Phoenician language

The Phoenician language was an ancient way of speaking that belonged to a group called the Canaanite languages. It was first used in the areas around the cities of Tyre and Sidon. Because the Phoenicians were great traders, their language became very important for communication across the Mediterranean Sea during a time called the Iron Age.

The Phoenician alphabet was very special. It later traveled to Greece and became the basis for all the writing systems used in Europe today. This language was similar to Biblical Hebrew.

Phoenician was spoken in many places, including what we now call Lebanon, parts of Cyprus, Syria, and even in faraway colonies along the coasts of the Mediterranean, such as in Tunisia, Morocco, Libya, and Algeria. Over time, it changed into another language called Punic in North Africa. The Phoenician language was first understood by a scholar named Jean-Jacques Barthélemy in the year 1758.

History

The Phoenicians were the first people to widely use the Semitic alphabet. The Phoenician alphabet is one of the oldest known alphabets. It is thought to be a parent of almost all modern alphabets.

The Phoenicians had different dialects in their language. One dialect from Tyre and Sidon spread across the Mediterranean through trade. Another dialect from Byblos did not spread much. Through their trade, the Phoenicians shared their alphabet with the Maghreb and Europe. The Greeks adopted it, and later the Etruscans and Romans used changed versions of it. Phoenician was used until the 1st century BC, when it disappeared. The related Punic language lasted much longer.

Writing system

Main article: Phoenician alphabet

The Phoenician language used a special way of writing called the Phoenician script. This script was one of the first ways people wrote down words, and it only used letters for the sounds made by consonants.

The Phoenician script helped create other writing systems we still use today, like the Greek alphabet and the Latin alphabet.

Over time, the Phoenician script changed. During a big war called the Second Punic War, a new, more flowing style of writing called Neo-Punic developed.

In Phoenician writing, the letters for long vowel sounds were often not written. But later, writers in a place called Punic began using some letters to show vowels. They used the letter 'ālep to show a final vowel. Even later, they used letters like wāw for the sound [u] and yōd for the sound [i]. This made their writing easier to understand.

Phonology

Consonants

The following table shows the sounds of the Phoenician language as written in the Phoenician alphabet, along with their standard names and sounds:

The Phoenician sound system changed over time. Some sounds merged together, making the language simpler.

Sibilants

There is some debate about the exact sounds of the hissing and buzzing letters in Phoenician. Some experts think they made sounds like "sh," "s," "z," and a special buzzing "s," while others think they made different sounds.

Postvelars

In later Phoenician, some soft sounds at the back of the mouth seem to have disappeared. These sounds could not be well written with the letters used by the Romans.

Lenition

It is unclear if Phoenician changed some hard consonant sounds to softer ones, as happened in other similar languages. One hard sound might have become a softer "f" sound later on.

Vowels

We don't know much about the vowel sounds in Phoenician because the writing system did not show vowels clearly. It is thought Phoenician had short sounds like "a," "i," and "u," and long sounds like "aa," "ee," "oo," "eh," and "oh."

Phoenician changed some vowel sounds in a special way. For example, a long "ah" sound became a long "oo" sound.

Suprasegmentals

Changes in vowel sounds based on their position in a word suggest that stress, or emphasis, was usually on the last syllable of a word. Long vowel sounds probably only appeared in certain parts of words.

Grammar

Phoenician words are built around sounds that stay the same, with small changes in vowels to show different meanings. Unlike most similar languages, Phoenician used simple word patterns.

Nouns show if they are male or female, how many there are, and their form. Old ways of changing words to show their role still exist. Special words were used to show who owns something or what is being acted on. Verbs change to show who is doing the action, how many, their gender, when it happens, and their attitude, with different ways to show how the action is done.

The Phoenician alphabet is the beginning of all the writing systems used in Europe today.

Survival and influences of Punic

Main article: Punic language

Punic was a later form of the Phoenician language. It was spoken in the city of Carthage. Punic lasted longer than Phoenician and may have been used even during the time of Augustine of Hippo. Punic lived alongside the Berber languages in places like Tunisia.

Some modern Berber words might have come from Punic. For example, the word for "wall" in Berber, agadir, may come from a Punic word.

Punic also influenced place names. One theory says that the name Hispania (meaning the Iberian Peninsula, which includes Portugal and Spain) comes from a Punic phrase meaning "coast of hyraxes". Punic also affected the name for a tribe of people found near the Gulf of Guinea, which later became the name for the western gorilla.

Surviving examples

We know about the Phoenician language from around 10,000 inscriptions carved on stone. They probably also wrote many books on papyrus or parchment, but these materials rotted away, so almost none survive today. What we do have are important stone inscriptions and a few short notes on broken pottery pieces.

Important surviving Phoenician inscriptions include the 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, and the Temple of Eshmun. The Pyrgi Tablets, found in 1964, have writing in both Etruscan and Phoenician and helped scholars understand the Etruscan language better.