Talk:Phoenician language/Archive 1

Source of the language?
I can see there are some inscriptions which form the basis for the Punic language, but what are the sources for the Phoenician mother language? Zestauferov 12:11, 19 April 2004 (UTC)

Quite a lot of inscriptions in Phoenician exist, but not many of them are online; there's a couple at. If you mean what sources did I use, memory of a university course. - Mustafaa 18:18, 20 April 2004 (UTC)

No thats ok Mustafaa, Just I remember telling someone once that there were no written records in phoenician only inscriptions but I was shot down for it. I was still convinced that there were no written records so I was just wondering what inscriptions/sources the reconstructed phoenician language was based upon. Thankyou. Zestauferov 22:58, 20 April 2004 (UTC)

Well, there are no records with vowels in them, apart from the occasional Greek and Roman transcriptions, so the vowels for Phoenician are mostly reconstructed. But the consonants are well-attested from a variety of tomb inscriptions, temple laws, ostraca, royal proclamations, etc. - Mustafaa 16:58, 21 April 2004 (UTC)

An inscription IS a written record.

Study of "advanced" Phoenician
"University of Chicago (the only place to study advanced Phoenician). "
 * I think we have quite an "advanced" Phoenician courses at TAU, and I expect in many other places too. Besides, the sentence hardly seems suitable for wikipedia. I suggest it be removed. Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.178.218.250 (talk) 04:02, 16 February 2005 (UTC)

Kilamuwa's Tomb?
I'm a bit curious about "Kilamuwa's tomb." I thought the inscription was discovered at the entrance of the palace at Zinjirli? I am fairly certain there were no tombs discovered in the early German excavations at Zinjirli. To be sure, there are literary components in this inscription (KAI 24) that seem to recall funerary texts - which is why I'm curious by the label Kilmuwa's tomb. Em-jay-es 16:07, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Coins
I have removed the following material by 12.76.78.199, as it is discursive, from the article to post here: On the coins from the 300 to 400 B.C. I have seen similar to aramaic writings. Coins that were minted in Zeugitana, Carthage during the Punic Wars. These ancient coins used denominations in shekels. It would be interesting for someone to figure out how these Jewish people colonized in Africa and Spain. The coins are the only evidence I can find of their existance. Here is a link for the coins: http://www.wildwinds.com/coins/greece/zeugitana/carthage/i.html — Gareth Hughes 00:05, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

One language or many?
The title of this article is "Phoenician languages", but the intro starts off as:

"Phoenician was a language originally spoken in the coastal region then called Pūt in Ancient Egyptian, Canaan in Phoenician, Hebrew, and Aramaic, and Phoenicia in Greek and Latin. Phoenician is a Semitic language of the Canaanite subgroup, closely related to Hebrew and Aramaic. This area includes modern-day Lebanon, coastal Syria, and northern Israel. Its speakers called their own language (dabarīm) Pōnnīm/Kana'nīm 'Punic/Canaanite (speech)'."

Is Phoenician a single language or a group of languages? If it's the former, than this article should probably be renamed. Khoikhoi 00:04, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Honestly I don't think it makes much difference. There's ancient Phoenician and Punic, but they're all Canaanite languages. Ancient Phoenician was part of a dialect continuum, and Punic was as different a language as all other surviving Canaanite languages were or are. There is Hebrew languages, which are not a language family but rather the forms of the Canaanite language used by Hebrew groups that had settled in Canaan. So while Phoenician languages are probably not a family, they are distinct in being Canaanite languages varieties spoken specifically by the Phoenicians wherever they lived or settled. - Gilgamesh 02:16, 31 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Ok, thanks. However, here are some Google numbers:


 * Results 1 - 10 of about 11,500 for "Phoenician language"
 * Results 1 - 10 of about 841 for "Phoenician languages"


 * Or, if you trust printed books more:
 * Books 1 - 10 with 644 pages on "Phoenician language"
 * Books 1 - 9 with 55 pages on "Phoenician languages".


 * Khoikhoi 02:31, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Page moved. Khoikhoi 02:28, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Tifinagh
he ancient Lybico-Berber alphabet derived from the Punic script still in irregular use by modern Berber groups such as the Touareg is known by the native name tifinaġ, possibly a declined form of the borrowed word Pūnic. Direct borrowings from Punic appear in modern Berber dialects: one interesting example is agadir "wall" from Punic gader. This term also served as the origin of the name of the Spanish city of Cádiz (Latin: Gades), from Punic (Qart-)Gadir "The Walled (City)".

In this section of text only the Touareg are mentioned as the poeple that speak tifinagh. While there numbers of the Touareg isn't the biggest among the Amazigh people. The Touareg do not use the Tifinagh writings. They have there own writings of the Amazigh language. The Tifinagh comes from the north-western parts of Africa(Morocco and Algeria).

'''According to the Holy Hebrew scriptures shows Canaanite & the Phoencians were Canaanite original language was not Semitic, they adopt Aramiac:'''

Quoting a good reference:

"Although the Bible record clearly shows the Canaanites to be Hamitic, the majority of reference works speak of them as of Semitic origin. This classification is based on the evidence of a Semitic language spoken by the Canaanites. The evidence most frequently appealed to is the large number of texts found at Ras Shamra (Ugarit) written in a Semitic language or dialect and considered to date from as far back as the 14th century B.C.E. However, Ugarit apparently did not come within the Biblical boundaries of Canaan. An article by A. F. Rainey in The Biblical Archaeologist (1965, p. 105) states that on ethnic, political, and, probably, linguistic bases “it is now clearly a misnomer to call Ugarit a ‘Canaanite’ city.” He gives further evidence to show that “Ugarit and the land of Canaan were separate and distinct political entities.” Hence, these tablets provide no clear rule by which to determine the language of the Canaanites.

Many of the Amarna Tablets found in Egypt do proceed from cities in Canaan proper, and these tablets, predating the Israelite conquest, are written mainly in cuneiform Babylonian, a Semitic language. This, however, was the diplomatic language of the entire Middle East at that time, so that it was used even when writing to the Egyptian court. Thus, it is of considerable interest to note the statement in The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible (edited by G. A. Buttrick, 1962, Vol. 1, p. 495) that “the Amarna Letters contain evidence for the opinion that non-Semitic ethnic elements settled in Palestine and Syria at a rather early date, for a number of these letters show a remarkable influence of non-Semitic tongues.” (Italics ours.) The facts are that there is still uncertainty as to the original language spoken by the first inhabitants of Canaan.

It is true, however, that the Bible account itself appears to show that Abraham and his descendants were able to converse with the people of Canaan without the need of an interpreter, and it may also be noted that, while some place-names of a non-Semitic type were used, most of the towns and cities captured by the Israelites already bore Semitic names. Still, Philistine kings in Abraham’s time and also, evidently, David’s time, were called “Abimelech” (Ge 20:2; 21:32; Ps 34:Sup), a thoroughly Semitic name (or title), whereas it is nowhere contended that the Philistines were a Semitic race. So, it would appear that the Canaanite tribes, over a period of some centuries from the time of the confusion of tongues at Babel (Ge 11:8, 9), apparently changed over to a Semitic tongue from their original Hamitic language. This may have been because of their close association with the Aramaic-speaking peoples of Syria, as a result of Mesopotamian domination for a period of time, or for other reasons not now apparent. Such a change would be no greater than that of other ancient nations, such as the ancient Persians, who, though of Indo-European (Japhetic) stock, later adopted the Semitic Aramaean language and writing.

“The language of Canaan” referred to at Isaiah 19:18 would by then (eighth century B.C.E.) be the Hebrew language, the principal language of the land." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.38.211.144 (talk) 06:28, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Gesenius
Can anyone please take a look at my question at Talk:Wilhelm Gesenius?

Thanks in advance. --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 17:27, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Phoenican bal and Hebrew bli
The article compares Phoenican bal with "Hebrew "belial" (beli- ya'al) "without advantage, gain" = worthless". In Hebrew there is a word בלי (bli) "without". May be it is better example? Jonah.ru (talk) 22:39, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

The prepositions listed, and many of the nouns, are virtually identical with Hebrew.

Phoencian script in Unicode
Since the Phoenician script is now encoded in Unicode (and, to my surprise, already works in my browser), I was going to replace the image-based language name in the infobox with the text form. However, I can't figure out how to get the right-to-left text to work right. Here's my best effort, which still shows up left-to-right:

Could someone who has more expertise with RTL than I do finish what I started? — ˈzɪzɨvə (talk) 22:54, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I have now added this span tag to Template:Script/Phoenician, but it still shows up with LTR order. &rlo; and &pdf; are not resolved by Wikipedia, and that's the only other way I can think of doing it, but dir= is supposed to achieve the same thing as those characters anyway. ᛭ LokiClock (talk) 12:57, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Survival in Phoenicia
I don't have The Semitic languages (ed. Robert Hetzron) with me so I cannot check, but if I remember correctly, it states that Phoenician was spoken in Phoenicia until the 1st century BC. Can anyone check? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 13:49, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Also, I seem to remember reading there (or perhaps elsewhere?) that Punic was spoken particularly long on Sardinia, until the 6th century AD. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 16:11, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

The Proto-Hellenic Phoenicians
It is still astonishing to read these revisions of history that incorrectly restructure the progression of Phoenician directly to Greek, instead of the manufactured fantasy that Phoenician is a "West" Semitic people. The Phoenician peoples split into separate regions, combined with the Greeks through treaty and inter-marriage and were not Semitic (the men were uncircumcised). The "upper" Canaanites were repeatedly at war with Judea and Hebrew history is linked through Aramaic and Greek in a less direct connection. The Hebrew history is the old testament story of the Israelites. The Phoenicians are closely related Greek non-Semitic civilization and became part of many different Hellenic peoples and states (in TYRE especially), and with the exception of those went on to found Carthage.

The article claims that the origins of Phoenician is in areas of Cyprus and other areas of recorded Mycenaean civilizations, that is because the Phoenician people are related to the Asian 'non-classical' (or Greek speaking)Hellenic peoples of that area, between the Hittites and northwest of Assyria in Anatolia.

You had to be circumcised or from Babylon to even resemble Semetic peoples, the history contradicts these contemporary unfounded claims. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.148.7.28 (talk) 09:47, 14 May 2013 (UTC)


 * It is important to distinguish between language, ethnicity, and culture. This article discusses the Phoenician language, which is known to be a Semitic language because of obvious resemblances to Hebrew, Arabic, Aramaic, etc. If you know Hebrew you can see this for yourself in the sample text, which has words like khn (priest), mlk (king), bn (son), virtually identical to the Hebrew words (see also historical linguistics). Your claims seem to pertain more to the article Phoenicia, which talks about the ancient region and its people. But note that you need to present reliable sources for those claims, especially if you are attempting to define ethnicity on the basis of a specific cultural practice, such as circumcision. Lesgles (talk) 01:04, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on Phoenician language. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20110812194619/http://boothhouse.com/content/Booth_Using_Corpus_Linguistics.pdf to http://boothhouse.com/content/Booth_Using_Corpus_Linguistics.pdf

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Meaning of alphabet letters in Phoenician (and ancient Hebrew)
The Phoenician alphabet consists of letters named after words in Phonecian that begin with the letter's articulation. According to the Double-List Theory by Prof. Menachem Shalhevet, the alphabet consists of two lists, the first portraying land and agriculture, and the second water and fishery.


 * Aleph (upside down A) - literally: leader. Is an ox. Named after the slurping sound the ox makes when harvesting and swallowing grass with its long tongue. (The words slurp and swallow are similarly derived)
 * Byth (B) or Pyth (P) - literally: daughter. Is a cow or a female. It also means a home. The word may be derived from the sound of caressing. In Hebrew it could be a B or a V depending on it's location. Path - meant bread, which was baked by the woman and eaten in the home.  It was called so because of the patting sound when being prepared.
 * Gummel (C) - literally: gulping. Is a newborn calf not yet weaned from it's mother's milk. Also means cammel. Both the cammel and calf are named in Phoenician after the gulping sound they make while drinking. (The English word 'drink' is derived similarly)
 * Daleth (D) - literally: take, or: pull. Is a pointy pail to pull water up from the well. It is named after the dripping sound of the water. A pail in Hebrew is Dli and dripping in biblical Hebrew is Dellep. The English word 'drip' is similarly derived.
 * Hay (E) - Is the rope and crank to pull water and feed the animals.
 * Woo (Y) - Literally: hook. A yolk connector. Also means and due to its usage as a connector. (The opposite may be true: Perhaps the yolk-connector and hook were called so due to the 'and' connecting word.) The 'woo' sound is a quick and simple articulation similar to the Ee in russian, and the oon in spoken German, and the n' in spoken English.
 * Zhine (Z) With the Zh representing a soft French-like J sound) - Literally: Food. A threshing sledge. Called so because of the dragging jjjjj sound it makes.
 * Heth - (with a gluttal H) is a trough. Called so because of the thirst sound and satisfaction sounds emitted before and after eating a tasty fish.
 * Teth - A wheel. The bible mentions Tothafoth for phylacteries, and traditionally 4 four separate wound up parchments are used on the eyes, as opposed to a single one for the texts in the one placed on the hand. Called so for the "t-thhhhhhhhh", the soft sound of crude wooden wheels.
 * Yode - A shovel or hand. The drawing is of an arm bent at the elbow and of a pinching fist.
 * Kaff (K -) - A dustpan or palm of a hand. Called so because of the scraping sound. Perhaps the hand is named after.
 * Lamed - Literally: lead the way, or teach. A whip for leading the animals.


 * List 2: Water and fishery
 * Mime (m - the shape of a wave) water
 * Noon (n - The shape of a fish) A fish
 * Samek ($ - the shape of a whole fish's fishbone) A 'fishbone'. Called so because of the sound of "smacking of the lips" after eating a tasty fish.
 * 'Ine (' - a glottal sound like the beginning of the word Arab in Arabic) Literally: eye. Is a water well (called after the eye which emits tears and can be closed). The glottal sound can be made to sound like swallowing sounds or water being thrust against the well walls.  The sea of Gallilee was called: The Sumchi sea.
 * Fom or: Vom (P) - (In modern Hebrew it is Peh and Feh) Literally: mouth. The Water-well opening (depicted in the bible as the water well mouth). Called so because of the plosive sound the lips make (incidentally, that is the source of the word lips) and the m and f created through the lips similar to the English word: Mouth.
 * Ssadi (# the shape of a hash, pronounced Ss - with a glottal S strongly emphasized) - Is a fishnet. Sside are fish and Ssud is fishing (or trapping animals). In modern Hebrew it means to hunt and is pronounced Tzayid, also meaning provisions. Called so due to the sound of a fishnet released and the thud when it hits the water. (The word thud sounds almost exactly the same). Beth Ssidan - was located near the Gallilee sea, and Sidon was near the sea. (perhaps the word sea and Sside are connected)
 * Qof (Q - or a lollypop shape) - the eye of a needle. A large needle made of a fishbone would be used to fix the fishing nets.
 * Resh (P - the shape of a wide P) - Literally: head. Was a fish-head but changed its shape.
 * Shin (W - the shape of sharp teeth) Literally: tooth. A knife. Called so because of the SH sound emmited from the teeth (and preserved in the word chin).
 * [The letter was also used for S]
 * Taaw and Thaaw (X or +) - A mark or 'letter' for counting the ship's cargo or fish caught. פשוט pashute ♫ (talk) 06:31, 16 March 2018 (UTC)