10 Facts About Punic alphabet

Punic alphabet is considered to have separated from its Phoenician parent around the time that Carthage became the leading Phoenician city under Mago I, but scholarly attempts to delineate the dialects lack precision and generally disagree on the classification.

Third version of Punic, known as Latino-Punic, is Punic written in the Latin alphabet, but with all of the spellings favouring Northwest African pronunciation.

Latino-Punic alphabet was spoken until the 3rd and the 4th centuries, and was recorded in seventy recovered texts.

Latino-Punic alphabet texts include the 1st-century Zliten LP1, or the second-century Lepcis Magna LP1.

Punic alphabet is known from inscriptions and personal name evidence.

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The play Poenulus by Plautus contains a few lines of vernacular Punic alphabet which have been subject to some research because unlike inscriptions, they largely preserve the vowels.

However, it is likely that Arabization of Punic alphabet speakers was facilitated by their language belonging to the same group as that of the conquerors and so they had many grammatical and lexical similarities.

Idea that Punic alphabet was the origin of Maltese was first raised in 1565.

However, Punic alphabet was indeed spoken on the island of Malta at some point in its history, as evidenced by both the Cippi of Melqart, which is integral to the decipherment of Punic alphabet after its extinction, and other inscriptions that were found on the islands.

Punic alphabet itself, being Canaanite, was more similar to Modern Hebrew than to Arabic.