Page:Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar (1910 Kautzsch-Cowley edition).djvu/35

 on ‘Canaanite glosses’ to Assyrian words in the cuneiform tablets of Tell-el-Amarna [about 1400 B.C.] cf. H. Winckler, ‘,’ in, vol. v, Berlin, 1896 f. [transcription and translation]; J. A. Knudtzon, , Lpz. 1907 f.; H. Zimmern,. 1891, p. 154 ff. and .3, p. 651 ff.), and partly from the numerous remains of the Phoenician and Punic languages.

The latter we find in their peculiar writing in a great number of inscriptions and on coins, copies of which have been collected by Gesenius, Judas, Bourgade, Davis, de Vogüé, Levy, P. Schröder, v. Maltzan, Euting, but especially in Part I of the, Paris, 1881 ff. Among the inscriptions but few public documents are found, e.g. two lists of fees for sacrifices; by far the most are epitaphs or votive tablets. Of special importance is the inscription on the sarcophagus of King Ešmûnazar of Sidon, found in 1855, now in the Louvre; see the bibliography in Lidzbarski,, i. 23 ff.; on the inscription, i. 97 ff., 141 f., 417, ii. plate iv, 2; [Cooke, p. 30 ff.]. To these may be added isolated words in Greek and Latin authors, and the Punic texts in Plautus, 5, 1–3 (best treated by Gildemeister in Ritschl’s edition of Plautus, Lips. 1884, tom. ii, fasc. 5). From the monuments we learn the native orthography, from the Greek and Latin transcriptions the pronunciation and vocalization; the two together give a tolerably distinct idea of the language and its relation to Hebrew.

Phoenician (Punic) words occurring in inscriptions are, e.g., , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , (=Hebr. ) , , , , , , &c. Proper names:, , , , &c. See the complete vocabulary in Lidzbarski,, i. 204 ff.

Variations from Hebrew in Phoenician orthography and inflection are, e.g. the almost invariable omission of the vowel letters, as for ,  for ,  for ,  for ,  (in Plaut. alonim) gods ; the fem., even in the absolute state, ending in  (ath)  as well as  (ô), the relative  (Hebr. ), &c. The differences in pronunciation are more remarkable, especially in Punic, where the was regularly pronounced as û, e.g.  (judge),  (three),  = ; i and e often as the obscure dull sound of y, e.g. ,   yth; the  as o, e.g.  (cf.  LXX,  ). See the collection of the grammatical peculiarities in Gesenius,, p. 430 ff.; Paul Schröder, , Halle, 1869; B. Stade, ‘Erneute Pröfung des zwischen dem Phönic. und Hebr. bestehenden Verwandtschaftsgrades,’ in the, Lpz. 1875, p. 169 ff.

4. As the Hebrew writing on monuments and coins mentioned in consists only of consonants, so also the writers of the Old