"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 F�vrier (Punic expert) illustrating the > Phoenician character names with Square Hebrew glyphs (and not Phoenician > glyphs used in the previous pages), Dictionnaire de la civilisation > ph�nicienne 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 F�vrier 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
