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Re: CHAT: Punic sources

From:Luís Henrique <luisb@...>
Date:Tuesday, December 26, 2000, 22:56
David Stokes, on Mon Dec 11, 2000, 2:43pm
wrote:

>Subject: Punic sources
>I've been thinking about a alt-history where Hannibal wins the wars >against the Romans and Carthage, not Rome, becomes the dominant power of >the Mediterranean. Lots of interesting con-lang possibilities here. For >instance, what is the language of a conquered Rome ? After a little time >perhaps something Punic, with Latin influences, like real-world French >came from Latin with Gaulish influences.
Hello David, Your idea is quite interesting. I don't know anything about Punic language, except, of course, that it was a Semithic one. But perhaps it would be of some help to point you that the latinization of Western Europe was certainly not due to the Roman Empire in itself, but to the Church (as late as in Charlemagne times, people in France were still divided between those who spoke romance and Francic languages, an this is why modern French is much more influenced by germanic than by Celtic languages). Political domination as conceived in ancient times -and perhaps more so to Cartaghinians than to Romans- certainly did not need linguistic change. If I would develop a project like yours, I would think about some kind of strong ideology and/or organization with a similar role to the Church, in order to explain the Punification (argh...) of the Mediterraneum. Hope this helps more than bothers, Luís Henrique ___________________________________________________________ http://www.zipmail.com.br O e-mail que vai aonde você está.