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Phoenician language

Phoenician was a language originally spoken in the


coastal (Mediterranean) region then called "Canaan" in
Phoenician, Arabic, Greek, and Aramaic, "Phoenicia" in
Greek and Latin, and "Pt" in Ancient Egyptian. Phoenician is a Semitic language of the Canaanite subgroup;
its closest living relative is its sister language Hebrew,
to which it is very similar. The area where Phoenician
was spoken includes modern-day Lebanon, coastal Syria,
northern Israel, parts of Cyprus and, at least as a prestige language, some adjacent areas of Anatolia.[3] It was
also spoken in the area of Phoenician colonization along
the coasts of the Southwestern Mediterranean, including
Distribution of the Phoenician language, shown as yellow outline.
those of modern Tunisia, Morocco, Libya and Algeria,
as well as Malta, the west of Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica,
Las rutas comerciales
Ocano
de los fenicios
Atlntico
Balearic islands and southernmost Spain.
EUROPA

Ma
r

Phoenician, together with Punic, is currently known only


from approximately 10,000 inscriptions,[4] as well as occasional glosses in books written in other languages, since
the language was primarily written on papyrus and parchment rather than stone.[5] Roman authors such as Sallust
allude to some books written in Punic language, but none
have survived except occasionally in translation (e.g.,
Magos 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 Abb Barthelemy
to decipher and reconstruct the alphabet in 1758,[6] although as late as 1837 only 70 Phoenician inscriptions
were known to scholars.[note 1][7]

IBERIA

Fenicia

Mar Negro

Ad

ri

Rutas
comerciales

tic

o
Mar
Egeo

ASIA

Gadir

SICILIA
Cartago

Tingis

Mar
Mediterrneo

FRICA
Leptis

CHIPRE
CRETA

Biblos
Sidn
Tiro

Cirene

Menfis

The most important Phoenician trade routes and cities along the
Mediterranean Area.

the time, whether Phoenician formed a separate and


united dialect, or was merely a supercially dened part
of a broader language continuum, is unclear. Through
their maritime trade, the Phoenicians spread the use of
Further, since a trade agreement made between Etruscans the alphabet to North Africa and Europe, where it was
and a group of Phoenicians around 500 BCE was found adopted by the Greeks, who later passed it on to the
in 1964, more Etruscan has been deciphered.[8]
Etruscans, who in turn transmitted it to the Romans.[13]
In addition to their many inscriptions, the Phoenicians
are believed to have left numerous other types of written
sources, but most have not survived.

History

The Phoenician and Carthaginian expansion spread the


Phoenician language and its Punic dialect to the Western
The Phoenicians were the rst state-level society to make Mediterranean for a time, but there too it died out, alextensive use of the alphabet. The Phoenician alphabet though it seems to have survived slightly longer than in
is the oldest veried consonantal alphabet, or abjad.[9] It Phoenicia itself, perhaps as late as the 5th century AD.
has become conventional to refer to the script as ProtoCanaanite until the mid-11th century, when it is rst attested on inscribed bronze arrowheads, and as Phoenician only after 1050 BC.[10] The Phoenician phonetic al- 2 Writing system
phabet is generally believed to be the ancestor of almost
Main article: Phoenician alphabet
all modern alphabets.
From a traditional linguistic perspective, Phoenician was
a Canaanite lect.[11][12] However, due to the very slight Phoenician was written with the Phoenician script,
dierences in language, and the insucient records of an abjad (consonantary) originating from the Proto1

3 PHONOLOGY

Canaanite script that also became the basis for the Greek
and hence the Latin alphabets. The Western Mediterranean (Punic) area form of the script gradually developed somewhat dierent and more cursive letter shapes;
in the 3rd century BC, it also began to exhibit a tendency to mark the presence of vowels, especially nal
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[14] 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).[15]
Neo-Punic in turn tended to designate vowels with matres
lectionis more frequently than the previous systems had
and also began to systematically use dierent letters for
dierent vowels,[15] in the way explained in more detail
below. Finally, a number of late inscriptions from ElHofra (Constantine), in the 1st century BC, make use of
the Greek alphabet to write Punic, and many inscriptions
from Tripolitania, in the 3rd and 4th centuries AD, use
the Latin alphabet for that purpose.[16]
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): rst, beginning in the 3rd century BC, there appeared the practice of using nal to mark the presence of any nal
vowel and, occasionally, of y to mark a nal long [i].
Later, mostly after the destruction of Carthage, in the socalled Neo-Punic inscriptions, this was supplemented
by a system in which w denoted [u], y denoted [i], denoted [e] and [o], denoted [a][17] and h and could also
be used to signify [a].[18] This latter system was used rst
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].[19] 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.

Phonology

cordingly of their Phoenician counterparts, is disputed,


with many scholars arguing that was [s], s was [ts], z
was [dz] and was [ts],[20] while others stick to the traditional sound values of [], [s], [z] and [s] as reected
in the transcription.[21]
The system reected in the abjad above is the product
of several mergers. From Proto-Northwest Semitic to
Canaanite, * and * have merged into *, * and *z have
merged into *z, 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 *.[22] These latter developments
also occurred in Biblical Hebrew at one point or another.
On the other hand, it is debated whether in 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.[23] 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 eect 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[24] vs Segert[25]
and Lyavdansky).[26] The consonant /p/ may have been
generally transformed into /f/ in Punic and in late Phoenician, as it was in Proto-Arabic.[26] 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.[27]

3.2 Vowels
Our knowledge of the vowel system is very imperfect because of the characteristics of the writing system; 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 vocabulary.
It is thought that Phoenician had the short vowels /a/, /i/,
/u/ and the long vowels /a/, /i/, /u/, /e/, /o/.[22][28] The
Proto-Semitic diphthongs /aj/ and /aw/ are realized as /e/
and /o/; this must have happened earlier than in Biblical
Hebrew, because the resultant long vowels are not marked
with the semi-vowel letters (bt house was written bt in
contrast to Biblical Hebrew byt).

The most conspicuous vocalic development in Phoenician


is the so-called Canaanite shift, partly shared by Bibli3.1 Consonants
cal Hebrew, but in Phoenician going much further. The
Proto-Northwest Semitic /a/ and /aw/ became not merely
The Phoenician orthography (see Phoenician alphabet) /o/ as in Tiberian Hebrew, but /u/. Stressed Protodistinguishes the consonants conventionally transcribed Semitic /a/, which rendered Tiberian Hebrew /a/, beas follows:
came /o/. The shift is proved by Latin and Greek tranThe original value of the Proto-Semitic sibilants, and ac- scriptions like rs for head, cape (Tiberian Hebrew r,

4.1

Nominal morphology

), sam for he heard (Tiberian Hebrew m, ;)


similarly the word for eternity is known from Greek
transcriptions to have been lm, corresponding to Biblical Hebrew lm and Proto-Semitic lam. The letter
Y used for words such as ys which and yth (denite accusative marker) in Greek and Latin alphabet inscriptions
can be interpreted as denoting a reduced schwa vowel[19]
that occurred in pre-stress syllables in verbs and two syllables before stress in nouns and adjectives,[29] 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 /u/.[29][30] Short /*i/ in originally
open syllables was lowered to [e] and was also lengthened
if accented.[29]

3
sonal 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 nd evidence of a retention of the genitive case in the
form of the rst singular possessive sux: by /abiya/ of
my father vs b /ab/ my father.
The written forms and the reconstructed pronunciations
of the personal pronouns[35] are as follows:
Singular:
1st: /ank/ nk (Punic sometimes nky), also attested as
/anek/
2nd masc. /atta()/ t
2nd fem. /atti()/ t
3rd masc. /hu/ h, also [hy] (?) hy and /huat/ ht
3rd fem. /hi/ h

Plural:
1st: /anan/ nn
2nd masc. unattested
Judging from stress-dependent vowel changes, stress was 2nd fem. unattested
[31]
probably mostly nal, as in Biblical Hebrew.
Long 3rd masc. /hummat/ hmt,
vowels probably only occurred in open syllables.[32]
3rd fem. /himmat/ hmt

3.3

Suprasegmentals

Enclitic personal pronouns are added to nouns (to encode possession) and to prepositions, as shown below for
4 Grammar
standard Phoenician (the predominant dialect, as distinct from the Byblian and late Punic varieties). They apAs is typical for the Semitic languages, Phoenician words pear in a slightly dierent form depending on whether
are usually built around triconsonantal roots and vowel they follow the plural form masculine nouns (and therechanges are used extensively to express morphological fore are added after a vowel) or not. The former case is
distinctions.
given in brackets with the abbreviation a.V..
Singular:
1st: /-/ , also y (a.V. /-ayy/ y)
4.1 Nominal morphology
2nd masc. /-ka()/ k
Nouns are marked for gender (masculine and feminine), 2nd fem. /-ki()/ k
number (singular, plural and vestiges of the dual) and 3rd masc. /-o/ , Punic , (a.V. /-yu()/ y)
state (absolute and construct, the latter characterizing 3rd fem. /-a/ , Punic (a.V. /-ya()/ y)
nouns followed by their possessors) and also have the cat- Plural:
egory deniteness. There is some evidence for remains 1st: /-o(n}}/ n
of the Proto Semitic genitive grammatical case as well. 2nd masc. unattested
While many of the endings coalesce in the standard or- 2nd fem. unattested
thography, inscriptions in the Latin and Greek alphabet 3rd masc. /-o()m/ m (a.V. /-nm/ nm)
permit the reconstruction of the noun endings (which are 3rd fem. /-e()m/ m (a.V. /-nm/ nm)
also the adjective endings) as follows:[33]
In addition, according to some research, the same written
Masculine: absolute singular -, dual /-m/ m, plural /- forms of the enclitics that are attested after vowels are
m/ m
also found after a singular noun in what must have been
construct singular -, dual /-/ , plural /-/
the genitive case (which ended in /-i/, whereas the plural
Feminine: absolute singular /-(o)t/ t, dual /-tm/ tm, plu- version ended in /-/). In this case, their pronunciation
ral /-t/ t
can be reconstructed somewhat dierently: 1st singular
construct singular /-(o)t/ t, dual */- tn/ tn?, plural /-t/ t /-iya()/ y, 3rd singular masculine and feminine /-iyu()/ y
In late Punic, the nal /-t/ of the feminine was apparently and /-iya()/ y. The 3rd plural singular and feminine must
dropped: mlkt son of the queen or mlkt brother of have pronounced the same in both cases, i.e. /-nm/ nm
the queen rendered in Latin as HIMILCO.[30][34] /n/ was and /-nm/ nm.
also assimilated to following consonants: e.g. t year These enclitic forms vary between the dialects. In the arfor earlier */ant/.[30]
chaic Byblian dialect, the third person forms are h and w
The case endings in general must have been lost between /-/ for the maculine singular (a.V. w /-w/), h /-aha()/
the 9th century BC and the 7th century BC: e.g. the per- for the feminine singular and hm /-hum(ma)/ for the mas-

4 GRAMMAR

culine plural. In late Punic, the 3rd masculine singular is Plural:


usually /-im/ m.
1st: /qataln/ qtln
The same enclitic pronouns are also attached to verbs to 2nd masc. unattested
denote direct objects. In that function some of them have 2nd fem. unattested
slightly divergent forms: rst singular /-n/ n and probably 3rd masc. qatal/ qtl, Punic qtl
3rd fem. unattested
rst plural /-nu()/.
The near demonstrative pronouns (this) are written, in
standard Phoenician, z for the singular and l for the plural. Cypriot Phoenician displays z instead of z. Byblian still distinguishes, in the singular, a masculine zn / z
from a feminine zt / z. 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/ my who and
/m/ m what. An indenite pronoun anything is written mnm. The relative pronoun is a , either followed or
preceded by a vowel.

The imperfect or prex-conjugation, which expresses the


present and future tense (and which is not distinguishable
from the descendant of the Proto-Semitic jussive expressing wishes), is exemplied below, again with the root qt-l.

1st: /iqtul/ qtl


2nd masc. /tiqtul/ tqtl
2nd fem. /tiqtul/ tqtly
3rd masc. /yiqtul/ yqtl
3rd fem. /tiqtul/ tqtl
Plural: 1st: */niqtul/? *nqtl
2nd masc. /tiqtul/ *tqtl, Punic *tqtl
The denite article was /ha-/ and the rst consonant of 2nd fem. /tiqtulna/ tqtln
the following word was doubled. It was written h, but 3rd masc. yiqtul/ yqtl
in late Punic also and , due to the weakening and co- 3rd fem. unattested
alescence of the gutturals. Much as in Biblical Hebrew, The imperative endings were presumably /-/, /-/ and /the initial consonant of the article is dropped after the /[38] for the second singular masculine, second singular
prepositions b-, l- and k; it could also be lost after various feminine and second plural masculine respectively, but all
other particles and function words such the direct object three forms surface in the orthography as qtl, i.e. -. The
marker yt and the conjunction w- and.
old Semitic jussive, which originally diered slightly from
Of the cardinal numerals from 1 to 10, 1 is an adjective, 2 the prex conjugation, is no longer possible to separate
is formally a noun in the dual and the rest are nouns in the from it in Phoenician with the present data.
singular. They distinguish gender: d, nm (construct
state n), l, rb, m, ss, b, mn(h), t, sr vs t,
unattested, lt, rbt, mt, t, bt, unattested, unattested, srt. The tens are morphologically masculine plurals of the ones: srm, lm, rbm, mm, m, bm,
mnm, tm. One hundred is mt, two hundred is its
dual form mtm, whereas the rest are formed as in l mt
(three hundred). One thousand is lp. Ordinal numerals
are formed by the addition of *iy -y.[36] Composite numerals are formed with w- and, e.g. sr w nm for
twelve.

The non-nite forms are the innitive construct, the innitive absolute and the active and passive participles. In
the G-stem, the innitive construct would usually be combined with the preposition l- to as in /liqtul/ to kill"; in
contrast, the innitive absolute (qatl[39] ) is mostly used
to strengthen the meaning of a subsequent nite verb with
the same root: pt tpt you will indeed open!",[38] accordingly /*qatl tiqtul/ you will indeed kill!".

Singular:
1st: /qatalt/ qtlty
2nd masc. /qatalt/ qtlt
2nd fem. /qatalt()/ qtlt
3rd masc. /qatl/ qtl
3rd fem. /qatal(t)/ qtlt,[38] also qtl, Punic qtl

The derived stems are:

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


Active:
Masculine singular /qtel/[38] or /qtil/ qtl, plural
/qotlim/[38] or /qtilm/ qtl
Feminine singular qtlt, plural *qtlt
4.2 Verbal morphology
Passive:
Masculine singular /qatl/[38] or /qatl/[40] qtl, plural
The verb inects for person, number, gender, tense and /qatlm/ qtlm
mood. Like other Semitic languages, Phoenician verbs Feminine singular qtlt, plural /qatlt/ qtlt
have dierent verbal patterns or stems, expressing The missing forms above can be inferred from the corremanner of action, level of transitivity and voice. The per- spondences between the Proto-Northwest Semitic ancesfect or sux-conjugation, which expresses the past tense, tral forms and the attested Phoenician counterparts: the
is exemplied below with the root q-t-l to kill (a neu- PNWS participle forms are */qtil-, qtilma, qtil(a)t,
tral, G-stem).[37]
qtilt, qatl, qatlm, qatult or qatlat, qatlt/.

the N-stem (functioning as a passive), e.g. nqtl, the


N-formant being lost in the prex conjugation while
assimilating and doubling the rst root consonant

5
(yqtl).
the D-stem (functioning as a factitive): the forms
must have been /qittil/ in the sux conjugation,
/yaqattil/ in the prex conjugation, /qattil/ in the imperative and the innitive construct, /qattl/ in the
innitive absolute and /maqattil/ in the participle.
The characteristic doubling of the middle consonant
is only identiable in foreign alphabet transcriptions.
the C-stem (functioning as a causative): the original *ha- prex has produced *yi- rather than the
Hebrew *hi-. The forms were apparently /yiqtil/ in
the sux conjugation (/iqtil/ in late Punic), /yaqtil/
in the prex conjugation, and the innitive is also
/yaqtil/, while the participle was probably /maqtil/
or, in late Punic at least, /miqtil/.[41]

6 Vocabulary and word formation


Nouns are mostly formed by a combination of consonantal roots and vocalic patterns, but they can also be formed
with prexes (/m-/, expressing actions or their results;
rarely /t-/) and suxes /-n/. Abstracts can be formed
with the sux -t (probably /-t/, /-t/).[40] Adjectives can
be formed following the familiar Semitic nisba sux /-y/
y (e.g. dny Sidonian).
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 pl (as in Aramaic pl and Arabic fl, as opposed
to Hebrew h).

Most of the stems apparently also had passive and reexive counterparts, the former diering through vowels,
the latter also through the inx -t-. The G stem passive 7 Survival and inuences of Punic
is attested as qytl, /qytal/ < */qutal/.;[38] t-stems can be
reconstructed as /yitqatil/ ytqtl (tG) and /yiqtattil/ (Dt) The signicantly divergent later-form of the language
yqttl.[42]
that was spoken in the Tyrian Phoenician colony of
Carthage is known as Punic; it remained in use there
for considerably longer than Phoenician did in Phoenicia
4.3 Prepositions and particles
itself, arguably surviving into Augustine's time. It may
Some prepositions are always prexed to nouns, deleting have even survived the Arabic conquest of North Africa:
the initial /h/ of the denite article if present: such are the geographer al-Bakr describes a people speaking a
b- in, l- to, for, k- as and m- /min/ from. They language that was not Berber, Latin or Coptic in the city
where spoken Punic
are sometimes found in forms extended through the addi- of Sirte in northern Libya, a region
[47]
However
it is likely that
survived
well
past
written
use.
tion of -n or -t. Other prepositions are not like this, e.g.l
Arabization
of
the
Punics
was
facilitated
by their lanupon, .d until, r after, tt under, b(y)n beguage
belonging
to
the
same
group
(the
Semitic
languages
tween. New prepositions are formed with nouns: lpn
group)
as
that
of
the
conquerors,
and
thus
having
many
in front of, from l- to and pn face. There is spegrammatical
and
lexical
similarities.
cial preposited marker of a denite object yt (/iyyt/?),
which, unlike Hebrew, is clearly distinct from the preposition t (/itt/). The most common negative marker is bl
(/bal/), negating verbs, but sometimes also nouns; another
one is y (//), expressing both non-existence and negation of verbs. Negative commands / prohibitions are expressed with l (/al/). Lest is lm. Some common conjunctions are w (originally perhaps /wa-?/, but certainly
/u-/ in Late Punic), and m (/im/), when, and k (/k/),
that; because; when. There was also a conjunction ()p
(/ap/"also. l- (/l, li/) could (rarely) be used to introduce
desiderative constructions (may he do X!"). l- could also
introduce vocatives. Both prepositions and conjunctions
could form compounds.[43]

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 modiers (such as adjectives and possessors).

The ancient Lybico-Berber alphabet still in irregular use


by modern Berber groups such as the Tuareg is known
by the native name tina, 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 dierent. 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 inuence 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 hyraxes", in turn a misidentication 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 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.

11

Surviving examples
Ahiram
Bodashtart
ineky inscription
Cippi of Melqart
Eshmunazar
Karatepe
Kilamuwa Stela
Nora Stone
Pyrgi Tablets
Temple of Eshmun

See also
Punic language
Phoenician alphabet
Extinct language
List of extinct languages of Asia

REFERENCES

[2] Nordho, Sebastian; Hammarstrm, Harald; Forkel,


Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). Phoenician
Punic. Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
[3] Lipiski, Edward. 2004. Itineraria Phoenicia. P.139-141
inter alia
[4] Lehmann 2013, p. 209:"Nearly two hundred years later
the repertory of Phoenician-Punic epigraphy counts about
10.000 inscriptions from throughout the Mediterranean
and its environs. Nevertheless, almost 150 years after Gesenius, Wolfgang Rllig bewailed once more that
notwithstanding the welcome increase of textual material in the past decades, Phoenician probably remains the
worst transmitted and least known of all Semitic languages.""
[5] Lipiski (1995), p.1321-1322, The Phoenician alphabetic script was easy to write on papyrus or parchment
sheets, and the use of these materials explains why virtually no Phoenician writings no history, no trading
records have come down to us. In their cities by the
sea, the air and soil were damp, and papyrus and leather
moldered and rotted away. Thus disappeared the literature of the people who taught a large portion of the
earths population to write. The only written documents of
Phoenicians and Carthaginians are monumental inscriptions on stone, a few ephemeral letters or notes on pieces
of broken pottery, and three fragmentary papyri. Thus,
no Tyrian primary sources dating from Hiram Is time are
available
[6] Lehmann 2013.

10

Notes

[1] These were complied in Wilhelm Gesenius's Scripturae


linguaeque Phoeniciae monumenta, which comprised all
that was known by scholars at that time. See Lehmann
2013, p. 240: Basically, its core consists of the comprehensive edition, or re-edition of 70 Phoenician and some
more non-Phoenician inscriptions... However, just to note
the advances made in the nineteenth century, it is noteworthy that Gesenius precursor Hamaker, in his Miscellanea
Phoenicia of 1828, had only 13 inscriptions at his disposal. On the other hand only 30 years later the amount
of Phoenician inscribed monuments had grown so enormously that Schrder in his compendium Die phnizische Sprache. Entwurf einer Grammatik nebst Sprachund Schriftproben of 1869 could state that Gesenius knew
only a quarter of the material Schrder had at hand himself. Nonetheless, Gesenius Scriptur linguque phoenici monumenta became a compendium of everything that
could be said about Phoenician language and Phoenician
inscriptions known up to that time, i.e. 1837.

[7] Gesenius 1837.


[8] The Maltese Language
[9] Fischer, Steven Roger (2004). A history of writing. Reaktion Books. p. 90.
[10] Markoe, Glenn E., Phoenicians. University of California
Press. ISBN 0-520-22613-5 (2000) (hardback) p. 111.
[11] Glenn Markoe.Phoenicians. p108. University of California Press 2000
[12] Zellig Sabbettai Harris. A grammar of the Phoenician language. p6. 1990
[13] Edward Clodd, Story of the Alphabet (Kessinger)
2003:192
[14] Jongeling, K. and Robert Kerr. Late Punic epigraphy.
P.10.
[15] Benz, Franz L. 1982. Personal Names in the Phoenician
and Punic Inscriptions. P.12-14

11

References

[1] Nordho, Sebastian; Hammarstrm, Harald; Forkel,


Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). Phoenician.
Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary
Anthropology.

[16] Jongeling, K. and Robert Kerr. Late Punic epigraphy.


P.2.
[17] Hackett, Joe Ann. 2008. Phoenician and Punic. In:
The Ancient Languages of Syria-Palestine and Arabia (ed.
Roger D. Woodard). P.85

[18] Jongeling, K., Robert M. Kerr. 2005. Late Punic epigraphy: an introduction to the study of Neo-Punic and
Latino-Punic Inscriptions

[35] The description of the pronouns follows Hackett, Joe Ann.


2008. Phoenician and Punic. In: The Ancient Languages
of Syria-Palestine and Arabia (ed. Roger D. Woodard).

[19] Segert, Stanislav. Phoenician and the Eastern Canaanite languages. In Robert Hetzron, ed., The Semitic Languages. P. 175

[36] 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

[20] Hackett, Joe Ann. 2008. Phoenician and Punic. In:


The Ancient Languages of Syria-Palestine and Arabia (ed.
Roger D. Woodard). P.86
[21] Segert, Stanislav. 1997. Phoenician and Punic phonology. In Phonologies of Asia and Africa: (including the
Caucasus), ed. Alan S. Kaye, Peter T. Daniels. P.59.

[37] The vocalized reconstructions in the schemes below follow chiey Hackett, Joe Ann. 2008. Phoenician and
Punic. In: The Ancient Languages of Syria-Palestine and
Arabia (ed. Roger D. Woodard). 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

[22] Hackett, Joe Ann. 2008. Phoenician and Punic. In:


The Ancient Languages of Syria-Palestine and Arabia (ed.
Roger D. Woodard). P.87

[38] 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

[23] Kerr, Robert M. 2010. Latino-Punic Epigraphy: A Descriptive Study of the Inscriptions. P.126

[39] Hackett, Joe Ann. 2008. Phoenician and Punic. In:


The Ancient Languages of Syria-Palestine and Arabia (ed.
Roger D. Woodard). P.96.

[24] Cf. Hackett, Joe Ann. 2008. Phoenician and Punic. In:
The Ancient Languages of Syria-Palestine and Arabia (ed.
Roger D. Woodard). P.87
[25] Segert, Stanislav. Phoenician and the Eastern Canaanite languages. In Robert Hetzron, ed., The Semitic Languages.
[26] , .. 2009.
.
: . .
. . , ..
. P.283
[27] Kerr, Robert M. 2010 Latino-Punic Epigraphy: A Descriptive Study of the Inscriptions. P.105 .
[28] Segert, Stanislav. 1997. Phoenician and Punic phonology. In Phonologies of Asia and Africa: (including the
Caucasus), ed. Alan S. Kaye, Peter T. Daniels. P.60.
[29] Cf. Hackett, Joe Ann. 2008. Phoenician and Punic. In:
The Ancient Languages of Syria-Palestine and Arabia (ed.
Roger D. Woodard). P.88
[30] Segert, Stanislav. 1997. Phoenician and Punic phonology. In Phonologies of Asia and Africa: (including the
Caucasus), ed. Alan S. Kaye, Peter T. Daniels. P.61.

[40] , .. 2009.
.
: . .
. . , ..
. P.293
[41] Hackett, Joe Ann. 2008. Phoenician and Punic. In:
The Ancient Languages of Syria-Palestine and Arabia (ed.
Roger D. Woodard). P.97.
[42] Hackett, Joe Ann. 2008. Phoenician and Punic. In:
The Ancient Languages of Syria-Palestine and Arabia (ed.
Roger D. Woodard). P.99.
[43] Hackett, Joe Ann. 2008. Phoenician and Punic. In:
The Ancient Languages of Syria-Palestine and Arabia (ed.
Roger D. Woodard). P.98
[44] Booth, Scott W. (2007). Using corpus linguistics to address some questiongs of Phoenician grammar and syntax
found in the Kulamuwa inscription (PDF). p. 196.
[45] Alfabeto fenicio.
Proel (Promotora Espaola de
Lingstica) (in Spanish). Retrieved 5 July 2011.
[46] . (1967). .
: .
[47]

[31] Hackett, Joe Ann. 2008. Phoenician and Punic. In:


The Ancient Languages of Syria-Palestine and Arabia (ed.
Roger D. Woodard). P.89
[32] Segert, Stanislav. 1997. Phoenician and Punic phonology. In Phonologies of Asia and Africa: (including the
Caucasus), ed. Alan S. Kaye, Peter T. Daniels. P.63.
[33] 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
[34] Hackett, Joe Ann. 2008. Phoenician and Punic. In:
The Ancient Languages of Syria-Palestine and Arabia (ed.
Roger D. Woodard). P.90

12 Further reading
Krahmalkov, Charles R. (2001), A PhoenicianPunic Grammar, Handbook of Oriental Studies,
Section 1 54, Leiden, Boston & Kln: Brill Publishing, ISBN 90-04-11771-7.
J. Friedrich W. Rllig (1999). Phnizischpunische Grammatik (III ed., neu bearbeitet von
M.G. Amadasi Guzzo unter Mitarbeit von W.R.
Meyer)

12 FURTHER READING
Lehmann, Reinhard G. (2013). Wilhelm Gesenius and the Rise of Phoenician Philology (PDF).
Beihefte zur Zeitschrift fr die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft (Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter) 427: 209
266.
Barthlemy, Jean-Jacques (1764). Rexions sur
quelques monuments Phniciens, et sur les alphabets qui en rsultent. Mmoires de littrature, tirs
des registres de lacadmie royale des inscriptions et
belles-lettres 30: 405427.
Gesenius, Wilhelm (1837). Scriptur linguque
phoenici monumenta quotquot supersunt edita et
inedita ad autographorum optimorumque exemplorum dem edidit additisque de scriptura et lingua
phoenicum commentariis. Leipzig.

13
13.1

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