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Qormi Dialect
One of the dialects of the Maltese language is the Qormi dialect. In Standard Maltese it is known as and by its speakers , and is affectionately known as , or in standard Maltese . Literally translated, is the Maltese word for 'you know'. This dialect is used by many of the inhabitants of Qormi and other settlements around that city of around 20,000 people. The most distinctive feature of the Qormi dialect is its treatment of vowel A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (leng ...s. Although there is no strict rule, generally the vowels in the dialect take the following forms. Vowels in the first syllables are the ones most often affected, but sometimes medial vowels are changed as well. Final vowels, on the other hand, are usually identical to those of the standard language. T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Qormi
Qormi ( mt, Ħal Qormi ; pronounced in the Qormi dialect), also known by its title Città Pinto, is a city in the Southern Region of Malta, southwest of Valletta in the centre of the island. It has a population of 16,324 (as of March 2018), making it Malta's fifth-largest city. Its bordering towns are Marsa, Luqa, Żebbuġ, Siġġiewi, Ħamrun, Birkirkara, Attard, Santa Venera and Balzan. Qormi has two parishes, one dedicated to Saint George and one to Saint Sebastian. It contains two valleys: Wied ''il-Kbir'' (The Large Valley) and ''Wied is-Sewda'' (Black Valley). Elder inhabitants of Qormi speak a broad Qormi Dialect, which is now in decline. Etymology The name Qormi is most likely derived from the surname ''Curmi'', which is documented in Sicily as of 1095. Several other places in Malta derive their names from surnames, including Balzan, Attard and Ghaxaq. When Qormi is mentioned for the first time in the year 1419, only two of twenty people with the surname Curmi liv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Semitic Languages
The Semitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They are spoken by more than 330 million people across much of West Asia, the Horn of Africa, and latterly North Africa, Malta, West Africa, Chad, and in large immigrant and expatriate communities in North America, Europe, and Australasia. The terminology was first used in the 1780s by members of the Göttingen school of history, who derived the name from Shem, one of the three sons of Noah in the Book of Genesis. Semitic languages occur in written form from a very early historical date in West Asia, with East Semitic Akkadian and Eblaite texts (written in a script adapted from Sumerian cuneiform) appearing from the 30th century BCE and the 25th century BCE in Mesopotamia and the north eastern Levant respectively. The only earlier attested languages are Sumerian and Elamite (2800 BCE to 550 BCE), both language isolates, and Egyptian (a sister branch of the Afroasiatic family, related to the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
West Semitic Languages
The West Semitic languages are a proposed major sub-grouping of ancient Semitic languages. The term was first coined in 1883 by Fritz Hommel.The Semitic Languages: An International Handbook, Chapter V page 425 The grouping, supported by Semiticists like and , divides the Semitic language family into two branches: Eastern and Western. The West Semitic languages cons ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Central Semitic Languages
Central Semitic languages are one of the three groups of West Semitic languages, alongside Modern South Arabian languages and Ethiopian Semitic languages. Central Semitic can itself be further divided into two groups: Arabic and Northwest Semitic. Northwest Semitic languages largely fall into either Aramaic or Canaanite languages (such as Phoenician and Hebrew). Overview Distinctive features of Central Semitic languages include the following: * An innovative negation marker *bal, of uncertain origin. * The generalization of ''t'' as the suffix conjugation past tense marker, levelling an earlier alternation between *k in the first person and *t in the second person. * A new prefix conjugation for the non-past tense, of the form ''ya-qtulu'', replacing the inherited ''ya-qattal'' form (they are schematic verbal forms, as if derived from an example triconsonantal root ''q-t-l''). * Pharyngealization of the emphatic consonants, which were previously articulated as ejective. Differ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arabic Languages
The varieties (or dialects or vernacular languages) of Arabic, a Semitic language within the Afroasiatic family originating in the Arabian Peninsula, are the linguistic systems that Arabic speakers speak natively. There are considerable variations from region to region, with degrees of mutual intelligibility that are often related to geographical distance and some that are mutually unintelligible. Many aspects of the variability attested to in these modern variants can be found in the ancient Arabic dialects in the peninsula. Likewise, many of the features that characterize (or distinguish) the various modern variants can be attributed to the original settler dialects. Some organizations, such as SIL International, consider these approximately 30 different varieties to be different languages, while others, such as the Library of Congress, consider them all to be dialects of Arabic. In terms of sociolinguistics, a major distinction exists between the formal standardized language ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maghrebi Arabic
Maghrebi Arabic (, Western Arabic; as opposed to Eastern or Mashriqi Arabic) is a vernacular Arabic dialect continuum spoken in the Maghreb region, in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Western Sahara, and Mauritania. It includes Moroccan, Algerian, Tunisian, Libyan, and Hassaniya Arabic. It is known locally as Darja, Derdja, Derja, Derija or Darija, depending on the region's dialect ( ar, الدارجة; meaning "common or everyday dialect"). This serves to differentiate the spoken vernacular from Standard Arabic. Maghrebi Arabic has a predominantly Semitic and Arabic vocabulary, although it contains a few Berber loanwords which represent 2 to 3% of the vocabulary of Libyan Arabic, 8 to 9% of Algerian and Tunisian Arabic, and 10 to 15% of Moroccan Arabic. The Maltese language is believed to be derived from Siculo-Arabic and ultimately from Tunisian Arabic, as it contains some typical Maghrebi Arabic areal characteristics. Name ''Darija'', ''Derija'' or ''Delja'' ( ar, ال ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Siculo-Arabic
Siculo-Arabic ( ar, الْلهجَة الْعَرَبِيَة الْصَقلِيَة), also known as Sicilian Arabic, is the term used for varieties of Arabic that were spoken in the Emirate of Sicily (which included Malta) from the 9th century, persisting under the subsequent Norman rule until the 13th century. It was derived from early Maghrebi Arabic following the Abbasid conquest of Sicily in the 9th century and gradually marginalized following the Norman conquest in the 11th century. Siculo-Arabic is extinct and is designated as a historical language that is attested only in writings from the 9th–13th centuries in Sicily. However, present-day Maltese is considered to be its sole surviving descendant, it being in foundation a Semitic language that evolved from one of the dialects of Siculo-Arabic over the past 800 years, though in a gradual process of Latinisation that gave Maltese a significant Romance superstrate influence. By contrast, present-day Sicilian, which i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maltese Language
Maltese ( mt, Malti, links=no, also ''L-Ilsien Malti'' or ''''), is a Semitic language derived from late medieval Sicilian Arabic with Romance superstrata spoken by the Maltese people. It is the national language of Malta and the only official Semitic and Afro-Asiatic language of the European Union. Maltese is a latinised variety of spoken historical Arabic through its descent from Siculo-Arabic, which developed as a Maghrebi Arabic dialect in the Emirate of Sicily between 831 and 1091. As a result of the Norman invasion of Malta and the subsequent re-Christianisation of the islands, Maltese evolved independently of Classical Arabic in a gradual process of latinisation. It is therefore exceptional as a variety of historical Arabic that has no diglossic relationship with Classical or Modern Standard Arabic. Maltese is thus classified separately from the 30 varieties constituting the modern Arabic macrolanguage. Maltese is also distinguished from Arabic and other Semitic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maltese Alphabet
The Maltese alphabet is based on the Latin alphabet with the addition of some letters with diacritic marks and digraphs. It is used to write the Maltese language, which evolved from the otherwise extinct Siculo-Arabic dialect, as a result of 800 years independent development. It contains 30 letters: 24 consonants and 6 vowels (a, e, i, o, u, ie). There are two types of Maltese consonants: * Konsonanti xemxin ( sun consonants): ċ d n r s t x ż z * Konsonanti qamrin ( moon consonants): b f ġ g għ h ħ j k l m p q v w Samples In the alphabetic sequence ''c'' is identical either to ''k'' (in front of ''a'', ''o'', ''u'' or consonant or as the last letter of the word) or to ''z'' (in front of ''e'' or ''i''). The letter ''y'' is identical to 'i'. 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 Ital ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dialect
The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of Linguistics, linguistic phenomena: One usage refers to a variety (linguistics), variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. Under this definition, the dialects or varieties of a particular language are closely related and, despite their differences, are most often largely Mutual intelligibility, mutually intelligible, especially if close to one another on the dialect continuum. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors, such as social class or ethnicity. A dialect that is associated with a particular social class can be termed a sociolect, a dialect that is associated with a particular ethnic group can be termed an ethnolect, and a geographical/regional dialect may be termed a regiolectWolfram, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vowel
A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (length). They are usually voiced and are closely involved in prosodic variation such as tone, intonation and stress. The word ''vowel'' comes from the Latin word , meaning "vocal" (i.e. relating to the voice). In English, the word ''vowel'' is commonly used to refer both to vowel sounds and to the written symbols that represent them (a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes y). Definition There are two complementary definitions of vowel, one phonetic and the other phonological. *In the phonetic definition, a vowel is a sound, such as the English "ah" or "oh" , produced with an open vocal tract; it is median (the air escapes along the middle of the tongue), oral (at least some of the airflow must escape through the mouth), frictionless and continuant ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dialects Of Maltese
The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of linguistic phenomena: One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. Under this definition, the dialects or varieties of a particular language are closely related and, despite their differences, are most often largely mutually intelligible, especially if close to one another on the dialect continuum. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors, such as social class or ethnicity. A dialect that is associated with a particular social class can be termed a sociolect, a dialect that is associated with a particular ethnic group can be termed an ethnolect, and a geographical/regional dialect may be termed a regiolectWolfram, Walt and Schilling, Natalie. 2016. ''American English: Di ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
