Phoenician

Phoenician puns in a nutshell

Understanding the Phoenician empire is crucial for understanding how spookery already existed in ancient times. I don’t think any more that spookery evolved from Phoenicia alone. The aristocratic elites of other “civilized” regions were likely not so different. But the true identity of our overlords, as global bankers & trade monopolists above regional kingdoms, that was pretty much in the open in Ancient Phoenicia, clearer than ever before or after. That’s why this entire civilization has been censored away.

Modern spooks seem to regularly use the phoenix as a symbol. Likely, they are referencing their Phoenician ancestry. However, there may be more clues in that word:

Almost no Phoenician records survived, and there are none containing the word Phoenician itself. We only know it as Greek Φοινιξ Phoinix / Φοινικες Phoinikes. But the word Phoenicia may have a revealing unofficial etymology: The Phoenicians were traders. It is thus possible that their Greek name Phoinix / Phoinikes is derived from Semitic pn-nks, which means “turning / directing / transferring of wealth / goods / accounts”. The word roots √pn and √nks exist in many other languages as well.

• The Phoenicians were traders, and פן-נכס pn-nks means “turners of goods” & “turners of wealth”. 🡻
• The Phoenicians were bankers, and פן-נכס pn-nks could also mean “clearers of accounts” in Akkadian. 🡻
• The Phoenicians were traders of tin specifically, and פן-אנך pn-ˀnk means “turners of tin”. 🡻

This is likely not a pun, but the actual etymology of the word Phoenician. But even if it isn’t, it would explain why the spooks use the phoenix as a symbol: They emphasize that they derive their power from being descendants of ancient merchants & bankers, in addition to being aristocrats.

Like all things phoenix, the name Phoenician also has more spooky puns in later languages:

• The spooks are fraudsters, and Greek φεναξ phenax means “fraud” & “impostor”, while Φοινιξ Phoinix means “Phoenicians”. 🡻
• The spooks are bankers, and Latin foenus means “finance”, while poenus means “Phoenicians”. 🡻

(Of course, this does not mean that every common-birth sailor from the Phoenician coasts was a spook or banker. As today, it was the aristocratic elites who profited from the globalized trade, not their subjects.)

Word root pn for “trade”?

A meaning of √pn as “trade” would explain the meaning of the name Phoenicians very well. However, the spelling pn has no attested meaning of “trade” or “exchange” in Semitic. There are still possibilities how this meaning may have been connected though:

• The root pn was used to mean “turning oneself”, but also for “turning” & “transferring” objects. This may have been an archaic word for “trade”.
• The root pn was also used for “clearing” / “converting” / “allocating”. This may also have been ancient slang for “trade”, especially in the financial sense.
• The unrelated root ˁp and its derivative ˁpn for “doubling” were used in Aramaic for “profit” & “business”. This could definitely have been used for traders.
• In Sanskrit, paṇa means “bargainer” and paṇa means “trade” & “business”. These words are not officially related to Semitic. If they are, I’d suspect it’s via archaic word roots, and not necessarily through strictly Phoenician language.

Phoenicians as pn-nks “turners of wealth”

If you combine the root pn for “turning” & “transferring” with the root nks for “goods” & “wealth”, you get the compound פן-נכס pn-nks “turners of wealth” / “turners of goods”. This compound is not attested. But since almost no Phoenician texts have survived, and little from the other Semitic languages, it may have existed. It would be a very fitting expression to mean “merchant” / “banker”, and consonant-wise it is a perfect match with Greek Phoinix / Phoinikes. The Phoenician elites were merchants & bankers, and perhaps they were named after that.

Phoenicians as pn-nks “clearers of accounts”

In Akkadian, the root nks even meant “accounts” & “accounting”. So pn-nks could also mean “clearing accounts”, which would be an even better expression for “bankers”. The “accounts” meaning is not officially attested for later Aramaic though.

Phoenicians as pn-ˀnk “turners of tin”

It’s possible that one meaning of “Phoenicians” may also have been “tin traders”, because the Semitic term פן-אנך pn-ˀnk would mean “turners of tin” and is also very similar.

The tin trade was a particularly important global trade monopoly during the Bronze Age. Most bronze alloys were made from copper & tin, and tin was only found in very few locations. The Phoenician elites were particularly reknown as tin traders. Phoenician tin trade up to the Iberian peninsula is well-attested, and it’s even said to have reached Brittany & Great Britain, one of the major global tin repositories in ancient times.

Phoenicians as “tricksters”

In Greek, φεναξ phenax means “cheating” & “fraud”. While regular people would see this as an insult, the spooks seem to be mightily proud of their eternal hoaxing, even though they only manage it because of their limitless inherited power. It is therefore possible that they interpret the name Phoinix also in this way.

Other phoenixes explained as Semitic

There is more indirect evidence for a Semitic origin of the Greek word Phoinix, because that word has several other meanings as well: “date palm”, “purple” and “phoenix bird”. Also, there is a Greek term phenax meaning “fraudster”. On the surface, all these meanings have little to do with each other. But they can all be explained very well as similar Semitic compound words, with the common denominator of “turning” something. Such Semitic compounds were perhaps loaned from Phoenician into Greek through archaic dialects, and then conflated:

1. Phoinix means Phoenicians.
2. phoinix means date palm.
3. phoinix means purple.
4. phoinix means phoenix bird.
5. phenax means fraudster.

All the phoinix terms can be explained as derived from Semitic compounds with the root √pn, all having to do with “turning” something:

1. The Phoenicians can be explained as פן-נכס pn-nks “turners of wealth”, or as פן-אנך pn-ˀnk “turners of tin”.
2. The date palm can be explained as פן-ענקא pn-ˁnqˀ for “turned branch”, for its perfectly curved fruitstalks.
3. The color purple can be explained as פן-קנע pn-qnˁ “turned dark-blue”, or פן-עז pn-ˁz “turned an intense color”.
4. The phoenix bird can be explained as פן-חי pn-ḥy “return [to] life”, or as פן-נקז pn-nqz “curved beak” (see phoenix).
5. The phenax fraudster can be explained as פן-קשט pn-qšṭ for “turning the truth”.

(Of course, this does not mean that Greek is the same as Phoenician, or entirely derived from it. It is a very different language. But Greek script is officially said to be derived from Phoenician script or variants. And loanwords being exchanged between neighboring regions is perfectly normal. Many native Greek words were also loaned into Semitic languages such as Aramaic.)

Latin Poenus for “Phoenicia”, foenus for “finance”

In Latin, we find the grammar form Poenus meaning “Punic” & “Phoenician”, and also foenus / faenus / fenus meaning “finance”. I think this may not be a coincidence. If all these words stem from pn-nks “turning wealth”, then Phoenicia and the modern English word finance would be related, all ultimately stemming from the word root √pn from the Phoenician language itself.

English pun related to Phoenician

The English word pun means “turning around” the meaning for a word, and the Semitic root √pn means “turning around”. Plus, this root can apparently be found in many other languages as well. It’s thus possible that the word pun stems from the root √pn, and that it is thus related to the word Phoenician.

The Roman-era play Poenulus uses a lot of puns, specifically Punic puns. So it may well be that the word pun itself, or a similar term, was used already by the ancient elites. Perhaps it is not attested because the existence of pun-encryption is still a secret.

Milphio: No Punic man this day is a better Punic than I.

Milphio: Nullus me est hodie Poenus Poenior.

Plautus: Poenulus 5.2