Punic | |
---|---|
Phoenicio-Punic, Carthaginian, Western Tyro-Sidonian | |
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 |
Afro-Asiatic
| |
Early form | |
Phoenician alphabet | |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | xpu |
xpu | |
Glottolog | puni1241 neop1239 Neo-Punic |
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]