18 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. ^ANNO 1763. 



same, and doubtless continued so, or nearly so, long after the foundation of Car- 

 thage. And this is rendered highly probable by the letters preserved on many Cartha- 

 ginian coins. To what then can we so properly ascribe the variations in them as 

 to distance of time, since the letters so varied in the Carthaginian territories had 

 undoubtedly the same forms with those of the correspondent elements in the 

 more ancient Phoenician alphabet, (used both there and at Tyre, Sidon, Citium, 

 &c.) several ages before ? In fine, the same characters at first prevailed both at 

 Carthage and in Phoenicia; though these, or at least several of them, in after 

 ages, assumed pretty different forms. So that the more any Punic or Phoeni- 

 cian literary characters, in whatever country found, recede from those that 

 formed the Samaritan or earliest Phoenician alphabet, the later they ought un- 

 doubtedly to be deemed. 



After the Carthaginian provinces had been subdued by the Romans, the people 

 still retained the use of their ancient proper names, and spoke the Punic tongue. 

 Nay, we have good reason to believe, that the Phoenician or Punic language was 

 spoken and understood in some of those provinces even to the days of St. Austin. 

 With regard to the island of Malta in particular, which was so long subject to 

 the Carthaginians, it may not be improper to remark, that the entire reduction 

 of it seems scarcely to have been effected before the time of Julius Cassar by the 

 Romans. For though the people of that island were obliged to submit to the 

 Roman power after the destruction of Carthage ; yet they found means after- 

 wards to assert their independency, and shake off the Roman yoke. But not- 

 withstanding they had been rendered a formidable maritiirie power, by the ex- 

 tensive commerce which they enjoyed, they were finally* subjugated by Caesar, 

 though with no small difficulty, about 45 years before the birth of Christ. It 

 may justly therefore be questioned whether the Latin tongue was ever much 

 used in Malta before the death of that conqueror, or rather before the com- 

 mencement of the Christian aera, which was but little posterior to it. Be that 

 however as it may, that the use of the Punic language and the Punic proper 

 names were retained in Malta, as an ancient part of the Carthaginian territories, 

 at least 3 or 4 centuries after the last-mentioned period, if not much longer, 

 from what has been here advanced, is abundantly clear. Nay, that the Punic 

 tongue is even at this day the vernacular language of the lower part of the 

 Maltese, though deformed by many corruptions, and disguised by the accession 

 of various foreign words, after perusing what has been communicated on that 

 head to the learned world by Canonico Agius, Mr. S. is strongly inclined to 

 believe. 



* Appian. Alexandrin. apud Burchard. Nidersted. in Malta Vet. et Nov. lib. ii. c. vi. p. 6S. 

 Helmestadii, 1660.— Orig. 



