>>214153987
I've read at some point that the punic people themselves were mostly just a bunch of locals and italics and not actual Near Easterners except maybe the elite.
Maybe they were doing something similar to what we are doing now with Arabic, and the imposed state "Arabness".
It really makes more sense in the context of the wars, alliances, and culture that Carthage had.
Otherwise, they wouldn't have written multilingual inscriptions that include Berber, and wouldn't have still worshipped Berber gods although seemingly fusing them with some Near Eastern aspects, which doesn't seem like something invaders would do.