Punic language

The Punic language, also called Carthaginian or Phoenicio-Punic, is an extinct variety of the Phoenician language, a Canaanite language of the Semitic family. It was spoken in the Carthaginian empire in North Africa and several Mediterranean islands by the Punic people throughout classical antiquity, from the 8th century BC to the 5th century AD.

History

The Punics stayed in contact with Phoenicia until the destruction of Carthage by the Roman Republic in 146 BC. During the time periods Punic was spoken, it underwent many changes under Berber language influence. At first there was not much of a difference between Phoenician and Punic, but as time went on, and Carthage and her colonies lost contact with Phoenicia, Punic began to become less influenced by Phoenicia and more influenced by the local Berber language of the area in and around Carthage.

The term Neo-Punic is used in two senses, one pertaining to the Phoenician script and the other to the language itself. In the present context, Neo-Punic refers to the dialect of Punic spoken after the fall of Carthage and after the Roman conquest of the former Punic territories in 146 BC. This dialect differed from the earlier Punic language, evident from divergent spelling compared to earlier Punic, and by the use of non-Semitic names, mostly of Libyco-Berber origin. The reason for this difference was the dialectal changes Punic underwent as it spread among the North-African peoples.^[2] Neo-Punic works include Lepcis Magna N 19, which dates back to 92 AD.

By around the 4th century AD, Punic was still spoken in Tunisia, parts of North Africa, and the Mediterranean. The Neo-Punic alphabet also descended from the Punic language. By around AD 400, Punic, in the first meaning, was mainly used for monumental inscriptions, while the cursive Neo-Punic alphabet was used elsewhere.^[3] Examples of Punic literary works cover the topic of Mago, a Punic general with great notoriety, who spread Carthage's influence as much through writing books as he did fighting. Mago wrote 28 volumes about animal husbandry. The Roman Senate appreciated these works so much that after taking Carthage they presented them to Berber princes who owned libraries there. Mago's work was translated into Greek by Cassius Dionysius of Utica. The Latin version was probably translated from the Greek version. Further examples of Punic works of literature include the works of Hanno — not the Hanno who lived in the time of Agathocles of Syracuse, but a more ancient Hanno. Hanno wrote about his encounters during his naval voyages around Africa and about the settling of new colonies.^[4]

A third version of Punic would be Latino-Punic, which was a Punic written in the Latin alphabet, but all of the spellings favoured those of the North African pronunciation. Latino-Punic was spoken right up to the 3rd and 4th century, and was recorded in seventy recovered texts, which show the surprising survival of Punic under Roman rule. It survived because the people speaking it did not have much contact with Rome, and thus did not need to learn Latin. Latino-Punic texts include the 1st-century Zliten LP1, or the 2nd-century Lepcis Magna LP1. They were even written as far as the 4th century AD, Bir ed-Dreder LP2. Classical sources such as Strabo (63/4 BC – AD 24), mention the Phoenician conquest of Libya.

There is evidence that every form of Punic changed after 146 BC according to Sallust (86 BC – AD 34), who claims Punic was "altered by their intermarriages with the Numidians". This account agrees with other evidence found to suggest a North-African influence on Punic, such as Libyco-Berber names in the onomasticon. The last known testimony reporting Punic as a living language is that of Augustine of Hippo (d. 430).

Description

Punic is known from inscriptions (most of them religious formulae) and personal name evidence. The play Poenulus by Plautus contains a few lines of vernacular Punic (see § Examples), which have been subject to some research because, unlike inscriptions, they largely preserve the vowels.^[5]

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]:4 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.^[6]

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.

Besides Augustine, the only proof of Punic-speaking communities at such a late period is a series of trilingual funerary texts found in the Christian catacombs of Sirte, Libya: the gravestones are carved in Ancient Greek, Latin and Punic. It may have even survived the Arabic conquest of North Africa: the geographer al-Bakrī describes a people speaking a language that was not Berber, Latin or Coptic in Sirte, a region where spoken Punic survived well past written use.^[7] However, it is likely that Arabization of the Punics was facilitated by their language belonging to the same group (the Semitic languages group) as that of the conquerors, and thus having many grammatical and lexical similarities.^[2]:71

The idea that Punic exerted an influence on the modern Maltese language was first raised in 1565.^[8] This theory has been mostly discredited; mainstream theories hold Maltese to be derived from Siculo-Arabic, with a large number of loanwords from Italian.^[9] 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.

Like its Phoenician parent, Punic was written from right to left, in horizontal lines, without vowels.^[3]

Phonology

The Punic language has 22 consonants.

Punic phonology[10]
Orthography		Name	Transliteration	Pronunciation	Notes
	𐤀	Alp 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 texts show a simple "s", for example "syt" for zut ("this", in Late Punic)
	𐤇	Ḥet	ḥ	/ħ/	Seldom 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	Nūn	n	/n/
	𐤎	Semka	s	/s/
	𐤏	Eyn later En	ʿ	/ʕ/	Often used for the vowel "a" and "o" in late Punic, mostly for foreign Latin names.
	𐤐	Pey later Fey	p f	/p/ /f/	In Late Punic and in Late Phoenician ⟨p⟩ (/p/) underwent a fricativization to ⟨f⟩ (/f/) during the 3rd century BC
	𐤑	Sade	ṣ	/ṣ/	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	Rosh later Rush	r	/r/
	𐤔	Shin	š	/ʃ/
	𐤕	Taw	t	/t/

Examples

Act V of Poenulus opens with Hanno speaking in Punic, his native language. The language of the next few lines (italicized) is uncertain but is believed to be "Lybic" [sic] (likely a misspelling of Libyc, a reference to one of the Berber languages) or Hebrew, if not Punic. Plautus then provides a Latin translation of the preceding lines:^[11]

Yth alonim ualonuth sicorathi symacom syth ⁹³⁰
chy mlachthi in ythmum ysthyalm ych-ibarcu mysehi
li pho caneth yth bynuthi uad edin byn ui
bymarob syllohom alonim ubymysyrthohom
byth limmoth ynnocho thuulech-antidamas chon
ys sidobrim chi fel yth chyl is chon chen liful ⁹³⁵
yth binim ys dybur ch-innocho-tnu agorastocles
yth emanethi hy chirs aelichot sithi nasot
bynu yid ch-illuch ily gubulim lasibithim
bodi aly thera ynnynu yslym min cho-th iusim
Ythalonimualoniuthsicorathiisthymhimihymacomsyth ⁹⁴⁰
combaepumamitalmetlotiambeat
iulecantheconaalonimbalumbar dechor
bats . . . . hunesobinesubicsillimbalim
esseantidamossonalemuedubertefet
donobun.huneccilthumucommucroluful ⁹⁴⁵
altanimauosduberithemhuarcharistolem
sittesedanecnasotersahelicot
alemusdubertimurmucopsuistiti
aoccaaneclictorbodesiussilimlimmimcolus
deos deasque veneror, qui hanc urbem colunt, ⁹⁵⁰
ut quod de mea re huc veni rite venerim,
measque hic ut gnatas et mei fratris filium
reperire me siritis, di vostram fidem.
[quae mihi surruptae sunt et fratris filium.]
sed hic mihi antehac hospes Antidamas fuit; ⁹⁵⁵
eum fecisse aiunt, sibi quod faciundum fuit.
eius filium esse hic praedicant Agorastoclem:
ad eum hospitalem hanc tesseram mecum fero;
is in hisce habitare monstratust regionibus.
hos percontabor qui hinc egrediuntur foras.^[1]

1. ^ Plautus. "Poenulus". The Latin Library. 

An English translation is as follows:

I worship the Gods and Goddesses who preside over this city, that I may have come hither with good omen as to this business of mine, on which I have come; and, ye Gods, lend me your aid, that you may permit me to find my daughters and the son of my cousin; those who were stolen away from me, and his son from my cousin. But here lived formerly my guest Antidamas. They say that he has done that which he was doomed to do. They say that his son Agorastocles lives here. To him am I carrying with me this token of hospitality. He has been pointed as living in this neighbourhood. I'll make enquiry of these who are coming hither out of doors.^[11]

References

External links

• Punic alphabet on Omniglot.com
• Phoenician fonts from unicode

Languages of Tunisia Official language Standard Arabic Tunisian Arabic Minority languages Berber Jerba Matmata Judeo-Tunisian Arabic Historical languages African Romance† Mediterranean Lingua Franca† Greek† Latin† Punic language† Phoenician language† Numidian language† Main liturgical languages Classical Arabic Hebrew Main foreign languages French English Italian Spanish Turkish