From: saqqara (saqqara@csi.com)
Date: Fri May 21 2004 - 13:51:08 CDT
"Patrick Andries" wrote
>
> If many Israelis may not be able to read Phoenician or Neo-Punic, it is
> not obvious to me that Phoenician or Punic scholars -- presumably the
> intended users of Phoenician/Canaanite -- do not read Square Hebrew. I
> have some testimony to the opposite : Lionel Galand (Tifinagh expert)
> saying he has often seen Punic inscriptions represented using Square
> Hebrew characters, James Février (Punic expert) illustrating the
> Phoenician character names with Square Hebrew glyphs (and not Phoenician
> glyphs used in the previous pages), Dictionnaire de la civilisation
> phénicienne et punique
> <http://www.amazon.fr/exec/obidos/ASIN/2503500331/171-9944786-8511424>
> unifying Aramaic, Square Hebrew and Phoenician in its initial
> transliteration table and illustrating the 22 letters with Square Hebrew
> glyphs, etc.
>
> This may have been due to technical reasons (easy availability of Square
> Hebrew fonts), but it looks like Punic scholars are able to read Square
> Hebrew fonts.
>
> P. A.
These are interesting points, and certainly issues I would personally want
to address if treating Phoenician, Aramaic etc. in software. Whether Février
was taking a pragmatic or deliberate approach (transliterations of many
ancient scripts for purpose or convenience were both popular approaches last
century), either way it can be useful to be able to work using this kind of
technique.
However my point was about users of the script, not specialist scholars.
Users include experts in other fields who may touch on Phoenician scripts
though to students, interested laymen or even children with a more than
facile interest in the hsitory of the written word.
Bob Richmond
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