonov) 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". 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. 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, 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.

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. 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.

Some key surviving inscriptions of Phoenician are:

Ahiram sarcophagus
Bodashtart inscriptions
Çineköy inscription
Cippi of Melqart
Mdina Steles
Sarcophagus of Eshmunazar II
Tabnit sarcophagus
Karatepe bilingual
Kilamuwa Stela
Nora Stone
Pyrgi Tablets
Temple of Eshmun

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.

References

;Sources

Phoenician language

History

Writing system

Phonology

Consonants

Postvelars

Lenition

No<span class="ve-ce-branchNode-slug ve-ce-branchNode-inlineSlug"></span>minal morphology

Verbal morphology

Surviving examples

See also

References

Further reading