Punic
Sign in to saveAlso known as Carthaginian, Punic language, Phoenicio-Punic, Carthaginian language, Phoenicio-Punic language
extinct dialect of the Phoenician language spoken in North Africa and the Western Mediterranean
Key facts
- 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 North Phoenician Tyro-Sidonian Western Punic
- Early form
- Phoenician
- Writing system
- Phoenician alphabet
- Iso 639 3
- xpu
- Linguist list
- xpu
- Glottolog
- puni1241 , neop1239 Neo-Punic
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
Show 5 more facts
- dissolved, abolished or demolished date
- 0600-00-00
- Wikimedia language code
- xpu
- native label
- 𐤃𐤁𐤓𐤉𐤌 𐤐𐤍𐤉𐤌
- inception
- 0800-00-00
via Wikidata · CC0
~22 min read
Article
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.
History