11 Facts About Punic language

Punic language, called Phoenicio-Punic or Carthaginian, is an extinct variety of the Phoenician language, a Canaanite language of the Northwest Semitic branch of the Semitic languages.

At first, there was not much difference between Phoenician and Punic, but as time went on Punic began to become influenced less by Phoenicia and more by the coastal Berber languages spoken in and around Carthage by the ancient Libyans.

The dialect differed from the earlier Punic language, as is evident from divergent spelling compared to earlier Punic and by the use of non-Semitic names, mostly of Libyco-Berber or Iberian origin.

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

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

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Punic language is known from inscriptions and personal name evidence.

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

However, it is likely that Arabization of Punic 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 language was the origin of Maltese was first raised in 1565.

However, Punic language 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 language after its extinction, and other inscriptions that were found on the islands.

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