Maria Josep Estanyol is the last heir of a Phoenician linguistic heritage in Spain. She was until 2018 the last teacher of Phoenician in her country and she was then in a desperate search for her heir.
Once upon a time, and before the Romans came to dominate the Mediterranean, there was an empire that dominated the West Mediterranean, stretching from the Iberian peninsula, Malta, and Sardinia to the coasts of what we know today as the Maghreb. Just like all empires, this one fell one day, and more precisely in 146 BC.
Of this empire, we heard stories told by the Greco-Roman winners of the Third Punic War, the same people who had bitter battles against the Carthaginians and who destroyed all their texts in revenge. Of its foundation, we know legends of adventure-hungry men and women from the East who made it to the Atlantic coasts of Africa. Of its people there remain none, and of its language, there remain few speakers.
Even though the Phoenician language originated in the East Mediterranean, it was thanks to the Carthaginians that it reached Spain. Today, Phoenician is a dead language, a situation which further shrouds the history of Carthage in mystery. Attempts at reviving this language are part of a larger effort to go beyond Greco-Roman texts and unearth accounts about the Carthaginians told by the Carthaginians themselves.
Maria Josep Estanyol is the last heir of this linguistic heritage in Spain. She was until 2018 the last teacher of Phoenician in her country and she was then in a desperate search for her heir.
In 2018, El Pais rang an alarm bell when it reported that Professor Estanyol is the last living teacher of Phoenician in Spain. “If none takes the torch, there will evidently be none to give classes of Phoenician,” she said in the interview with the said newspaper. “I have been teaching Phoenician for 43 years, at the University of Barcelona. This year, I had many students. Just 7!”
When her struggle to preserve the teaching of the language turned into nationwide news in 2018, Professor Estanyol regretted it that students of Semitic languages are more interested in Hebrew and Arabic than Phoencian and that she failed to convince her colleagues to walk on her path, according to Courrier International. She also worried that a growing interest in this language would not be matched by satisfying courses after she retired, LaVanguardia reported.
Archaeologists are interested in Punic, Phoenician, and Carthaginian studies because of the Phoenician legacy of more than 1400 years. Spain is teeming with Punic archaeological sites, and so does Spanish toponymy, according to the last teacher of Phoenician in Spain. For example, “Cádiz” is derived from “Gadir” and Málaga from “Malaka” or “Maó.”
Maria Josep Estanyol, author of the only existing Phoenician dictionary, is defending the Phoenician heritage not only in Spain but also throughout the Mediterranean. She argues that even some Berber communities in Morocco speak Amazigh with ancient Phoenician remnants that could help revive the dead language, according to Periodico de Ibiza.
Before it turned into an Empire, Carthage was a thriving city-state in modern day Tunisia. Its founders were immigrants from Tyre (Modern day Lebanon) who colonized the North African city that bears today the same name in 814 BC.
After the Third Punic War, the whole city was burned down. Traces of the great fire that ate up what the city could tell us of its former dwellers who ruled the West Mediterranean are still present in Punic city on the Hill of Byrsa, Carthage. Therefore, preserving Phoenician is akin to saving what was eaten up by fire from being buried in oblivion, especially that compared to Europe, Phoenician studies remain scant in the North African region where Hannibal was born.
