Talk:Phoenicia

Old discussions on this page have been moved here Talk:Phoenicia/Archive 1

Summary of Views

Lets try to list the conflicting POVs here so that we can see what the forces are that pull against each other on this article keeping it from improving. I personally can think of the following.

1 Phoenicians and Zidonians were native Canaanites their lands, people & culture were one and the same.

2 Phoenicians were a sea-faring merchantile military elite who conquered certain ports and costal/shore areas in the Mediterranean especially those held by the native Canaanites.

2 a They were originally Poenite traders from Eretrea.

2 b They were of unknown origin and ethnicity.

2 c They were Egyptians

2 d They were Sea-peoples

2 e They were Indo-europeans who adopted the local dialects

2 f They were the Israelite tribes of Dan

2 g They were not Canaanites but were of a semitic linguistic origin.

2 h They were Lybians

I cannot think of any more than this. if you can please add to the list so that we can start to separate the historical pictures which fit each of the hypotheses instead of letting them continually merge and swirl around each other.

Zestauferov 15:08, 11 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Some additional assertions now hidden in the attic

Are any of these apropos:

• The ethnic make-up of the people now living in the area that was called "Phoenicia" in ancient times is even more mixed now# than it was 2500 years ago. Lebanese and Maltese are not "descendants" of Phoenicians any more than they are of "Byzantines."

Good point from a Genetic perspective, but still we have to be sensitive to national ideas. Celts believe their tradition descends from Scythia. Jews believe their tradition descends from Abraham. Various Meditrranian peoples (and even beyond) believe their tradition descends from the Phoenicians. There is no inherent harm in any of this I think. Why should we make any special point of picking on such a belief? Zestauferov 02:04, 12 Jul 2004 (UTC)

"Sensitivity" to nationalism does not go as far as historical falsification. This is the very essence of the problems with this entry. Sensible Celts know that the bogus "Scythian" connection is a 16th century English canard: see entry Scythia. There is no excuse for fraud in this entry or anywhere at Wikipedia. Wetman 22:07, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

• Begin with archaeology, history and linguistics. Then have a look at those Biblical "genealogies." Few still use the Biblical "table of nations" —other than to describe the traditional Hebrew views of their neighbors, as reported in Jerusalem in the 7th century BCE. Phoenicians are known to be immigrants into Canaan and are not being confused with Canaanites. Where they came from is not surely known.
• Phoenicians called themselves "can'ani" ("Phoenicians" being a Greek word), the circumstances having been jumbled by referring to Canaan as Phoenicia in the first place. The people who inhabited "Phoenicia" would have called themselves Can'ani. Phoenicia was actually only a collection of city kingdoms conquered by the Sea Peoples.
• Phoenicians really did leave no written records: all we have are inscriptions.
• Phoenician colonies from Tyre, and Punic colonies from Carthage should not be confused. This entry should discuss the Tyrian colonies, and refer with a link to the Carthaginian ones.
• Herodotus on Phoenician origins, with a little bit of editorial bolding:

"Learned Persians put the responsibility for the quarrel on the Phoenicians. These people came originally from the so called Red sea,[1] and as soon as they had penetrated to the Mediterranean and settled in the country where they are today, they took to making long trading voyages."

[1] Eruthrês kaleomenês thalassês in the Greek; translator's note says that this refers to all of the Indian Ocean, and "here", in the translator's considered opinion, "the Persian Gulf is meant".

Deleted text formerly in the article

Is any of the following worth retrieving?

Phoenician was one of the northwestern Semitic languages, those languages that include Amorite and Ugaritic, in addition to the Canaanite languages that include Phoenician, Hebrew and Aramaic. The Canaanite languages constitute a group of closely-related languages and dialects spoken in the ancient Near East, with written records going back to about 1500 BC.

Letters from the 14th century BCE, written in Akkadian, the language of diplomacy at the time, which were discovered at Tell el-Amarna in Egypt, contain solecisms that are not 'mistakes' but actually early Phoenician Canaanite words and phrases.

The earliest known inscriptions in Phoenician come from Byblos and date back to ca. 1000 BC. Phoenician inscriptions are found in Lebanon, Syria, Israel, Cyprus and other locations as late as the early centuries of the Christian Era. Punic, a language that developed from Phoenician in Phoenician colonies around the western Mediterranean beginning in the 9th century BCE, slowly supplanted Phoenician, similar to the way Italian supplanted Latin. Punic Phoenician was still spoken in the 5th century CE: St. Augustine, for example, grew up in North Africa and was familiar with the language."

Knowledge of Hebrew aided the reconstruction of Phoenician inscriptions. An early essay in Phoenician language studies was Wilhelm Gesenius (1786 - 1842), Scripturae linguaeque phoeniciae monumenta, 1837, analyzing texts from coins and monumental inscriptions. Nowadays one can study Phoenician in the U.S. at Harvard, Johns Hopkins, the University of Michigan and University of Chicago (the only place to study advanced Phoenician).

Details of the historical inter-relations of the Semitic languages are debated by linguists. Especially controversial are the relationships of languages that are not themselves well known, like Amorite, or archaic languages like Eblaite which has features of both Akkadian and Canaanite languages.

[edit]

External link

• The Semitic languages, including Phoenician.

Wetman 16:57, 11 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Thank you for your additions, Wetman. As with point 3 above, I wonder if there is an anachronism distinguishing Punic from Phoenician (which if there is might simply proove to be another term for Canaanite). Especially since there are no written records and all genuine phoenician inscriptions are Punic, how can we know exatly what Phoenician sounded like unless we are simly reconstructing an early canaanite dialect (which might in such a case be no differnt from the Zidonian or Arvadite dialects)? I think all that can be salvaged here is

1. that a language used in Phoenician Canaan has been reconstructed following the details given above (and can be studied in Harvard etc.).
2. that this language is possibly ancestral in relationship with Punic (which was spoken throughout the mediterranean but particularly in Lybia).Zestauferov 02:04, 12 Jul 2004 (UTC)
   

• You're all welcome: I'm not defending these propositions, naturally. I'm just ensuring that these thoughts aren't swept into the attic.)
• Maria Eugenia Aubet, The Phoenicians and the West: Politics, Colonies and Trade, tr. Mary Turton Bryn Mawr Classical Review, 2001: review) (http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/bmcr/2003/2003-12-17.html) Useful review. Clarifying>
• "Saint Augustine refers to their books as containing lots of wisdom while he calls Phoenician Punic "Our language." Not Phoenician, just as I'm not speaking the language of Beowulf. Wetman 08:41, 12 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Right, obviously every language evolves so naturally there must have been an earlier version which has been reconstructed and suitably dubbed Phoenician. I am trying to understand the political motivations behind some POVs in the current article so that I can read through the article more effectively (and hopefully pave the way fro a move categorised article). Can you think why there are people so concerned about calling the Ugaritic alphabet Phoenician, and talking about an almost unattested Canaanite language as Phoenecian? Could it be in relation to aboriginal inhabitants and land claim rights? Is there really any strong legal claim if such is the case? I mean genetically half of Europe comes from the Middle East. Or is there another reason which I am not seeing? Scholastic pride and (blinkered) defense of a life's work and theses?Zestauferov 08:46, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)

On Punic vs. Phoenician, I belive the distiction is not an anachronism, but a dichotomy between the inscriptions found outside of vs in Canaan, or the dialect proboably mutually intelligible with other Canaanite languages and the one which was proboably not. The distiction should stay due to the 'no original research' principle. If claimed an anachronism, bring sources and present such views.

Libyans? Tunisian?

In the section on origins, an anon recently and without explanation changed "Libyans" to "Tunisian". I have no idea of the facts. There is now a mismatch of singular & plural, but I'm not editing this while I don't even know if it's true. It would make wense that Tunisians might claim descent from the Phoenicians. I have no idea why Libyans would be removed from the list without comment. Will someone with a clue please fix and/or explain. Citations on the fact that different nationalities claim this descent, rather than blind assertion, would be nice, since the matter is obviously controversial. -- Jmabel 00:38, Aug 6, 2004 (UTC)

Century/Millennium

"spread right across the Mediterranean during the first century BC." Surely "millennium" was intended. --Wetman 03:51, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)