Were Semitic languages commonly spoken in North Africa at the time of the Arab conquests?

by Bunnies1234

The Assyrians conquered Egypt and their lingua franca was Aramaic. The Phoenicians colonized the Maghreb and their language was Punic.

Were those languages, or any other Semitic language, still around in North Africa at the time of Arab conquest?

tropical_chancer

Probably not. It's not known exactly when the Punic language died out in North Africa but it seems most likely it had died out by the time of the arrival of Arabs in the 7th century. The Phoenicians also colonized only fairly small swaths of the the immediate coastline anyway, with the exception of Tunisia. Instead, the most commonly spoken languages in North Africa throughout this period were Tamazight (also called Berber) languages. Punic speakers probably switched to Tamazight languages since the area was dominated by Tamazight languages at the time, or if there were any Punic language speakers were left by the time of the arrival of the Arabs, to Arabic. Late Punic would have been highly influenced by Tamazight languages. Tamazight and Semitic languages are all branches of the Afro-Asiatic language family though.