Phoenician / Punic loans in Berber languages and their role in chronology of Berber
| Authors | |
|---|---|
| Year of publication | 2014 |
| Type | Article in Periodical |
| Magazine / Source | Folia Orientalia |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Field | Linguistics |
| Keywords | Phoenician/Punic; Berber; lexical and morphological borrowing; disintegration |
| Description | The purpose of the present study is to summarize the most probable loans from Phoenician or Punic in Berber languages and to analyze them in perspective of their distribution in the Berber dialect continuum. These results are extraordinarily important for discussion about the chronology of disintegration of the Berber languages. In Berber branches there are early Phoenician/Punic loans - at least 6(7?) in the West, and as many as 19 in the northern branches, indicating that the first contact preceded the disintegration of the Berber dialect continuum. This agrees with the absolute chronology: the first contact could be extrapolated on the basis of adoption of the Phoenician script and after the foundation of Carthage to c. 800 BCE, while the disintegration of the historically attested Berber languages is dated between 680 and 460 BCE, if so-called ‘recalibrated’ glottochronology is applied. |
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