Phoenicianism

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The phoenicianism or Phönizismus ( French Phénicianisme ) is a term and a concept that the separate identity of the Lebanese and Lebanon stressed and the independence of Syria and the Arabs highlights.

The followers of Phoenicianism take the view that the Lebanese are not Arabs because they have a different language and culture. They see the Lebanese as descendants of the Semitic Phoenicians and refer to the dialectal varieties of Lebanese-Arabic as the Lebanese language .

History of the term

The term “Phoenicianism” goes back to the intellectuals and politicians Michel Chiha and Youssef Al Sauda . The emergence of the term must be seen in the context of the founding of the Lebanese state and the split of the French protectorate into a Syrian and a Lebanese state in the 1920s. Phoenicianism served to give the new state and its inhabitants their own identity. The counter-concept is called Greater Syria , in which several Middle Eastern states are supposed to form a common state. This term was created by Henri Lammen at the end of the 19th century and politicized by Antun Saada in the 1930s.

Criticism of Phoenicianism

Critics of Phoenicianism point to a cultural and linguistic point of view of Arab heritage of the Lebanese. Since the Phoenician language died out long ago, its impact on the modern Lebanese dialect of Arabic is negligible. In contrast, influences of the Aramaic language in the Lebanese dialect are very clear today . Genetic studies based on DNA around the Mediterranean have shown that every 17th local resident is directly descended from the Phoenicians. A total of 27% of the Lebanese population shows this genetic relationship.

See also

literature

  • Asher Kaufman: Reviving Phenicia. In search of identity in Lebanon. Tauris, London 2004, ISBN 1-86064-982-3 .

Individual evidence

  1. Pierre Zalloua (University of Beirut) at: epoc.de News: Phoenicians. The love of the sailors. dated October 30, 2008 and according to EPOC. No. 4, 2009, p. 27.

Web links