Re: CHAT: better than others (late reflection)

At 02:31 PM 3/23/2000 -0500, Steg wrote:
>Talking about "classical" empires and how they viewed their rivals, does
>anyone happen to know what the Carthaginians called themselves?  Or at
>least Carthage?  I seem to remember hearing something along the lines of
>/qErEt HadaSa/, but i don't know if that's the Carthaginian name or some
>kind of Hebrew cognate-translation.  And if it is something like QRT
>HhDShH, how did the Romans mess it up so much?
The name you cited is indeed the Hebrew name for it. It means "old city,"
the same as the Carthiginians' native name for it, which was something like
/qart X\adaSt/ (X\=voiceless pharyngeal fricative), according to a
Classical scholar friend of mine. As for the Latin name, my friend says the
Carthaginians often shortened personal names and added -o to the end, such
as Hanno (from Hannibal?); the same probable happened with the name of the
city: /qart X\ado/. The Greek name, IIRC, was Karchedon /kark_hedon/ (not
sure on the vowel lengths), which is pretty close to the shortened Punic
name; the Latin name Cartha:go: is almost the same but inexplicably uses
-go: instead of the expected -do:. Maybe due to analogy with other -a:go:
forms?