Phoenician languagePhoenicianwas alanguageoriginallyspokeninthecoastal (Mediterranean) region then called "Canaan" inPhoenician, Arabic, Greek, and Aramaic, "Phoenicia" inGreek and Latin, and "Pt" in Ancient Egyptian. Phoeni-cian 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 Phoenicianwas spoken includes modern-day Lebanon, coastal Syria,northern Israel, parts of Cyprus and, at least as a pres-tige language, some adjacent areas of Anatolia.[3] It wasalso spoken in the area of Phoenician colonization alongthe coasts of the Southwestern Mediterranean, includingthose of modern Tunisia, Morocco, Libya and Algeria,as well as Malta, the west of Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica,Balearic islands and southernmost Spain.Phoenician, together with Punic, is currently known onlyfrom approximately 10,000 inscriptions,[4] as well as oc-casional glosses in books written in other languages, sincethe language was primarily written on papyrus and parch-ment rather than stone.[5] Roman authors such as Sallustallude to some books written in Punic language, but nonehavesurvivedexcept occasionallyintranslation(e.g.,Magos treatise) or in snippets (e.g., in Plautus' plays).The Cippi of Melqart, a bilingual inscription in AncientGreek and Carthaginian discovered in Malta in 1694, wasthe key which allowed French scholar Abb Barthelemyto decipher and reconstruct the alphabet in 1758,[6] al-though as late as 1837 only 70 Phoenician inscriptionswere known to scholars.[note 1][7]Further, since a trade agreement made between Etruscansand a group of Phoenicians around 500 BCE was foundin 1964, more Etruscan has been deciphered.[8]1 HistoryThe Phoenicians were the rst state-level society to makeextensive use of the alphabet. The Phoenician alphabetis the oldest veried consonantal alphabet, or abjad.[9] Ithas become conventional to refer to the script as Proto-Canaanite until the mid-11th century, when it is rst at-tested on inscribed bronze arrowheads, and as Phoeni-cian only after 1050 BC.[10] The Phoenician phonetic al-phabet is generally believed to be the ancestor of almostall modern alphabets.From a traditional linguistic perspective, Phoenician wasa Canaanite lect.[11][12] However, due to the very slightdierences in language, and the insucient records ofDistribution of the Phoenician language, shown as yellowoutline.GadirFRICACartagoSICILIAEUROPAIBERIACRETACHIPREASIAMenfisBiblosSidnTiroTingisLeptisMar NegroOcanoAtlnticoMarMediterrneoMarEgeoMar AdriticoCireneLas rutas comercialesde los feniciosFeniciaRutascomercialesThe most important Phoenician trade routes and cities along theMediterranean Area.thetime, whetherPhoenicianformedaseparateandunited dialect, or was merely a supercially dened partof a broader language continuum, is unclear. Throughtheir maritime trade, the Phoenicians spread the use ofthe alphabet to North Africa and Europe, where it wasadopted by the Greeks, who later passed it on to theEtruscans, who in turn transmitted it to the Romans.[13]In addition to their many inscriptions, the Phoeniciansare believed to have left numerous other types of writtensources, but most have not survived.The Phoenician and Carthaginian expansion spread thePhoenician language and its Punic dialect to the WesternMediterranean for a time, but there too it died out, al-though it seems to have survived slightly longer than inPhoenicia itself, perhaps as late as the 5th century AD.2 Writing systemMain article: Phoenician alphabetPhoenician was written with the Phoenician script,anabjad(consonantary) originating fromthe Proto-12 3 PHONOLOGYCanaanite script that also became the basis for the Greekand hence the Latin alphabets. The Western Mediter-ranean (Punic) area form of the script gradually devel-oped somewhat dierent and more cursive letter shapes;in the 3rd century BC, it also began to exhibit a ten-dency to mark the presence of vowels, especially nalvowels, with an aleph or sometimes an ayin. Further-more, around the time of the Second Punic War, an evenmore cursive form began to develop[14] and it gave rise toa variety referred to as Neo-Punic, which existed along-side the more conservative formand became predominantsome time after the destruction of Carthage (146 BC).[15]Neo-Punic in turn tended to designate vowels with matreslectionis more frequently than the previous systems hadand also began to systematically use dierent letters fordierent vowels,[15] in the way explained in more detailbelow. Finally, a number of late inscriptions from El-Hofra (Constantine), in the 1st century BC, make use ofthe Greek alphabet to write Punic, and many inscriptionsfrom Tripolitania, in the 3rd and 4th centuries AD, usethe Latin alphabet for that purpose.[16]In Phoenician writing, unlike that of most later abjadssuch as those of Aramaic, Biblical Hebrew and Arabic,even long vowels remained generally unexpressed, andthat regardless of their origin. Eventually Punic writersdid begin to implement systems of marking of vowels bymeans of consonantal letters (matres lectionis): rst, be-ginning in the 3rd century BC, there appeared the prac-tice of using nal to mark the presence of any nalvowel and, occasionally, ofy to mark a nal long [i].Later, mostly after the destruction of Carthage, in the so-called Neo-Punic inscriptions, this was supplementedby a system in which w denoted [u], y denoted [i], de-noted [e] and [o], denoted [a][17] and h and could alsobe used to signify [a].[18] This latter system was used rstwith foreign words and was then extended to many nativewords as well. A third practice reported in the literatureis the use of the consonantal letters for vowels in the sameway as that had occurred in the original adaptation of thePhoenician alphabet to Greek and Latin, which was ap-parently still transparent to Punic writers:i.e. h for [e]and for [a].[19] Later, Punic inscriptions began to be writ-ten in the Latin alphabet, which also indicated the vowels.These later inscriptions, in addition with some inscrip-tions in Greek letters and transcriptions of Phoeniciannames into other languages, represent the main source forPhoenician vowels.3 Phonology3.1 ConsonantsThe Phoenician orthography (seePhoenicianalphabet)distinguishes the consonants conventionally transcribedas follows:The original value of the Proto-Semitic sibilants, and ac-cordingly of their Phoenician counterparts, is disputed,with many scholars arguing that was [s], s was [ts], zwas [dz] and was [ts],[20] while others stick to the tra-ditional sound values of [], [s], [z] and [s] as reectedin the transcription.[21]The system reected in the abjad above is the productof several mergers. From Proto-Northwest Semitic toCanaanite, * and * have merged into *, * and *z havemerged 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 developmentsalso 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 or-thography, also eventually merged at some point, either inClassical Phoenician or in Late Punic.[23] In later Punic,the laryngeals and pharyngeals seemto have been entirelylost. Neither these nor the emphatics could be adequatelyrepresented by the Latin alphabet, but there is also evi-dence to that eect from Punic script transcriptions..There is no consensus on whether Phoenician-Punic everunderwent the plosive consonantal lenition process thatmost other Northwest Semitic languages such as BiblicalHebrew and Aramaic did (cf. Hackett[24] vs Segert[25]and Lyavdansky).[26] The consonant /p/ may have beengenerally transformed into /f/ in Punic and in late Phoeni-cian, as it was in Proto-Arabic.[26] Certainly Latin-scriptrenditions of late Punic include many spirantized tran-scriptions with ph, th and kh in various positions al-though the interpretation of these spellings is not entirelyclear as well as the letter f for original *p.[27]3.2 VowelsOur knowledge of the vowel system is very imperfect be-cause of the characteristics of the writing system; dur-ing most of its existence Phoenician writing didn't ex-press any vowels at all, and even as vowel notation sys-tems did eventually arise late in its history, they nevercame 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] TheProto-Semitic diphthongs /aj/ and /aw/ are realized as /e/and /o/; this must have happened earlier than in BiblicalHebrew, because the resultant long vowels are not markedwith the semi-vowel letters (bt house was written bt incontrast to Biblical Hebrew byt).The most conspicuous vocalic development in Phoenicianis the so-called Canaanite shift, partly shared by Bibli-cal Hebrew, but in Phoenician going much further.TheProto-Northwest Semitic /a/ and /aw/ became not merely/o/ as in Tiberian Hebrew, but /u/. Stressed Proto-Semitic /a/, which rendered Tiberian Hebrew /a/, be-came /o/. The shift is proved by Latin and Greek tran-scriptions like rs for head, cape (Tiberian Hebrew r,4.1 Nominal morphology 3), sam for he heard (Tiberian Hebrewm, );similarly the word for eternity is known from Greektranscriptions to have been lm, corresponding to Bib-lical Hebrew lm and Proto-Semitic lam. The letterY used for words such as ys which and yth (denite ac-cusative marker) in Greek and Latin alphabet inscriptionscan be interpreted as denoting a reduced schwa vowel[19]that occurred in pre-stress syllables in verbs and two sylla-bles before stress in nouns and adjectives,[29] while otherinstances of Y as in chyl and even chil for /kull/ all inPoenulus can be interpreted as a further stage in the vowelshift resulting in fronting ([y]) and even subsequent de-labialization of /u/ and /u/.[29][30] Short /*i/ in originallyopen syllables was lowered to [e] and was also lengthenedif accented.[29]3.3 SuprasegmentalsJudging from stress-dependent vowel changes, stress wasprobably mostly nal, as in Biblical Hebrew.[31]Longvowels probably only occurred in open syllables.[32]4 GrammarAs is typical for the Semitic languages, Phoenician wordsare usually built around triconsonantal roots and vowelchanges are used extensively to express morphologicaldistinctions.4.1 Nominal morphologyNouns are marked for gender (masculine and feminine),number (singular,plural and vestiges of the dual) andstate (absolute and construct, the latter characterizingnouns followed by their possessors) and also have the cat-egory deniteness. There is some evidence for remainsof the Proto Semitic genitive grammatical case as well.While many of the endings coalesce in the standard or-thography, inscriptions in the Latin and Greek alphabetpermit the reconstruction of the noun endings (which arealso the adjective endings) as follows:[33]Masculine: absolute singular -, dual /-m/ m, plural /-m/ mconstruct singular -, dual /-/ , plural /-/ Feminine: absolute singular /-(o)t/ t, dual /-tm/ tm, plu-ral /-t/ tconstruct singular /-(o)t/ t, dual */- tn/ tn?, plural /-t/ tIn late Punic, the nal /-t/ of the feminine was apparentlydropped: mlkt son of the queen or mlkt brother ofthe queen rendered in Latin as HIMILCO.[30][34] /n/ wasalso assimilated to following consonants: e.g. t yearfor earlier */ant/.[30]The case endings in general must have been lost betweenthe 9th century BC and the 7th century BC: e.g. the per-sonal name rendered in Akkadian as ma-ti-nu-ba-a-liGift of Baal", with the case endings -u and -i, was writ-ten ma-ta-an-baa-al two centuries later. However, wedo nd evidence of a retention of the genitive case in theformof the rst singular possessive sux: by /abiya/ ofmy father vs b /ab/ my father.The written forms and the reconstructed pronunciationsof the personal pronouns[35] are as follows:Singular:1st: /ank/ nk (Punic sometimes nky), also attested as/anek/2nd masc. /atta()/ t2nd fem. /atti()/ t3rd masc. /hu/ h, also [hy] (?) hy and /huat/ ht3rd fem. /hi/ hPlural:1st: /anan/ nn2nd masc. unattested2nd fem. unattested3rd masc. /hummat/ hmt,3rd fem. /himmat/ hmtEnclitic personal pronouns are added to nouns (to en-code possession) and to prepositions, as shown below forstandard Phoenician (the predominant dialect, as dis-tinct from the Byblian and late Punic varieties). They ap-pear in a slightly dierent form depending on whetherthey follow the plural form masculine nouns (and there-fore are added after a vowel) or not. The former case isgiven in brackets with the abbreviation a.V..Singular:1st: /-/ , also y (a.V. /-ayy/ y)2nd masc. /-ka()/ k2nd fem. /-ki()/ k3rd masc. /-o/ , Punic , (a.V. /-yu()/ y)3rd fem. /-a/ , Punic (a.V. /-ya()/ y)Plural:1st: /-o(n}}/ n2nd masc. unattested2nd fem. unattested3rd masc. /-o()m/ m (a.V. /-nm/ nm)3rd fem. /-e()m/ m (a.V. /-nm/ nm)In addition, according to some research, the same writtenforms of the enclitics that are attested after vowels arealso found after a singular noun in what must have beenthe genitive case (which ended in /-i/, whereas the pluralversion ended in /-/). In this case, their pronunciationcan be reconstructed somewhat dierently: 1st singular/-iya()/ y, 3rd singular masculine and feminine /-iyu()/ yand /-iya()/ y. The 3rd plural singular and feminine musthave pronounced the same in both cases, i.e. /-nm/ nmand /-nm/ nm.These enclitic forms vary between the dialects. In the ar-chaic Byblian dialect, the third person forms are h and w/-/ for the maculine singular (a.V. w /-w/), h /-aha()/for the feminine singular and hm/-hum(ma)/ for the mas-4 4 GRAMMARculine plural. In late Punic, the 3rd masculine singular isusually /-im/ m.The same enclitic pronouns are also attached to verbs todenote direct objects. In that function some of them haveslightly divergent forms: rst singular /-n/ n and probablyrst plural /-nu()/.The near demonstrative pronouns (this) are written, instandard Phoenician, z for the singular and l for the plu-ral. Cypriot Phoenician displaysz instead ofz. By-blian still distinguishes, in the singular, a masculine zn / zfrom a feminine zt / z. There are also many variations inPunic, including st and zt for both genders in the singu-lar. The far demonstrative pronouns (that) are identicalto the independent third person pronouns. The interrog-ative pronouns are /miya/ or perhaps /mi/ my who and/m/ m what. An indenite pronoun anything is writ-ten mnm. The relative pronoun is a , either followed orpreceded by a vowel.The denite article was /ha-/ and the rst consonant ofthe following word was doubled. It was writtenh, butin late Punic also and , due to the weakening and co-alescence of the gutturals. Much as in Biblical Hebrew,the initial consonant of the article is dropped after theprepositions b-, l- and k; it could also be lost after variousother particles and function words such the direct objectmarker yt and the conjunction w- and.Of the cardinal numerals from1 to 10, 1 is an adjective, 2is formally a noun in the dual and the rest are nouns in thesingular. They distinguish gender: d, nm (constructstate n), l, rb, m, ss, b, mn(h), t, sr vs t,unattested,lt,rbt,mt,t,bt, unattested, unat-tested, srt. The tens are morphologically masculine plu-rals of the ones: srm, lm, rbm, mm, m, bm,mnm, tm. One hundred is mt, two hundred is itsdual formmtm, whereas the rest are formed as in l mt(three hundred).One thousand is lp.Ordinal numeralsare formed by the addition of *iy -y.[36] Composite nu-merals are formed withw- and, e.g. srwnmfortwelve.4.2 Verbal morphologyThe verb inects for person, number, gender, tense andmood. Like other Semitic languages, Phoenician verbshave dierent verbal patterns or stems,expressingmanner of action, level of transitivity and voice. The per-fect or sux-conjugation, which expresses the past tense,is exemplied below with the root q-t-l to kill (a neu-tral, G-stem).[37]Singular:1st: /qatalt/ qtlty2nd masc. /qatalt/ qtlt2nd fem. /qatalt()/ qtlt3rd masc. /qatl/ qtl3rd fem. /qatal(t)/ qtlt,[38] also qtl, Punic qtlPlural:1st: /qataln/ qtln2nd masc. unattested2nd fem. unattested3rd masc. qatal/ qtl, Punic qtl3rd fem. unattestedThe imperfect or prex-conjugation, which expresses thepresent and future tense (and which is not distinguishablefromthe descendant of the Proto-Semitic jussive express-ing wishes), is exemplied below, again with the root q-t-l.1st: /iqtul/ qtl2nd masc. /tiqtul/ tqtl2nd fem. /tiqtul/ tqtly3rd masc. /yiqtul/ yqtl3rd fem. /tiqtul/ tqtlPlural: 1st: */niqtul/? *nqtl2nd masc. /tiqtul/ *tqtl, Punic *tqtl2nd fem. /tiqtulna/ tqtln3rd masc. yiqtul/ yqtl3rd fem. unattestedThe imperative endings were presumably /-/, /-/ and /-/[38] for the second singular masculine, second singularfeminine and second plural masculine respectively, but allthree forms surface in the orthography as qtl, i.e. -. Theold Semitic jussive, which originally diered slightly fromthe prex conjugation, is no longer possible to separatefrom it in Phoenician with the present data.The non-nite forms are the innitive construct, the in-nitive absolute and the active and passive participles. Inthe G-stem, the innitive construct would usually be com-bined with the preposition l- to as in /liqtul/ to kill"; incontrast, the innitive absolute (qatl[39]) is mostly usedto strengthen the meaning of a subsequent nite verb withthe same root:pt tptyou will indeed open!",[38] ac-cordingly /*qatl tiqtul/ you will indeed kill!".The participles had, in the G-stem, the following forms:Active:Masculine singular /qtel/[38]or /qtil/ qtl, plural/qotlim/[38] or /qtilm/ qtlFeminine singular qtlt, plural *qtltPassive:Masculinesingular /qatl/[38]or /qatl/[40]qtl, plural/qatlm/ qtlmFeminine singular qtlt, plural /qatlt/ qtltThe missing forms above can be inferred from the corre-spondences between the Proto-Northwest Semitic ances-tral forms and the attested Phoenician counterparts: thePNWS participle forms are */qtil-, qtilma, qtil(a)t,qtilt, qatl, qatlm, qatult or qatlat, qatlt/.The derived stems are:the N-stem (functioning as a passive), e.g. nqtl, theN-formant being lost in the prex conjugation whileassimilating and doubling the rst root consonant5(yqtl).the D-stem (functioning as a factitive): the formsmust havebeen/qittil/ inthesuxconjugation,/yaqattil/ in the prex conjugation, /qattil/ in the im-perative and the innitive construct, /qattl/ in theinnitive absolute and /maqattil/ in the participle.The characteristic doubling of the middle consonantis only identiable in foreign alphabet transcriptions.the C-stem (functioning as a causative): the orig-inal *ha- prex has produced *yi- rather than theHebrew *hi-. The forms were apparently /yiqtil/ inthe 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]Most of the stems apparently also had passive and re-exive counterparts, the former diering through vowels,the latter also through the inx -t-. The G stem passiveis attested as qytl, /qytal/ < */qutal/.;[38] t-stems can bereconstructed as /yitqatil/ytqtl (tG) and /yiqtattil/ (Dt)yqttl.[42]4.3 Prepositions and particlesSome prepositions are always prexed to nouns, deletingthe initial /h/ of the denite article if present: such areb- in, l- to, for, k- as and m- /min/ from. Theyare sometimes found in forms extended through the addi-tion of -n or -t. Other prepositions are not like this, e.g.lupon, .d until,r after,tt under,b(y)n be-tween. New prepositions are formed with nouns: lpnin front of, from l- to and pn face. There is spe-cial preposited marker of a denite object yt (/iyyt/?),which, unlike Hebrew, is clearly distinct from the prepo-sition t (/itt/). The most common negative marker is bl(/bal/), negating verbs, but sometimes also nouns; anotherone is y (//), expressing both non-existence and nega-tion of verbs. Negative commands / prohibitions are ex-pressed with l (/al/). Lest is lm. Some common con-junctions 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 introducedesiderative constructions (may he do X!"). l- could alsointroduce vocatives.Both prepositions and conjunctionscould form compounds.[43]5 SyntaxThe basic word order is VSO. There is no verb to be inthe present tense; in clauses that would have used a cop-ula, the subject may come before the predicate. Nounsprecede their modiers (such as adjectives and posses-sors).6 Vocabulary and word formationNouns are mostly formed by a combination of consonan-tal roots and vocalic patterns, but they can also be formedwith prexes (/m-/,expressing actions or their results;rarely /t-/) and suxes /-n/. Abstracts can be formedwith the sux -t (probably /-t/, /-t/).[40] Adjectives canbe formed following the familiar Semitic nisba sux /-y/y (e.g. dny Sidonian).Like the grammar, the vocabulary is very close to BiblicalHebrew, though some peculiarities attract attention. Forexample, the copula verb to be is kn (as in Arabic, asopposed to Hebrew and Aramaic hyh) and the verb todo is pl (as in Aramaic pl and Arabic fl, as opposedto Hebrew h).7 Survival and inuences of PunicThesignicantlydivergent later-formofthelanguagethat was spokenintheTyrianPhoeniciancolonyofCarthage is known as Punic; it remained in use therefor considerably longer than Phoenician did in Phoeniciaitself, arguably surviving into Augustine's time. It mayhave even survived the Arabic conquest of North Africa:the geographer al-Bakr describes a people speaking alanguage that was not Berber, Latin or Coptic in the cityof Sirte in northern Libya, a region where spoken Punicsurvived well past written use.[47] However it is likely thatArabization of the Punics was facilitated by their lan-guage belonging to the same group (the Semitic languagesgroup) as that of the conquerors, and thus having manygrammatical and lexical similarities.The ancient Lybico-Berber alphabet still in irregular useby modern Berber groups such as the Tuareg is knownby the native name tina, possibly a derived form of acognate of the name Punic. Still, a direct derivationfrom the Phoenician-Punic script is debated and far fromestablished, since both writing systems are very dier-ent. As far as language (not the script) is concerned,some borrowings from Punic appear in modern Berberdialects: one interesting example is agadir wall fromPunic gader.Perhaps the most interesting case of Punic inuence isthat ofthenameofHispania(theIberianPeninsula,comprising Portugal and Spain), which according to onetheory among many derived from the Punic I-Shaphanmeaning coast of hyraxes", in turn a misidentication onthe part of Phoenician explorers of its numerous rabbitsas hyraxes. Another case is the name of a tribe of hos-tile hairy people that Hanno the Navigator found inthe Gulf of Guinea.The name given to these people byHanno the Navigator's interpreters was transmitted fromPunic into Greek as gorillai and was applied in 1847 byThomas S. Savage to the Western Gorilla.6 11 REFERENCES8 Surviving examplesAhiramBodashtartineky inscriptionCippi of MelqartEshmunazarKaratepeKilamuwa StelaNora StonePyrgi TabletsTemple of Eshmun9 See alsoPunic languagePhoenician alphabetExtinct languageList of extinct languages of Asia10 Notes[1] These were complied in Wilhelm Gesenius's Scripturaelinguaeque Phoeniciae monumenta, which comprised allthat was known by scholars at that time. See Lehmann2013, p. 240: Basically, its core consists of the compre-hensive edition, or re-edition of 70 Phoenician and somemore non-Phoenician inscriptions... However, just to notethe advances made in the nineteenth century, it is notewor-thy that Gesenius precursor Hamaker, in his MiscellaneaPhoenicia of 1828, had only 13 inscriptions at his dis-posal.On the other hand only 30 years later the amountof Phoenician inscribed monuments had grown so enor-mously that Schrder in his compendium Die phnizis-che Sprache. Entwurf einer Grammatik nebst Sprach-und Schriftproben of 1869 could state that Gesenius knewonly a quarter of the material Schrder had at hand him-self. Nonetheless, Gesenius Scriptur linguque phoeni-ci monumenta became a compendiumof everything thatcould be said about Phoenician language and Phoenicianinscriptions known up to that time, i.e. 1837.11 References[1] Nordho, Sebastian; Hammarstrm, Harald; Forkel,Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). Phoenician.Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for EvolutionaryAnthropology.[2] Nordho, Sebastian; Hammarstrm, Harald; Forkel,Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds.(2013).PhoenicianPunic. Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evo-lutionary Anthropology.[3] Lipiski, Edward. 2004. Itineraria Phoenicia. P.139-141inter alia[4] Lehmann 2013, p. 209:"Nearly two hundred years laterthe repertory of Phoenician-Punic epigraphy counts about10.000 inscriptions from throughout the Mediterraneananditsenvirons. Nevertheless, almost 150yearsaf-ter Gesenius, Wolfgang Rllig bewailed once more thatnotwithstanding the welcome increase of textual mate-rial in the past decades, Phoenician probably remains theworst transmittedandleast knownofall Semiticlan-guages.""[5] Lipiski (1995),p.1321-1322,The Phoenician alpha-betic script was easy to write on papyrus or parchmentsheets, and the use of these materials explains why vir-tually no Phoenician writings no history, no tradingrecords have come down to us. In their cities by thesea, the air and soil were damp, and papyrus and leathermoldered and rotted away. Thus disappeared the liter-ature of the people who taught a large portion of theearths population to write. The only written documents ofPhoenicians and Carthaginians are monumental inscrip-tions on stone, a few ephemeral letters or notes on piecesof broken pottery, and three fragmentary papyri. Thus,no Tyrian primary sources dating from Hiram Is time areavailable[6] Lehmann 2013.[7] Gesenius 1837.[8] The Maltese Language[9] Fischer, Steven Roger (2004). A history of writing. Reak-tion Books. p. 90.[10] Markoe, Glenn E., Phoenicians. University of CaliforniaPress. ISBN 0-520-22613-5 (2000) (hardback) p. 111.[11] Glenn Markoe.Phoenicians. p108. University of Califor-nia Press 2000[12] Zellig Sabbettai Harris. Agrammar of the Phoenician lan-guage. 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 Phoenicianand Punic Inscriptions. P.12-14[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.857[18] Jongeling, K., Robert M. Kerr. 2005. Late Punic epig-raphy: an introduction to the study of Neo-Punic andLatino-Punic Inscriptions[19] Segert, Stanislav. Phoenician and the Eastern Canaan-ite languages. In Robert Hetzron, ed., The Semitic Lan-guages. P. 175[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 phonol-ogy. In Phonologies of Asia and Africa: (including theCaucasus), ed. Alan S. Kaye, Peter T. Daniels. P.59.[22] Hackett,Joe Ann. 2008. Phoenician and Punic. In:The Ancient Languages of Syria-Palestine and Arabia (ed.Roger D. Woodard). P.87[23] Kerr, Robert M. 2010. Latino-Punic Epigraphy: A De-scriptive Study of the Inscriptions. P.126[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 Canaan-ite languages. In Robert Hetzron, ed., The Semitic Lan-guages.[26] , .. 2009. .: . . . . , .. . P.283[27] Kerr, Robert M. 2010 Latino-Punic Epigraphy: A De-scriptive Study of the Inscriptions. P.105 .[28] Segert, Stanislav. 1997. Phoenician and Punic phonol-ogy. In Phonologies of Asia and Africa: (including theCaucasus), 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 phonol-ogy. In Phonologies of Asia and Africa: (including theCaucasus), ed. Alan S. Kaye, Peter T. Daniels. P.61.[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 phonol-ogy. In Phonologies of Asia and Africa: (including theCaucasus), ed. Alan S. Kaye, Peter T. Daniels. P.63.[33] Segert, Stanislav. 2007. Phoenician and Punic Morphol-ogy. In Morphologies of Asia and Philippines Morpholo-gies 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[35] The description of the pronouns follows Hackett, Joe Ann.2008. Phoenician and Punic. In: The Ancient Languagesof Syria-Palestine and Arabia (ed. Roger D. Woodard).[36] Segert, Stanislav. 2007. Phoenician and Punic Morphol-ogy. In Morphologies of Asia and Africa. Morphologiesof Asia and Africa. ed. by Alan S. Kaye. P.80[37] The vocalized reconstructions in the schemes below fol-low chiey Hackett, Joe Ann. 2008. Phoenician andPunic. In: The Ancient Languages of Syria-Palestine andArabia (ed. Roger D. Woodard). The spellings are basedmostly on Segert, Stanislav. 2007. Phoenician and PunicMorphology. In Morphologies of Asia and Africa. Mor-phologies of Asia and Africa. ed. by Alan S. Kaye. P.82[38] Segert, Stanislav. 2007. Phoenician and Punic Morphol-ogy. In Morphologies of Asia and Africa. Morphologiesof Asia and Africa. ed. by Alan S. Kaye. P.82[39] Hackett,Joe Ann. 2008. Phoenician and Punic. In:The Ancient Languages of Syria-Palestine and Arabia (ed.Roger D. Woodard). P.96.[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 ad-dress some questiongs of Phoenician grammar and syntaxfound in the Kulamuwa inscription (PDF). p. 196.[45] Alfabeto fenicio. Proel (Promotora Espaola deLingstica) (in Spanish). Retrieved 5 July 2011.[46] . (1967). .: .[47]12 Further readingKrahmalkov, Charles R. (2001), APhoenician-Punic Grammar, HandbookofOriental Studies,Section 154, Leiden, Boston & Kln: Brill Pub-lishing, ISBN 90-04-11771-7.J. FriedrichW. Rllig (1999). Phnizisch-punische Grammatik (III ed., neu bearbeitet vonM.G. AmadasiGuzzounterMitarbeit von W.R.Meyer)8 12 FURTHER READINGLehmann,Reinhard G. (2013). Wilhelm Gese-nius and the Rise of Phoenician Philology (PDF).Beihefte zur Zeitschrift fr die alttestamentliche Wis-senschaft (Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter) 427: 209266.Barthlemy, Jean-Jacques (1764). Rexions surquelques monuments Phniciens, et sur les alpha-bets qui en rsultent. Mmoires de littrature, tirsdes registres de lacadmie royale des inscriptions etbelles-lettres 30: 405427.Gesenius, Wilhelm(1837). Scripturlinguquephoenicimonumentaquotquot supersunt editaetinedita ad autographorum optimorumque exemplo-rumdemedidit additisquedescripturaet linguaphoenicum commentariis. Leipzig.913 Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses13.1 Text Phoenician language Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenician_language?oldid=674369030 Contributors: DopeshJustin, IZAK,BRG, Zoicon5, Zestauferov, PuzzletChung, Robbot, Josh Cherry, Wjhonson, Hippietrail, Trujaman, Gilgamesh~enwiki, Mustafaa, Bill-poser, Robin klein, Wfaulk, , Rich Farmbrough, Wikiacc, Dbachmann, SamEV, Bender235, ChrisNor, Kwamikagami, Quartier-Latin1968,Stesmo, .:Ajvol:.,Nicke Lilltroll~enwiki,Polylerus,Ogress, Bucephalus,Garzo, Dejvid,Angr, Woohookitty,Briangotts,Fraterm, Toussaint, Dpr, Unused007, Mo-Al, Omegarad, VKokielov, Koroner, Mathrick, Salvadorjo~enwiki, Chobot, Wavelength, Russ-Bot, Manicsleeper, Honshuzen, Shell Kinney, The Ogre, Yaron Livne, AndrewWTaylor, Sardanaphalus, SmackBot, Zerida, Alex earlieraccount, Gilliam, Addshore, Khoikhoi, George, TechPurism, Drmaik, Andrew Dalby, JorisvS, RandomCritic, Slakr, Interlingua, JosephSolis in Australia, T B Pereira, Adamshoresh, FilipeS, Anonymous44, Dusty relic, AngoraFish, Doug Weller, Roberta F., Em-jay-es, An-tiVandalBot, Widefox, PhilKnight, , Albmont, Avicennasis, KConWiki, Clarin, VirtualDelight, J.delanoy, Qwanqwa, Skumar-labot, Conceived In Liberty, Aeonimitz~enwiki, DorganBot, Pietru, VolkovBot, LokiClock, Jalwikip, JhsBot, UnitedStatesian, TelecomNut,Thanatos666, SieBot, WereSpielChequers, Elie plus, Wing gundam, Flyer22, BenoniBot~enwiki, ImageRemovalBot, ClueBot, Foxj, Ybi-tan7, Mild Bill Hiccup, Niceguyedc, DragonBot, Grammatews, SchreiberBike, Catalographer, MelonBot, DumZiBoT, Sumerophile, Ad-dbot, Hahc21, 2bfrank, FokkerTISM, Betterusername, Yolgnu, Leszek Jaczuk, Jim10701, Download, Karl gregory jones, ,Erutuon, Lightbot, Toothswung, Abjiklam, Zorrobot, Alain08, WikiDreamer Bot, Zhayek, Luckas-bot, Yobot, KamikazeBot, Xevorim,AnomieBOT, Xqbot, GrouchoBot, Padres Hana, RibotBOT, FrescoBot, Nonexyst, Jonesey95, Helmoony, EmausBot, WikitanvirBot,HeliosX, ZroBot, PotatoBot, Oncenawhile, Ltkilo, ClueBot NG, CocuBot, Widr, Helpful Pixie Bot, BG19bot, PhnomPencil, Zusasa, , BattyBot, Kc kennylau, 3Princip, Hmainsbot1, Mogism, Wrdstck, Inuyasha987, Jamesmcmahon0, DavidLeighEllis,Monochrome Monitor, Monkbot, Zeiimer, M. 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Eshom, Trigglebest, Pyrexnod, Exacrion, Tounsimentounes, KasparBot and Anonymous:12713.2 Images File:Idioma_fenicio.png Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/af/Idioma_fenicio.png License: CC BY-SA 3.0Contributors: Own work Original artist: Fobos92 File:Phoenician_ayin.svg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ae/Phoenician_ayin.svg License: Public domainContributors: Own work Original artist: Ch1902 File:Phoenician_beth.svg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e5/Phoenician_beth.svg License: Public domainContributors: Own work Original artist: Ch1902 File:Phoenician_daleth.svg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/63/Phoenician_daleth.svg License: Public do-main Contributors: Own work Original artist: Ch1902 File:Phoenician_kaph.svg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/69/Phoenician_kaph.svg License: Public domainContributors: Own work Original artist: Ch1902 File:Phoenician_mem.svg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/14/Phoenician_mem.svg License: Public domainContributors: Made by User:Udzu using the GIMP (paths, stroke width 8).Copied from English wikipedia.Converted to SVG by User:Bryan Derksen Original artist: Original: User:Udzu File:Phoenician_nun.svg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/ba/Phoenician_nun.svg License: Public domainContributors: Own work Original artist: Ch1902 File:Phoenician_res.svgSource: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fb/Phoenician_res.svgLicense: PublicdomainContributors: Own work Original artist: Ch1902 File:Phoenician_yodh.svg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/25/Phoenician_yodh.svg License: Public domainContributors: Own work Original artist: Ch1902 File:Rutas_comerciales_fenicias-es.svg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/67/Rutas_comerciales_fenicias-es.svg License: CC BY-SA 3.0 Contributors: Routes_commerciales_des_Phniciens-fr.svg Original artist: Routes_commerciales_des_Phniciens-fr.svg: Bourrichon13.3 Content license Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0