One of the Tripolitania Punic inscriptions, in both Latin (top) and Punic (bottom) script.
Region
Tunisia, coastal parts of Algeria, Morocco, southern Iberia, Balearic islands, Libya, Malta, western Sicily, southern and eastern Sardinia
Era
8th century BC to 6th century AD
Language family
Afro-Asiatic
Semitic
West Semitic
Central Semitic
Northwest Semitic
Canaanite
Phoenician
Punic
Early form
Phoenician
Writing system
Phoenician alphabet
Language codes
ISO 639-3
xpu
Linguist List
xpu
Glottolog
puni1241 neop1239 Neo-Punic
This article contains Phoenician characters. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, empty boxes, or other symbols instead of the intended characters.
The Punic language, also 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. An offshoot of the Phoenician language of coastal West Asia (modern Lebanon and north western Syria), it was principally spoken on the Mediterranean coast of Northwest Africa, the Iberian peninsula and several Mediterranean islands, such as Malta, Sicily, and Sardinia by the Punic people, or western Phoenicians, throughout classical antiquity, from the 8th century BC to the 6th century AD.[1][2][3][4][5][6]
^Moscati, Sabatino (2001). The Phoenicians. I.B.Tauris. p. 200. ISBN 9781850435334.
^Palma, Salvatore Di (2014-11-18). L'Histoire des marques depuis l'antiquité jusqu'au moyen âge (in French). Société des Ecrivains. p. 139. ISBN 9782342031201.
^Jouhaud, Edmond Jules René (1968). Historie de l'Afrique du Nord (in French). Éditions des Deux Cogs d’Or. p. 22.
^Camps, Gabriel (1992). L'Afrique du Nord au féminin (in French). Perrin (réédition numérique FeniXX). p. 45. ISBN 9782262057435.
^Temporini, Hildegard, ed. (1975). Politische Geschichte (Provinzen und Randvölker: Allgemeines; Britannien, Hispanien, Gallien) (in French). Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. p. 664. ISBN 9783110882070.
^Caruana, A. A. (1852). Report on the Phœnician and Roman Antiquities in the Group of the Islands of Malta. U.S. Government Printing Office. p. 50.
characters. The Puniclanguage, also called Phoenicio-Punic or Carthaginian, is an extinct variety of the Phoenician language, a Canaanite language of the Northwest...
Peninsula, Malta, and Ibiza. Their language, Punic, was a dialect of Phoenician, one of the Northwest Semitic languages originating in the Levant. Literary...
Phoenician to the western Mediterranean, where the distinct Puniclanguage developed. Punic also died out, but it seems to have survived far longer than...
The Punic Wars were a series of wars between 264 and 146 BC fought between the Roman Republic and Ancient Carthage. Three wars took place, on both land...
The Third Punic War (149–146 BC) was the third and last of the Punic Wars fought between Carthage and Rome. The war was fought entirely within Carthaginian...
[ɫaˈtiːnʊ̃]) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Considered a dead language, Latin was originally spoken...
The Punic religion, Carthaginian religion, or Western Phoenician religion in the western Mediterranean was a direct continuation of the Phoenician variety...
Carthage until the 2nd century BCE, where it was used to write the Puniclanguage. Its direct descendant scripts include the Aramaic and Samaritan alphabets...
in spelling to a term that means "sacrifice" in the closely-related Puniclanguage. This second position has grown increasingly popular, but it remains...
that the ancient Puniclanguage (another Semitic language) was its origin instead of Siculo-Arabic, while others believed the language to be one of the...
Carthaginian or Punic currency refers to the coins of ancient Carthage, a Phoenician city-state located near present-day Tunis, Tunisia. Between the late...
reflected in English in some borrowings from Latin – notably the Punic Wars and the Puniclanguage. The Modern Standard Arabic form Qarṭāj (قرطاج) is an adoption...
or in references in Greek and Roman texts to other languages and the need for interpreters. For Punic, Coptic, and Aramaic or Syriac, a significant amount...
systems of the two. In contrast, the Puniclanguage of Carthaginian settlers was Semitic, while Indo-European languages of the peninsula during the Iron Age...
spoke a language which was not Berber, Latin, or Coptic, who lived in Sirte, where the Puniclanguage, a variety of the Phoenician language, survived...
turn derive from the vowel-less Northwest Semitic form BʿL (Phoenician and Punic: 𐤁𐤏𐤋). The word's biblical senses as a Phoenician deity and false gods...
The Tripolitania Punic inscriptions are a number of Puniclanguage inscriptions found in the region of Tripolitania – specifically its three classical...
The Second Punic War (218 to 201 BC) was the second of three wars fought between Carthage and Rome, the two main powers of the western Mediterranean in...
the Puniclanguage than the West-Numidian, and West-Numidian is thought to be more ancient than East-Numidian. Numidian was influenced mostly by Punic and...
The Phoenician and Carthaginian expansion spread the Phoenician language and the Punic variety spoken in the antique-era colonies in Western Mediterranean...
Hasdrubal the Fair (Punic: 𐤏𐤆𐤓𐤁𐤏𐤋, ʿAzrobaʿl; c. 270–221 BC) was a Carthaginian military leader and politician, governor in Iberia after Hamilcar...
influenced by the Punic culture. It played a very important role in the urbanization of Northern Africa, where the Puniclanguage was to persist until...
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