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Gozitan Dialects
The Gozitan dialects are rural dialects of Maltese spoken in the island of Gozo. The vowel shift of *''ā'' (phonologically ''a'') to ''o'' or ''u'' is their main differentiating trait. Vocabulary Comparison of some words in Standard Maltese and in the Gozitan dialects: See also * Gozo * Nadur Carnival * Languages of Malta Malta has three official languages : Maltese, Maltese Sign Language and English. Maltese is the national language. Until 1934, Italian was also an official language in Malta, and in the 19th and 20th centuries there was a linguistic and poli ... References Further reading * Aquilina, Joseph, and B.S.J. Isserlin. 1981. ''A Survey of Contemporary Dialectal Maltese. Volume I: Gozo''. Leeds: B.S.J. Isserlin. * Farrugia, Ruben. 2021. ‘ The Acoustic Vowel Space of Gozitan Naduri and Sannati Dialects’. In ''Semitic Dialects and Dialectology: Fieldwork—Community—Change'', edited by Maciej Klimiuk, 197–211. Heidelberg: Heidelberg Univers ...
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Malta
Malta, officially the Republic of Malta, is an island country in Southern Europe located in the Mediterranean Sea, between Sicily and North Africa. It consists of an archipelago south of Italy, east of Tunisia, and north of Libya. The two official languages are Maltese language, Maltese and English language, English. The country's capital is Valletta, which is the smallest capital city in the EU by both area and population. It was also the first World Heritage Site, World Heritage City in Europe to become a European Capital of Culture in 2018. With a population of about 542,000 over an area of , Malta is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, tenth-smallest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population density, ninth-most densely populated. Various sources consider the country to consist of a single urban region, for which it is often described as a city-state. Malta has been inhabited since at least 6500 BC, during the Mesolith ...
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Nadur Dialect
Nadur () is an administrative unit of Malta, located in the eastern part of the island of Gozo. Nadur is built on a plateau and is one of the largest localities in Gozo. Known as the 'second city', it spreads along a high ridge to the east of Victoria. It had a population of 4,509 as of March 2014. The word is derived from the Arabic word ‘nadara’, which means 'lookout', pretty much having the same meaning as its motto ‘Vigilant’. The motto appears in Nadur’s coat of arms that shows the sun coming up from blue seas. The town is famous for its bakeries. Near Nadur are San Blas and Dahlet Qorrot Bays, tiny rocky bays on the North Eastern coast. These are locations for swimming, snorkeling, picnics, and trekking. History There are no documents or archaeological evidence which could shed light on the colonisation of Nadur by its first inhabitants. Nevertheless, the plateau and its surroundings, with a few farmhouses scattered here and there, were in existence for many ...
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Folia Orientalia
''La Folía'' (Spanish), or ''Follies'' (English), also known as ''folies d'Espagne'' (French), ''La Follia'' (Italian), and ''Folia'' (Portuguese), is one of the oldest remembered European musical themes, or primary material, generally melodic, of a composition, on record. The theme exists in two versions, referred to as early and late ''folias'', the earlier being faster. History Due to its musical form, style and etymology of the name, it has been suggested that the melody arose as a dance in the mid or late fifteenth century throughout the Iberian Peninsula The Iberian Peninsula ( ), also known as Iberia, is a peninsula in south-western Europe. Mostly separated from the rest of the European landmass by the Pyrenees, it includes the territories of peninsular Spain and Continental Portugal, comprisin ..., either in Portugal or in the area of the old Kingdom of León, or maybe in the Kingdom of Valencia. The epithet "Folia" has several meanings in music. Western classi ...
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Languages Of Malta
Malta has three official languages : Maltese, Maltese Sign Language and English. Maltese is the national language. Until 1934, Italian was also an official language in Malta, and in the 19th and 20th centuries there was a linguistic and political debate known as the Language Question about the roles of these three languages. The Maltese population is generally able to converse in languages which are not native to the country, particularly English and Italian. They can also somewhat understand Darija. In 2022, Malta National Statistics Office states that 90 percent of the Maltese population has at least a basic knowledge of Maltese. Also, 96 percent of the population has at least a basic knowledge of English, 62 percent of Italian, and 20 percent of French. According to the Eurobarometer poll conducted in 2012, 98% of Maltese people can speak Maltese, 88% can speak English, 66% can speak Italian, and more than 17% speak French. This shows a recent increase in fluency in la ...
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Nadur Carnival
{{Use dmy dates, date=September 2015 The Nadur Carnival is unique among the many manifestations of Carnival. It is not organized by any committee and subsequently no rules apply. Sunset invites a multitude of masked and hooded creatures to throng the streets of Nadur - creatures wearing all kinds of funny and grotesque costumes. Nadur is a small locality with a population of 4500, on the island of Gozo - the sister island of Malta - in the middle of the Mediterranean about 50 km south of Sicily. It is run by a Local Council with 5 elected members: the Mayor, Deputy Mayor and 3 Councilors with one full-time Executive Secretary. Besides the religious feast of St. Peter & St. Paul, known locally as "L-Imnarja" held on 29 June and which lasts a whole week, Nadur is also famous for its annual revelry held on the 5 days preceding Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent Lent (, 'Fortieth') is the solemn Christianity, Christian religious moveable feast#Lent, observance in the ...
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The Wikipedia Library
Wikipedia is a free online encyclopedia that is written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and the wiki software MediaWiki. Founded by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger in 2001, Wikipedia has been hosted since 2003 by the Wikimedia Foundation, an American nonprofit organization funded mainly by donations from readers. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read reference work in history. Initially available only in English, Wikipedia exists in over 340 languages. The English Wikipedia, with over  million articles, remains the largest of the editions, which together comprise more than articles and attract more than 1.5 billion unique device visits and 13 million edits per month (about 5edits per second on average) . , over 25% of Wikipedia's traffic comes from the United States, while Japan, the United Kingdom, Germany and Russia each account for around 5%. Wikipedia has been praised for enabling the democr ...
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Brill Publishers
Brill Academic Publishers () is a Dutch international academic publisher of books, academic journals, and Bibliographic database, databases founded in 1683, making it one of the oldest publishing houses in the Netherlands. Founded in the South Holland city of Leiden, it maintains its headquarters there, while also operating offices in Boston, Paderborn, Vienna, Singapore, and Beijing. Since 1896, Brill has been a public limited company (). Brill is especially known for its work in subject areas such as Oriental studies, classics, religious studies, Jewish studies, Islamic studies, Asian studies, international law, and human rights. The publisher offers traditional print books, academic journals, primary source materials online, and publications on microform. In recent decades, Brill has expanded to Electronic publishing, digital publishing with ebooks and online resources including databases and specialty collections varying by discipline. History Founding by Luchtmans, 16 ...
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Vowel Shift
A vowel shift is a systematic sound change in the pronunciation of the vowel sounds of a language. The best-known example in the English language is the Great Vowel Shift, which began in the 15th century. The Greek language also underwent a vowel shift near the beginning of the Common Era, which included iotacism. Among the Semitic languages, the Canaanite languages underwent a shift in which Proto-Semitic *ā became ō in Proto-Canaanite (a language likely very similar to Biblical Hebrew). A vowel shift can involve a merger of two previously different sounds, or it can be a chain shift. US examples One of the several major vowel shifts that is currently underway in the US is the Northern Cities Vowel Shift. This change pattern is characterized by the longer and lower vowels moving forward and upward, while the shorter vowels move downward and backward. This vowel rotation, for example, is noticeable as the vowel sound in "coffee" is moving toward the vowel in "father". ...
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Maltese Alphabet
The Maltese alphabet is based on the Latin alphabet with the addition of some letters with diacritic marks and Digraph (orthography), digraphs. It is used to write the Maltese language, which evolved from the otherwise extinct Siculo-Arabic dialect, as a result of 800 years of independent development. It contains 30 letters: 24 consonants and 6 vowels (a, e, i, o, u, ie). There are two types of Maltese consonants: * (Sun and moon letters, sun consonants): ''ċ d n r s t x ż z'' * (Sun and moon letters, moon consonants): ''b f ġ g għ h ħ j k l m p q v w'' Samples Older versions of the alphabet Before the standardisation of the Maltese alphabet, there were several ways of writing the sounds peculiar to Maltese, namely , , , , , , and . was formerly written as (in front of and , in Italian fashion). Vella used for . was used in other books during the 19th century. Rather than using a c with a cedilla, , Panzavecchia used a c with ogonek . ''A Short Grammar of the ...
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Latin Script
The Latin script, also known as the Roman script, is a writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae in Magna Graecia. The Greek alphabet was altered by the Etruscan civilization, Etruscans, and subsequently their alphabet was altered by the Ancient Romans. Several Latin-script alphabets exist, which differ in graphemes, collation and phonetic values from the classical Latin alphabet. The Latin script is the basis of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), and the 26 most widespread letters are the letters contained in the ISO basic Latin alphabet, which are the same letters as the English alphabet. Latin script is the basis for the largest number of alphabets of any writing system and is the List of writing systems by adoption, most widely adopted writing system in the world. Latin script is used as the standard method of writing the languages of Western and ...
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Għajnsielem Dialect
Għajnsielem (; meaning "Spring of Sielem") is a municipality on the southeastern coast of the island of Gozo in Malta, including the entire island of Comino. It has a population of 3,200 residents (as of March 2014), and is the first Gozitan village that greets the visitor on leaving Mġarr Harbour towards the Gozitan heartland. Its name originated from the water spring, around which in 1700, Grandmaster Perellos built an arcade containing public wash basins and fresh water spouts. Attractions include Lourdes Chapel with its sharp steeple and underlying niche of Our Lady of Lourdes, Fort Chambray and the towering of Ghajnsielem Parish Church. Village Motto and Coat of Arms The Latin motto of Ghajnsielem is Ob fontem prosperitas, that is Flourishing because of a spring – Nistaghna b’nixxiegha ilma. The springs in the area were the magnet that attracted the first inhabitants that eventually led to the prosperity of the place. Places The following is a list of prominent pla ...
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Żebbuġ Dialect
Żebbuġ ( ), also known by its title Città Rohan, is a city in the Western Region of Malta. It is one of the oldest towns in the country, and its population is 11,074 as of June 2021. History and origins The parish church is dedicated to Philip of Agira and the feast is celebrated on the 2nd Sunday of June, although the actual feast day falls on the 12th day of May. The name of the town literally means "olives" in Maltese; it derives from the large olive groves that stood in and around the current location of the church and the centre of the town. The town was bestowed with the title of ''Città Rohan'' by Emmanuel de Rohan-Polduc, the Grand Master of the Order of St. John on 21 June 1777. As was the custom in such events, the people of Ħaż-Żebbuġ built an archway known as the De Rohan Arch at the entrance to their hometown by way of marking the incipiency of its status as a city. The gateway, also known by the locals as ''il-Bieb il-Ġdid'' (Maltese for "the New Gateway ...
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