Phoenicianspeaking

Phoenician is an ancient Semitic language spoken in Phoenicia, a region in the Levant. It was spoken from around the 15th century BCE until the early centuries CE. Phoenician is closely related to other Semitic languages, particularly Hebrew and Aramaic. Its most significant legacy is the Phoenician alphabet, a consonantal script that became the ancestor of many modern alphabets, including Greek, Latin, and Hebrew.

The Phoenician language was used for trade and commerce throughout the Mediterranean. Phoenician traders established colonies and trade routes across a wide area, spreading their language and alphabet with them. The language is primarily known from inscriptions found on artifacts such as stelae, sarcophagi, and pottery. These inscriptions provide valuable insights into Phoenician culture, religion, and daily life.

While spoken Phoenician eventually died out, replaced by Aramaic and later Arabic, its written form, the alphabet, had a profound and lasting impact. The Phoenician alphabet consisted of 22 letters, all consonants, which were adapted by the Greeks to create their alphabet, which in turn was adopted by the Romans. This linguistic transmission is a crucial element in the history of Western writing systems. Scholars study Phoenician to understand its linguistic connections to other Semitic languages and to reconstruct aspects of ancient Levantine history and culture.