Editing Punic language (section)

==History==
===Early history===
Punic is considered to have gradually separated from its Phoenician parent around the time that [[Carthage]] became the leading Phoenician city under [[Mago I of Carthage|Mago I]], but scholarly attempts to delineate the dialects lack precision and generally disagree on the classification.<ref name="Punic">{{cite book|last=Guzzo|author-link=Maria Giulia Amadasi Guzzo|first=Maria Giulia Amadasi|editor=Jo Ann Hackett and Walter Emanuel Aufrecht|title="An Eye for Form": Epigraphic Essays in Honor of Frank Moore Cross|url=https://www.academia.edu/37534317|year=2014|publisher=Eisenbrauns|isbn=978-1-57506-303-4|chapter=Punic Scripts|quote=The place to begin is with a definition of what can be called a Punic script in relation to a Punic language. Conventionally, we call “Punic” the writing typical of Carthage, which spread to other colonies when the “New City” became the “capital” of the Phoenician west. Judging from the existing data on the history of the region, Carthage became leader of the other colonies around the middle to the end of the 6th century BC, when we first know of symbola with the [[Etruscan cities|Etruscan]] cities, the first treaty with [[Rome]] (ca. 509 BC), and the first Carthaginian involvement in wars in [[Sardinia]] and [[Sicily]]. One can suppose that, before this period, the Phoenician language, written according to Phoenician orthographic and paleographic conventions, was still in use in the west, with some local changes in the scripts from region to region or from city to city… As for language, the Phoenician-Punic grammars (the authors of which generally do not agree on the classification of the different phases and dialects of Phoenician) make a distinction between Phoenician and Punic. They lack precision, however, when they attempt to define the characteristics of Punic and the period in which it originated… We are able to distinguish Punic from Phoenician (in part) because of the orthography of the written language. The first linguistic characteristic we can recognize is the tendency to drop the pronunciation of the laryngeal ʾalep, followed by he (in Punic), and finally, the whole series of laryngeals and pharyngeals (in late Punic).}}</ref>

The [[Punics]] stayed in contact with the homeland of [[Phoenicia]] until the [[battle of Carthage (c. 149 BC)|destruction of Carthage]] by the [[Roman Republic]] in 146 BC. At first, there was not much difference between Phoenician and Punic. Developments in the language before 146 BC are largely hidden from us by the adherence of Carthaginian scribes to a traditional Phoenician orthography, but there are occasional hints that the phonology and grammar of Punic had begun to diverge from Phoenician after the sixth century BC.{{sfn|Amadasi Guzzo|2012|p=126}} The clearest evidence for this comes from [[Motya]] in western Sicily, but there are also traces of it in sixth-century Carthaginian inscriptions and it is unclear whether these developments began in western Sicily and spread to Africa or vice versa.{{sfn|Amadasi Guzzo|2012|p=130}} From the fifth-century BC, a shared set of alphabetic, orthographic, and phonological rules are encountered in Punic inscriptions throughout the western Mediterranean, probably due to Carthaginian influence.{{sfn|Amadasi Guzzo|2012|pp=129-130}}

Punic literary works were written in the period before 146 BC. For example, [[Mago (agricultural writer)|Mago]] wrote 28 volumes about [[animal husbandry]]. The Roman Senate appreciated the 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, Tunisia|Utica]]. A Latin version was probably translated from the Greek version. Further examples of Punic works of literature include the works of [[Hanno the Navigator]], who wrote about his encounters during his naval voyages around what is today Africa and about the settling of new colonies in Iberia, North Africa, and the Mediterranean.<ref>{{citation |url=http://history-world.org/Carthage,%20A%20History%201.htm |title=Ancient Carthage |last=Rollin |first=Charles |access-date=2014-06-18 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080509061500/http://history-world.org/Carthage,%20A%20History%201.htm |archive-date=2008-05-09 |url-status=usurped }}</ref>

===Neo-Punic===
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. The dialect differed from the earlier Punic language, as is evident from divergent spelling compared to earlier Punic and by the use of non-Semitic names, mostly of [[Libyco-Berber]] or [[Iberian language|Iberian]] origin. The difference was due to the dialectal changes that Punic underwent as it spread among the northern [[Berber peoples]].<ref name="Jongeling & Kerr">{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oYWnSUaslXYC&q=neo-punic&pg=PP1 |title=Late Punic Epigraphy: An Introduction to the Study of Neo-Punic and Latino-Punic Inscriptions |first1=Karel |last1=Jongeling |first2=Robert M. |last2=Kerr |publisher=Mohr Siebeck |year=2005 |isbn=978-3-1614-8728-6 }}</ref>  [[Sallust]] (86 – 34 BC) claims Punic was "altered by their intermarriages with the [[Numidians]]".<ref>Sall. Iug. 78</ref> That account agrees with other evidence found to suggest a North African Berber influence on Punic, such as Libyco-Berber names in the [[Onomasticon (Eusebius)|''Onomasticon'' of Eusebius]].{{ambiguous |date=October 2015}} Neo-Punic is mostly known from inscriptions, including ''Lepcis Magna N 19'' (= [[Tripolitania Punic inscriptions|''KAI'' 124]]; 92 AD).
[[File:Roman provincial languages 150CE.png|thumb|Map of the regional [[languages of the Roman Empire]] {{circa|150 AD}}]]
Around the fourth century AD, Punic was still spoken in what is now northern parts of [[Tunisia]] and [[Algeria]], other parts of Northwest Africa, and the [[Mediterranean]]. A version of Punic, known as ''Latino-Punic'' was written in the Latin alphabet and is known from seventy texts. These texts include the 1st-century ''Zliten LP1'' and the second century ''Lepcis Magna LP1''.{{clarify |date=July 2015}} They were even written as late as the 4th century, ''Bir ed-Dreder LP2''. [[Augustine of Hippo]] (d. 430) is generally considered the last major ancient writer to have some knowledge of Punic and is considered the "primary source on the survival of [late] Punic". According to him, Punic was still spoken in his region (Northern Africa) in the 5th century, centuries after the fall of Carthage, and there were still people who called themselves "chanani" ("[[Canaan]]ite") at that time.<ref name="Jongeling & Kerr"/>{{rp|4}} He wrote around 401:

{{blockquote|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.<ref>{{citation |author=Augustine of Hippo|title=Epistola 17|trans-title=Letter 17 |url=http://www.augustinus.it/latino/lettere/lettera_017_testo.htm|work={{lang|it|Sant'Agostino — Nuova Biblioteca Agostiniana|nocat=yes}}|editor-first=Franco |editor-last=Monteverde |author-link=Augustine of Hippo}}</ref>
}}

Besides Augustine, the only proof of Punic-speaking communities at such a late period is a series of trilingual [[funerary text]]s found in the Christian [[catacombs]] of [[Sirte]], [[Libya]]: the gravestones are carved in [[Ancient Greek]], [[Latin]] and Punic. It might have even survived the [[Muslim conquest of the Maghreb]], as the geographer [[al-Bakri]] describes a people speaking a language that was not [[Berber languages|Berber]], Latin or [[Coptic language|Coptic]] in [[Sirte]],<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://mideasti.blogspot.com/2013/07/did-punic-survive-until-advent-of_30.html|title=Did Punic Survive Until the Advent of Arabic? Part 4: The Post-Augustine Evidence|last=Dunn|first=Michael Collins|date=2013-07-30|website=MEI Editor's Blog|access-date=2019-08-30}}</ref> where spoken Punic survived well past written use.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.let.leidenuniv.nl/vtw/jongeling/latpun/LPINTRO.htm |title=Latino-Punic texts from North Africa |first1=Karel |last1=Jongeling |publisher=Dept of Comparative Linguistics, [[Leiden University]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20051109091842/http://www.let.leidenuniv.nl/vtw/jongeling/LATPUN/LPINTRO.htm |archive-date=9 November 2005 }}</ref> However, it is likely that Arabization of Punic speakers was facilitated by their language belonging to the same group (both were Semitic languages) as that of the conquerors and so they had many grammatical and lexical similarities.<ref name="Jongeling & Kerr"/>{{rp|71}}

===Legacy===
The idea that Punic was the origin of [[Maltese language|Maltese]] was first raised in 1565.<ref>{{cite web |title=L-Istorja tal-Ilsien Malti |trans-title=The History of the Maltese language |url=http://www.akkademjatalmalti.com/page.asp?p=9023 |first=Mario |last=Cassar |publisher=[[Akkademja tal-Malti]] |language=mt |url-status=usurped |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150923054701/http://www.akkademjatalmalti.com/page.asp?p=9023 |archive-date=2015-09-23 }}</ref> Modern linguistics has proved that Maltese is in fact derived from [[Arabic]], probably [[Siculo-Arabic]] specifically, with a large number of [[loanword]]s from [[Italian language|Italian]].<ref>{{cite book |title=Aspects of Multilingualism in European Language History |url=https://archive.org/details/aspectsmultiling00brau |url-access=limited |last=Vella |first=Alexandra |editor-first1=Kurt |editor-last1=Braunmüller |editor-first2=Gisella |editor-last2=Ferraresi |series=Hamburg Studies on Multiculturalism |year=2004 |publisher=John Benjamins Publishing Company |isbn=978-90-272-1922-0 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/aspectsmultiling00brau/page/n271 263] |chapter=Language contact and Maltese intonation: Some parallels with other language varieties }}</ref> However, Punic was indeed spoken on the island of [[Malta]] at some point in its history, as evidenced by both the [[Cippi of Melqart]], which is integral to the decipherment of Punic after its extinction, and other inscriptions that were found on the islands. Punic itself, being Canaanite, was more similar to [[Modern Hebrew]] than to Arabic.

Today there are a number of common Berber roots that descend from Punic, including the word for "learn" (''*almid'', ''*yulmad''; compare Hebrew [[wikt:למד|למד]]).<ref>Blažek, Václav (2014), [https://journals.pan.pl/Content/85572/mainfile.pdf "Phoenician/Punic Loans in Berber Languages and Their Role in Chronology of Berber"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190622145406/https://journals.pan.pl/Content/85572/mainfile.pdf |date=2019-06-22 }}, ''Folia Orientalia'', Vol. 51, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic.</ref>