canaanite-phoenician language: grammar: Declination of adjectives

[pal4Culture]

kolbat is like kalba from arabic i know they both semitic but they are so close

[montezoma]

Great start for 2012, I like the video, as usual simple and clear.

[Malkibaal]

@montezoma thank you my great brother :) may the canaanite gods be with you!

Kounu he-2alone kan3anim 2itok!

[TheAncientScribes]

The endings are very similar to the endings in Aramaic and Hebrew. In Phoenician is the masculine plural spelt with yodh mem or just with mem? In Hebrew it is yodh mem but typically in Aramaic the masculine plural is yodh nun.

[ahhc07]

@TheAncientScribes Phoenician uses mem only yod is 'a matres lectionis' added probably later on in the Biblical Hebrew script. But, I guess the pronounciation is similar to Hebrew that is 'im'. Let us seen what Malkibaal has to say?

[Malkibaal]

@ahhc07 yes it is,I just wrote it "yim" to indicate the long "i",which was often used in later phoenician,when the phoenicians wrote "y + mem" it was probably read as "-im" or "-yim",the problem we face here is that phoenician actually had no "matres lectionis", but we see in phoenician "a n k y" meaning "aniky, anoky,anuki,aneky, anaky", the phoenician letter "yod" isused here as a "matres lectionis".Some old phoenician dialects from 1200-900 bc could still distinguish between -ima/uma.

[Malkibaal]

@ahhc07 the "i" in "im" was probably a long "i" and later the written "yod" in some late phoenician inscriptions, often in punic indicated the long "i". We see also the alf letter in punic used for long "vowels", seldom waw letter for long "u". After the case endings disappeared in phoenician, I read in a book that the the plural ending was pronounced "-yim" but it was not shown in writting, later when the "-yim" was pronounced "-īm" they still wrote the ancient way with "yod and mem".

[Malkibaal]

@ahhc07 my theory is it was "-īm" on the start & later the phoenicians/punic people tried to indicate the long "ī"by writting the phoenician yod.But after time they read mostly the yod as a semivowel due of a lack of matres lectonis,just late punic used som letters as vowels mostly for foreighn names. Through this written mistake "y +m" the pronounciaton "-yim" was born.We see "y +m" mostly in late phoenician/punic inscriptions,however we also find many late ones just with "-m" too.

[Malkibaal]

@ahhc07 so there were probably dialects with "-īm" or "yim".