28 Theological librarianship • Vol. 12, No. 1 april 2019

The best Syriac dictionary is Payne Smith’s Compendious Syriac Dictionary.31 This book was originally published in 1903, but was reprinted by Eisenbrauns in 1998. An important reference supplement is Sokoloff’s translation and update of Brockelmann’s Lexicon Syriacum.32

Phoenician

Phoenician and Punic, two of the closest languages to Biblical Hebrew, provide unique insight into the language and culture of the Canaanites. Phoenician is primarily known through inscriptions.33 Such languages are difficult to study for two reasons. First, inscriptions tend to be short and laconic, making it challenging to fill in gaps in understanding through the narrative logic of a text. Second, each new archaeological season uncovers new texts that can shed light on previous difficulties or overturn established theories. This makes the study of inscriptions fascinating, but also makes it difficult to keep up with the state of knowledge, particularly for those publishing reference works. Krahmalkov has attempted to provide reference materials that bring personal names as well as details of the Latin texts, which contain Phoenician texts.34 However, these works provide an idiosyncratic view of Phoenician and do not provide a bibliography in which alternative views are discussed. In addition, the citation of primary literature is incomplete.35 The most beneficial aspect of Krahmalkov’s works is that they are convenient, especially for Anglophones. The standard reference grammar is Friedrich’s Phönizisch-Punische Grammatik.36 Segert’s Phoenician grammar is also worth consulting.37 Additionally, the encyclopedic character of Lipiński’s Dictionnaire makes it a valuable resource to consult.38

Though the dictionary of Krahmalkov is convenient, Hoftijzer’s is a more reliable reference tool.39 The latter not only covers the inscriptions of Phoenician and Punic, but also those of Aramaic, Hebrew and other Canaanite dialects.

Canaanite in the Amarna Letters

One of the earliest attestations of West Semitic is embedded in the Amarna Letters. These letters were written in Akkadian by the city rulers of Syria and Palestine during the Early New Kingdom period of Egypt. Even though they were not written in Canaanite, they display some marks of the authors’ first language. Distinguishing between what is a shared Akkadian pidgin and true West Semitic is difficult but necessary for those interested in the history and development of the Hebrew language.40

31 R. Payne Smith, A Compendious Syriac Dictionary: Founded Upon the Thesaurus Syriacus of R. Payne Smith (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1998).

32 Michael Sokoloff, A Syriac Lexicon: A Translation from the Latin: Correction, Expansion, and Update of C. Brockelmann’s Lexicon Syriacum (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns ; 2009).

33 There are distinctions between the different periods and eras of the Phoenician and Punic languages, but for simplicity’s sake I will refer to them both generically as Phoenician.

34 Charles R. Krahmalkov, Phoenician-Punic Dictionary, Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 90 (Leuven, Belgium: Peeters, 2001); Charles R. Krahmalkov, A Phoenician-Punic Grammar, Handbook of Oriental Studies 54 (Leiden: Brill, 2000). See especially Act V of Poenulus which contains lengthy samples of Punic.

35 For a full critique of the grammar, see Dennis Pardee, “Review of Phoenician-Punic Dictionary, Charles Krahmal-kov,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 64, no. 3 (2005): 2 01–2, https://doi.org/10.1086/491549.

36 Johannes Friedrich, Phönizisch-Punische Grammatik, 3 rd ed. (Rome: Pontificio Istituto Biblico, 1999).

37 S. Segert, A Grammar of Phoenician and Punic (Munich: Beck, 1976).

38 Edward Lipiński, ed., Dictionnaire de La Civilisation Phénicienne et Punique (Paris: Brepols, 1992).

39 J Hoftijzer et al., Dictionary of the Northwest Semitic Inscriptions (Boston: Brill, 2003).

40 There are three aspects to the Canaano-Akkadian texts. Standard Akkadian and West Semitic are the two obvi-ous aspects. But there is a shared innovation of Western Peripheral Akkadian that neither reflects the local lan-guages of the West Semitic speakers, nor the Standard Akkadian they are trying to write. This third aspect, then, is an innovation that the scribes of Western Peripheral Akkadian all adopted. For lack of a better term, I have called this Akkadian pidgin.