Punic language
| Punic | |
|---|---|
| Region | Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria, southern Iberia, Libya, Malta |
| Extinct | 1st millennium |
| Language family | |
| Early forms: |
Phoenician
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | xpu |
| Linguist List | xpu |
The Punic or Carthaginian language is an extinct Semitic Canaanite language formerly spoken in the Mediterranean region of North Africa and several Mediterranean islands, by the Punic or Carthaginian people, who were a Phoenician-descended culture from approximately 800 BC to 600 AD.
Contents |
Description [edit]
Punic is an extinct variety of the Phoenician language spoken in the overseas Phoenician empire in North Africa, including Carthage, and the Mediterranean. It is known from inscriptions (most of them religious formulae) and personal name evidence. The play Poenulus by Plautus contains a few lines in spoken Punic, which have been subject to some research because, unlike inscriptions, they largely preserve the vowels.[1]
Augustine of Hippo is generally considered the last major ancient writer to have some knowledge of Punic, and is considered "our primary source on the survival of [late] Punic". According to him, the Punic language was still spoken in his region (Northern Africa) in the 5th century AD, centuries after the fall of Carthage, and there were still people who called themselves "chanani" (Canaanite, i.e.: Carthaginian) at that time.[2] Writing around AD 401, he says:
Quae lingua si improbatur abs te, nega Punicis libris, ut a viris doctissimis proditur, multa sapienter esse mandata memoriae. Poeniteat te certe ibi natum, ubi huius linguae cunabula recalent.
And if the Punic language is rejected by you, you virtually deny what has been admitted by most learned men, that many things have been wisely preserved from oblivion in books written in the Punic tongue. Nay, you ought even to be ashamed of having been born in the country in which the cradle of this language is still warm. (Ep. xvii)
Besides Augustine, the only proof we have of Punic-speaking communities at such a later period is a series of trilingual funerary texts found in the Christian catacombs of Sirte, Libya. The gravestones are carved in Classical Greek, Latin and Punic.[3]
The idea that Punic exerted an influence on the modern Maltese language was first raised in 1565.[4] This theory has been mostly discredited; mainstream theories hold Maltese to be derived from Siculo-Arabic, with a large number of loanwords from Italian.[5] Punic was indeed spoken on the island of Malta at some point in its history, as evidenced by the Cippi of Melqart, integral to the decipherment of Punic after its extinction, and other inscriptions found on the islands.
Phonology [edit]
The Punic language has 20 consonants.
| Punic phonology[6] | ||||||||||||
| Orthography | Name | Transliteration | Pronunciation | Notes | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 𐤀 | Aleph later Alf | ʾ | /ʔ/ | Sometimes also used for the indication of vowels. | ||||||||
| 𐤁 | Bet | b | /b/ | |||||||||
| 𐤂 | Gaml | g | /g/ | |||||||||
| 𐤃 | Delt | d | /d/ | |||||||||
| 𐤄 | He | h | h | Under Roman influence often elided but was still pronounced in certain carthaginian words. | ||||||||
| 𐤅 | Waw later Wow | w | /w/ | Sometimes also used for the indication of the vowel "u". | ||||||||
| 𐤆 | Zen | z | /z/ | In a few names attested as "sd" like in Hasdrubal for "ʕazrubaʕl", "esde" for "heze" ("this", used in some Punic dialects), but the bulk of the text show a simple "s", for example "syt" for "zut" ("this", in Late Punic) | ||||||||
| 𐤇 | Het | ḥ | /ħ/ | Seldomly used as a vowel for "a, e, i, o, u", the sound of Het was weakened and words written usually with it were instead often written with the letter Alf in Late Punic inscriptions. | ||||||||
| 𐤈 | Tet | ṭ | /tˤ/ | |||||||||
| 𐤉 | Yod | y | /j/ | Sometimes also used for the indication of the vowel "i" but mostly in foreign names. | ||||||||
| 𐤊 | Kap later Kof | k | /k/ | Some words in Latin transliterations which ended with final Kof show a spirantization as [χ] written indicated by "h" instead of the usual "ch". | ||||||||
| 𐤋 | Lamda | l | /l/ | |||||||||
| 𐤌 | Mem | m | /m/ | |||||||||
| 𐤍 | Nun | n | /n/ | |||||||||
| 𐤎 | Semka | s | /s/ | |||||||||
| 𐤏 | Eyn later En | ʿ | /ʕ/ | Often used for the vowel "a" and "o". | ||||||||
| 𐤐 | Pey later Fey | p later f | /p/ later /f/ | In Late Punic "p" underwent a fricativization to "f" during the 3rd century BCE | ||||||||
| 𐤑 | Tsade | ṣ | /s/ | Attested in some Latin texts as "st" and in one case as "ts", but mostly represented as "s" in Latin and Ancient Greek as well as Hittite, Lydian and Etruscan texts. | ||||||||
| 𐤒 | Qop later Quf | q | /kˤ/ | |||||||||
| 𐤓 | Resh[disambiguation needed] later Rush | r | /r/ | |||||||||
| 𐤔 | Shin | š | /š/ | |||||||||
| 𐤕 | Taw | t | /t/ | |||||||||
References [edit]
- ^ Sznycer, Maurice (1967). Les passages puniques en transcription latine dans le Poenulus de Plaute. Paris: Librairie C. Klincksieck.
- ^ Jongeling. Karel; & Kerr, Robert M. (2005). Late Punic epigraphy: an introduction to the study of Neo-Punic and Latino-Punic inscriptions. Mohr Siebeck. p. 4. ISBN 3-16-148728-1.
- ^ Jongeling and Kerr, p. 71
- ^ L-Akkademja tal-Malti. "The Maltese Language Academy".
- ^ Vella, Alexandra (2004). "Language contact and Maltese intonation: Some parallels with other language varieties". In Kurt Braunmüller and Gisella Ferraresi. Aspects of Multilingualism in European Language History. Hamburg Studies on Multiculturalism. John Benjamins Publishing Company. p. 263. ISBN 90-272-1922-2.
- ^ 1976: A Grammar of Phoenician and Punic. Munich: Beck. ISBN 3-406-00724-4
External links [edit]
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