"CARTHAGINIAN?" This brief ContactMusic.com, UK article gives a slightly longer version of the Vin Diesel quote about his forthcoming Hannibal movie:

DIESEL FOLLOWS GIBSON'S FOREIGN AND ANCIENT EXAMPLE

VIN DIESEL is following MEL GIBSON's example and employing ancient and little-known languages for his upcoming HANNIBAL THE CONQUEROR epic.

Gibson caused a sensation with his THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST movie last year (04) when he used ancient Aramaic in his biblical drama, and now Diesel will use JESUS' tongue as well as Iberian and Carthaginian to tell the story of the Carthaginian general.

He explains, "I'm going to make it a non-English multi-lingual film that represents the many languages that Hannibal employed in his army.

"So it will be Aramaic for Rome, Iberian for Spain, there will be some Carthaginian or some Maltese and it will represent all these different languages.

[...]

By Carthaginian I take him to mean Punic (the north African dialect of Phoenician). Reconstructing ancient Punic will be a much more challenging exercise than reconstructing first-century Jewish Aramaic. I will be following this story closely.