Eisenbrauns just added a new book to their website that will be of value to everyone interested in Northwest Semitic inscriptions. This volume includes drawings, transliterations, translations and short studies and bibliographies of about 100 Late Punic texts (just about the entire corpus)–a very handy volume. Furthermore, Eisenbrauns is selling it for $29 which is not a bad price for a volume like this.
It is true that Late Punic is indeed late from an ancient Near Eastern perspective (begins at the destruction of Carthage at 146 BCE), but it is still important from a linguistic point of view even if your interests do not extend this far chronologically (mine happen to though). Punic was in use for quite a long time. St. Augustine even speaks of the importance of knowing Punic.
Late Punic Epigraphy
An Introduction to the Study of Neo-Punic and Latino-Punic Inscriptions
by K. Jongeling and Robert Kerr
Mohr Siebeck, 2005
x + 115 pages, English
Paper
ISBN: 3161487281
Your Price: $29.00
www.eisenbrauns.com/wconnect/wc.dll?ebGate~EIS~~I~JONLATEPU
Thanks for book notice, Charles. You might be interested to note that, although he calls it a “very difficult subject,” Peter Brown, a foremost biographer of Augustine and historian of late antiquity, relying on work from the church historian Frend and others, has pointed out that the African bishop’s references to “Punic” probably indicate merely any language spoken in North Africa other than Latin, i.e. Berber dialects (Berber is not Semitic, but does belong to the broader Afroasiatic group of languages) and not necessarily the descendant in any form of Phoenician. For Brown’s take, in prose as artful as always, and the work his comments are based on, see his Augustine of Hippo (Berkeley: Univ. of Calif Press, 1967): 22 with n. 2. Brown flatly states there, “It is most unlikely that Augustine spoke anything but Latin.” If I recall correctly (I don’t have the text with me to check), though, in De Magistro Augustine praises his son Adeodatus’ ability in “Punic.” Merry Christmas!
A new and expanded edition of Jongeling’s work is now available:
K. Jongeling, “Handbook of Neo-Punic Inscriptions” (Mohr Siebeck, 2008)
Thanks, Chip, guess I’ll have to update my now out-of-date version…