islanders likely spoke Punic with one another but Greek to their shipwrecked guests.1139 Probably most of the nonelite persons present did not even speak Greek (hence the label “barbarians”; but cf. their apparent intelligibility in 28:4, 6), but only a few of those present would need to know some for communication and interpretation to occur. Once the voyagers made contacts of higher status (28:7), communication would be more fluent. As noted above, orators praised cities for