Dinamiche nel contatto tra latino e lingue semitiche nella Roma repubblicana. Qualche osservazione sociolinguistica

In recent years scholars have been actively trying to detect traces left by the Semitic languages in Latin during the republican age. A special attention has been devoted to Punic, thanks to the new epigraphic and archaeological findings, which show that the Carthaginians resident on the Italic territory were more numerous and socially integrated than usually thought.
The present paper is divided into two parts: in the former, attention will focus on some lexemes, whose Punic origin is very likely, i.e. magalia and macellum. Of this last word the complex documentation will be re-examined according to the new proposal that this word would derive from a Semitic root meaning ‘to eat’ rather than the one that means ‘to close’.
In the second part the long passage occurring in Plautus’ comedy Poenulus is analyzed and a new interpretation of this comedy is proposed, according to which the first addressees of the comedy were Carthaginians still resident in the territory of Italy after Carthage’s defeat in the so called Second Punic War.