Phoenician language
The importance of the cippi to Maltese archaeology is inestimable. On an international level, they already played a significant role in the deciphering and study of the Phoenician language in the 18th and 19th centuries. Such was their importance to Phoenician and Punic philology, that the inscriptions on the cippi became known as the "Inscriptio melitensis prima bilinguis" (Latin for "First bilingual Maltese inscription"), or the "Melitensis prima" ("First Maltese").