Maltese language
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Maltese (, also or ) is a Semitic language derived from late medieval Sicilian Arabic with Romance superstrata. It is the only
Semitic language The Semitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They include Arabic, Amharic, Tigrinya, Aramaic, Hebrew, Maltese, Modern South Arabian languages and numerous other ancient and modern languages. They are spoken by mo ...
predominantly written in the
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 Gree ...
. It is spoken by the
Maltese people The Maltese () people are an ethnic group native to Malta who speak Maltese, a Semitic language with a substantial Romance superstratum, and share a common Maltese history and culture characterised by Roman Catholicism, which remains the ...
and is the national language of
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 ...
, and is the only
official An official is someone who holds an office (function or Mandate (politics), mandate, regardless of whether it carries an actual Office, working space with it) in an organization or government and participates in the exercise of authority (eithe ...
Semitic and Afroasiatic language of the
European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...
. According to John L. Hayes, it descended from a North African dialect of Colloquial Arabic which was introduced to Malta when the
Aghlabids The Aghlabid dynasty () was an Arab dynasty centered in Ifriqiya (roughly present-day Tunisia) from 800 to 909 that conquered parts of Sicily, Southern Italy, and possibly Sardinia, nominally as vassals of the Abbasid Caliphate. The Aghlabids ...
captured it in 869/870 CE. It is also said to have descended from Siculo-Arabic, which developed as a
Maghrebi Arabic Maghrebi Arabic, often known as ''ad-Dārija'' to differentiate it from Literary Arabic, is a vernacular Arabic dialect continuum spoken in the Maghreb. It includes the Moroccan, Algerian, Tunisian, Libyan, Hassaniya and Saharan Arabic di ...
dialect in the
Emirate of Sicily The island of SicilyIn Arabic, the island was known as (). was under Islam, Islamic rule from the late ninth to the late eleventh centuries. It became a prosperous and influential commercial power in the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean, with ...
between 831 and 1091. As a result of the Norman invasion of Malta and the subsequent re-Christianization of the islands, Maltese evolved independently of
Classical Arabic Classical Arabic or Quranic Arabic () is the standardized literary form of Arabic used from the 7th century and throughout the Middle Ages, most notably in Umayyad Caliphate, Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphate, Abbasid literary texts such as poetry, e ...
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 Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) or Modern Written Arabic (MWA) is the variety of Standard language, standardized, Literary language, literary Arabic that developed in the Arab world in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and in some usages al ...
. Maltese is thus classified separately from the 30 varieties constituting the modern Arabic macrolanguage. Maltese is also distinguished from Arabic and other Semitic languages since its morphology has been deeply influenced by
Romance languages The Romance languages, also known as the Latin or Neo-Latin languages, are the languages that are Language family, directly descended from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-E ...
, namely Italian and Sicilian. The original Arabic base comprises around one-third of the Maltese vocabulary, especially words that denote basic ideas and the function words, but about half of the vocabulary is derived from standard Italian and Sicilian; and English words make up between 6% and 20% of the vocabulary. A 2016 study shows that, in terms of basic everyday language, speakers of Maltese are able to understand less than a third of what is said to them in
Tunisian Arabic Tunisian Arabic, or simply Tunisian (), is a Varieties of Arabic, variety of Arabic spoken in Tunisia. It is known among its 13 million speakers as ''Tūnsi'', "Tunisian" or ''Maghrebi Arabic, Derja'' (; meaning "common or everyday dialect") t ...
and Libyan Arabic, which are Maghrebi Arabic dialects related to Siculo-Arabic, whereas speakers of Tunisian Arabic and Libyan Arabic are able to understand about 40% of what is said to them in Maltese. This reported level of asymmetric intelligibility is considerably lower than the
mutual intelligibility In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between different but related language varieties in which speakers of the different varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. Mutual intelli ...
found between mainstream varieties of Arabic. Maltese has always been written in the
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 Gree ...
, the earliest surviving example dating from the
late Middle Ages The late Middle Ages or late medieval period was the Periodization, period of History of Europe, European history lasting from 1300 to 1500 AD. The late Middle Ages followed the High Middle Ages and preceded the onset of the early modern period ( ...
. It is the only standardised Semitic language written exclusively in the Latin script.


History

The origins of the Maltese language are attributed to the arrival, early in the 11th century, of settlers from neighbouring Sicily, where Siculo-Arabic was spoken, reversing the
Fatimid Caliphate The Fatimid Caliphate (; ), also known as the Fatimid Empire, was a caliphate extant from the tenth to the twelfth centuries CE under the rule of the Fatimids, an Isma'ili Shi'a dynasty. Spanning a large area of North Africa and West Asia, i ...
's conquest of the island at the end of the 9th century. This claim has been corroborated by genetic studies, which show that contemporary
Maltese people The Maltese () people are an ethnic group native to Malta who speak Maltese, a Semitic language with a substantial Romance superstratum, and share a common Maltese history and culture characterised by Roman Catholicism, which remains the ...
share common ancestry with Sicilians and Calabrians, with little genetic input from North Africa and the Levant. The Norman conquest in 1091, followed by the expulsion of the Muslims, complete by 1249, permanently isolated the vernacular from its Arabic source, creating the conditions for its evolution into a distinct language. In contrast to Sicily, where Siculo-Arabic became extinct and was replaced by Sicilian, the vernacular in Malta continued to develop alongside Italian, eventually replacing it as official language in 1934, alongside English. The first written reference to the Maltese language is in a will of 1436, where it is called . The oldest known document in Maltese, () by Pietru Caxaro, dates from the 15th century. The earliest known Maltese dictionary was a 16th-century manuscript entitled "Maltese-Italiano"; it was included in the of Mifsud in 1764, but is now lost. A list of Maltese words was included in both the (1603) and (1606) of Hieronymus Megiser, who had visited Malta in 1588–1589; Domenico Magri gave the etymologies of some Maltese words in his (1677). An early manuscript dictionary, , was discovered in the in Rome in the 1980s, together with a grammar, the , attributed to a French knight named Thezan. The first systematic lexicon is that of Giovanni Pietro Francesco Agius de Soldanis, who also wrote the first systematic grammar of the language and proposed a standard
orthography An orthography is a set of convention (norm), conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, punctuation, Word#Word boundaries, word boundaries, capitalization, hyphenation, and Emphasis (typography), emphasis. Most national ...
. The language declined heavily under the British administration of Malta, declining in use compared to English. Following the independence of Malta, language reforms under the Dom Mintoff government saw the language gain an increase in use, and today is used regularly in Malta.


Demographics

''
Ethnologue ''Ethnologue: Languages of the World'' is an annual reference publication in print and online that provides statistics and other information on the living languages of the world. It is the world's most comprehensive catalogue of languages. It w ...
'' reports a total of Maltese speakers: in Malta and in the
diaspora A diaspora ( ) is a population that is scattered across regions which are separate from its geographic place of birth, place of origin. The word is used in reference to people who identify with a specific geographic location, but currently resi ...
. Most speakers also use English, usually the local dialect known as Maltese English. The largest diaspora community of Maltese speakers is in Australia, with 36,000 speakers reported in 2006 (down from 45,000 in 1996, and expected to decline further). The Maltese linguistic community in
Tunisia Tunisia, officially the Republic of Tunisia, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It is bordered by Algeria to the west and southwest, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Tunisia also shares m ...
originated in the 18th century. Numbering several thousand in the 19th century, it was reported to be only 100 to 200 people as of 2017.


Classification

Maltese is descended from Siculo-Arabic, a Semitic language within the
Afroasiatic family The Afroasiatic languages (also known as Afro-Asiatic, Afrasian, Hamito-Semitic, or Semito-Hamitic) are a language family (or "phylum") of about 400 languages spoken predominantly in West Asia, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and parts of the ...
. In the course of its
history History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the Human history, human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some t ...
, Maltese has been influenced by Sicilian, Italian, to a lesser extent by Norman, and, more recently, English. Today, the core vocabulary (including both the most commonly used vocabulary and
function word In linguistics, function words (also called functors) are words that have little lexical meaning or have ambiguous meaning and express grammatical relationships among other words within a sentence, or specify the attitude or mood of the speak ...
s) is Semitic, with a large number of
loanword A loanword (also a loan word, loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language (the recipient or target language), through the process of borrowing. Borrowing is a metaphorical term t ...
s. Due to the Sicilian influence on Siculo-Arabic, Maltese has many language contact features and is most commonly described as a language with a large number of loanwords. Maltese has historically been classified in various ways, with some claiming that it was derived from ancient Punic (another Semitic language) instead of Siculo-Arabic, and others claiming it is one of the
Berber languages The Berber languages, also known as the Amazigh languages or Tamazight, are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They comprise a group of closely related but mostly mutually unintelligible languages spoken by Berbers, Berber communities, ...
(another language family within Afroasiatic). Less plausibly,
Fascist Italy Fascist Italy () is a term which is used in historiography to describe the Kingdom of Italy between 1922 and 1943, when Benito Mussolini and the National Fascist Party controlled the country, transforming it into a totalitarian dictatorship. Th ...
classified it as
regional Italian Regional Italian (, ) is any regional"Regional" in the broad sense of the word; not to be confused with the Italian endonym , for Italy's administrative units. variety of the Italian language. Such vernacular varieties and standard Italian exi ...
.


Dialects

Urban varieties of Maltese are closer to Standard Maltese than rural varieties,Isserlin. Studies in Islamic History and Civilization. BRILL 1986, which have some characteristics that distinguish them from Standard Maltese. They tend to show some archaic features such as the realisation of and and the
imāla (also ; ) is a phenomenon in Arabic comprising the fronting and raising of Old Arabic toward or , and the old short toward . and the factors conditioning its occurrence were described for the first time by Sibawayh. According to as-Sirafi a ...
of Arabic ā into ē (or ī especially in Gozo), considered archaic because they are reminiscent of 15th-century transcriptions of this sound. Another archaic feature is the realisation of Standard Maltese ā as ō in rural dialects. There is also a tendency to diphthongise simple vowels, e.g., ū becomes eo or eu. Rural dialects also tend to employ more Semitic roots and broken plurals than Standard Maltese. In general, rural Maltese is less distant from its Siculo-Arabic ancestor than is Standard Maltese.


Phonology


Consonants

Voiceless stops are only lightly aspirated and voiced stops are fully voiced. Voicing is carried over from the last segment in
obstruent An obstruent ( ) is a speech sound such as , , or that is formed by ''obstructing'' airflow. Obstruents contrast with sonorants, which have no such obstruction and so resonate. All obstruents are consonants, but sonorants include vowels as well ...
clusters; thus, two- and three-obstruent clusters are either voiceless or voiced throughout, e.g. is realised "we write" (similar assimilation phenomena occur in languages like French or Czech). Maltese has
final-obstruent devoicing Final-obstruent devoicing or terminal devoicing is a systematic phonological process occurring in languages such as Catalan, German, Dutch, Quebec French, Breton, Russian, Polish, Lithuanian, Turkish, and Wolof. In such languages, voic ...
of voiced obstruents and word-final voiceless stops have
no audible release A stop consonant with no audible release, also known as an unreleased stop, checked stop or an applosive, is a plosive with no release burst: no audible indication of the end of its occlusion (hold). In the International Phonetic Alphabet, lack of ...
, making voiceless–voiced pairs phonetically indistinguishable in word-final position.
Gemination In phonetics and phonology, gemination (; from Latin 'doubling', itself from '' gemini'' 'twins'), or consonant lengthening, is an articulation of a consonant for a longer period of time than that of a singleton consonant. It is distinct from ...
is distinctive word-medially and word-finally in Maltese. The distinction is most rigid intervocalically after a stressed vowel. Stressed, word-final
closed syllables A syllable is a basic unit of organization within a sequence of speech sounds, such as within a word, typically defined by linguists as a ''nucleus'' (most often a vowel) with optional sounds before or after that nucleus (''margins'', which are ...
with short vowels end in a long consonant, and those with a long vowel in a single consonant; the only exception is where historic and meant the
compensatory lengthening Compensatory lengthening in phonology and historical linguistics is the lengthening of a vowel sound that happens upon the loss of a following consonant, usually in the syllable coda, or of a vowel in an adjacent syllable. Lengthening triggered ...
of the succeeding vowel. Some speakers have lost length distinction in clusters. The two nasals and assimilate for
place of articulation In articulatory phonetics, the place of articulation (also point of articulation) of a consonant is an approximate location along the vocal tract where its production occurs. It is a point where a constriction is made between an active and a pa ...
in clusters. and are usually dental, whereas are all alveolar. are found mostly in words of Italian origin, retaining length (if not word-initial). and are only found in loanwords, e.g. "newspaper" and "television". The pharyngeal fricative is velar (), uvular (), or glottal () for some speakers.


Vowels

Maltese has five short vowels, , written ''a e i o u;'' six long vowels, , written ''a, e, ie, i, o, u,'' all of which (with the exception of ''ie'' ) can be known to represent long vowels in writing only if they are followed by an orthographic ''għ'' or ''h'' (otherwise, one needs to know the pronunciation; e.g. ''nar'' (fire) is pronounced ); and seven
diphthong A diphthong ( ), also known as a gliding vowel or a vowel glide, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of ...
s, , written ''aj'' or ''għi, aw'' or ''għu, ej'' or ''għi, ew, iw, oj,'' and ''ow'' or ''għu.''


Historical phonology

The Maltese consonant system has undergone several changes when compared to Classical Arabic: While many of these changes (chiefly the merger of emphatic consonants with their non-
pharyngealized Pharyngealization is a secondary articulation of consonants or vowels by which the pharynx or epiglottis is constricted during the articulation of the sound. IPA symbols In the International Phonetic Alphabet, pharyngealization can be indicate ...
counterparts) are the result of European influence, others (such as the merger of into ) are found in other
varieties of Arabic Varieties of Arabic (or dialects or vernaculars) are the linguistic systems that Arabic speakers speak natively. Arabic is a Semitic languages, Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic family that originated in the Arabian P ...
, and may be either independent developments or features of the Sicilian Arabic dialect which Maltese descends from.


Orthography


Alphabet

The modern system of Maltese orthography was introduced in 1924. Below is the Maltese alphabet, with IPA symbols and approximate English pronunciation: Final vowels with grave accents (à, è, ì, ò, ù) are also found in some Maltese words of Italian origin, such as , (old Italian: ), or (Italian: ). The official rules governing the structure of the Maltese language are recorded in the official guidebook (English: ''Knowledge on Writing in Maltese'') issued by the (Academy of the Maltese language). The first edition of this book was printed in 1924 by the Maltese government's printing press. The rules were further expanded in the 1984 book, , which focused mainly on the increasing influence of Romance and English words. In 1992 the academy issued the , which updated the previous works. The
National Council for the Maltese Language The National Council for the Maltese Language () was founded in April 2005 with the enactment of the Maltese Language Act (Att dwar l-Ilsien Malti) (Chap. 470) in the Maltese Parliament. Its work is to regulate new words coming into Maltese and pro ...
(KNM) is the main regulator of the Maltese language (see Maltese Language Act, below). However, the academy's orthography rules are still valid and official.


Written Maltese

Since Maltese evolved after the Italo-Normans ended Arab rule of the islands, a written form of the language was not developed for a long time after the Arabs' expulsion in the middle of the thirteenth century. Under the rule of the
Knights Hospitaller The Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem, commonly known as the Knights Hospitaller (), is a Catholic military order. It was founded in the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem in the 12th century and had headquarters there ...
, both French and Italian were used for official documents and correspondence. During the British colonial period, the use of English was encouraged through education, with Italian being regarded as the next-most important language. In the late 18th century and throughout the 19th century, philologists and academics such as Mikiel Anton Vassalli made a concerted effort to standardise written Maltese. Many examples of written Maltese exist from before this period, always in the Latin alphabet, '' Il-Kantilena'' from the 15th century being the earliest example of written Maltese. In 1934, Maltese was recognised as an official language.


Samples

Maltese has both Semitic vocabulary and words derived from
Romance languages The Romance languages, also known as the Latin or Neo-Latin languages, are the languages that are Language family, directly descended from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-E ...
, primarily Italian. Words such as (Arabic origin) and (Italian origin) have the same meaning ("answer") but are both used in Maltese, rather like "answer" and "response" in English. Below are two versions of the same translations, one with vocabulary mostly derived from Semitic root words and the other using Romance
loanword A loanword (also a loan word, loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language (the recipient or target language), through the process of borrowing. Borrowing is a metaphorical term t ...
s (from the
Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe
'', se
p. 17
): Below is the
Lord's Prayer The Lord's Prayer, also known by its incipit Our Father (, ), is a central Christian prayer attributed to Jesus. It contains petitions to God focused on God’s holiness, will, and kingdom, as well as human needs, with variations across manusc ...
in Maltese compared to other Semitic languages (
Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...
and Syriac) with
cognates In historical linguistics, cognates or lexical cognates are sets of words that have been inherited in direct descent from an etymological ancestor in a common parent language. Because language change can have radical effects on both the soun ...
highlighted:


Vocabulary

Although the original vocabulary of Maltese was
Siculo-Arabic Siculo-Arabic or Sicilian Arabic is a group of Arabic variaties that were spoken in the Emirate of Sicily (which included Malta) from the 9th century, persisting under the subsequent County of Sicily, Norman rule until the 13th century. It was d ...
, it has incorporated a large number of borrowings from Romance sources ( Sicilian, Italian, and French) and, more recently, Germanic ones (from English). The historical source of modern Maltese vocabulary is 52% Italian/Sicilian, 32% Arabic/Siculo-Arabic, and 6% English, with some of the remainder being French. Today, most
function word In linguistics, function words (also called functors) are words that have little lexical meaning or have ambiguous meaning and express grammatical relationships among other words within a sentence, or specify the attitude or mood of the speak ...
s are Arabic, so despite only making up about a third of the vocabulary, they are the most used when speaking the language. In this way, Maltese is similar to English, a
Germanic language The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people mainly in Europe, North America, Oceania, and Southern Africa. The most widely spoken Germanic language, ...
that has been strongly influenced by
Norman French Norman or Norman French (, , Guernésiais: , Jèrriais: ) is a '' langue d'oïl'' spoken in the historical and cultural region of Normandy. The name "Norman French" is sometimes also used to describe the administrative languages of '' Angl ...
and Latin (58% of English vocabulary). As a result of this, Romance language-speakers (and to a lesser extent English speakers) can often easily understand more technical ideas expressed in Maltese, such as ('Geographically, Europe is part of the supercontinent of Eurasia'), while not understanding a single word of a basic sentence such as ('The man is in the house'), which would be easily understood by any Arabic speaker.


Arabic

At that time Malta was thoroughly Arabized. The conquerors brought to the island the vulgar (colloquial) variant of Arabic, not the classical one (Classical Arabic); therefore, the Maltese language differs from Classical Arabic in the same way as the Arabic dialects differ from Classical Arabic. The Maltese language also comprises a considerable number of Maghrebi features, but in other ways, it can be closer to other Arabic dialects, or closer to Classical Arabic than to the other dialects as in the word ('to see'). Arabic supplies between 32% and 40% of the language's vocabulary. found that 40% of a sample of 1,821 Quranic Arabic roots were found in Maltese, considerably lower than that found in the Moroccan (58%) and Lebanese (72%) varieties of Arabic. An analysis of the etymology of the 41,000 words in Aquilina's ''Maltese–English Dictionary'' shows that 32% of the Maltese vocabulary is of Arabic origin, although another source claims 40%. Usually, words expressing basic concepts and ideas, such as (man), (woman), (boy), (house), (sun), and (summer), are of Arabic origin. Moreover, in Maltese aim to maximise their use of vocabulary belonging to this group. Notes: * from Arabic () "to investigate", ** from Arabic () "to yearn for ". The following table compares additional cognates in Maltese and some other varieties of Arabic (all forms are written phonetically, as in the source): Siculo-Arabic dialect which was spoken in Sicily and Malta is the
ancestor An ancestor, also known as a forefather, fore-elder, or a forebear, is a parent or ( recursively) the parent of an antecedent (i.e., a grandparent, great-grandparent, great-great-grandparent and so forth). ''Ancestor'' is "any person from ...
of the Maltese language, some Siculo-Arabic words are still used in modern Sicilian (a Romance language spoken in Sicily): The Maltese language has merged many of the original Arabic consonants (in particular the
emphatic consonant In Semitic linguistics, an emphatic consonant is an obstruent consonant which originally contrasted, and often still contrasts, with an analogous voiced or voiceless obstruent by means of a secondary articulation. In specific Semitic languages, ...
s) with others common to European languages. Thus, original
Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...
, , and all merged into Maltese . The vowels, meanwhile, separated from the three in Classical Arabic () into five, as is more typical of many European languages (). Some unstressed short vowels have been elided. The common Arabic greeting is cognate with in Maltese (lit. "the peace for you", peace be with you), as are similar greetings in other Semitic languages (e.g. in
Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...
).


Romance (Sicilian and Italian)

An analysis of the etymology of the 41,000 words in Aquilina's ''Maltese–English Dictionary'' shows that words of Romance origin make up 52% of the Maltese vocabulary, although other sources claim from 40% to 55%. Romance vocabulary tends to deal with more complex concepts. Most words come from Sicilian and thus exhibit Sicilian phonetic characteristics, such as rather than Italian , and rather than Italian (e.g. not and not ). Also, as with Old Sicilian, (English ''sh'') is written ''x'' and this produces spellings such as: ('embassy'), ('scene'; compare Italian , ). A tendency in modern Maltese is to adopt further influences from English and Italian. Complex Latinate English words adopted into Maltese are often given Italian or Sicilian forms, even if the resulting words do not appear in either of those languages. For instance, the words ''evaluation'', ''industrial action'', and ''chemical armaments'' become , , and in Maltese, while the Italian terms are , , and respectively. (The origin of the terms may be narrowed even further to
British English British English is the set of Variety (linguistics), varieties of the English language native to the United Kingdom, especially Great Britain. More narrowly, it can refer specifically to the English language in England, or, more broadly, to ...
; the phrase ''
industrial action Industrial action (British English) or job action (American English) is a temporary show of dissatisfaction by employees—especially a strike or slowdown or working to rule—to protest against bad working conditions or low pay and to increas ...
'' is meaningless in the United States.) This is comparable to the situation with English borrowings into the Italo-Australian dialect. English words of Germanic origin are generally preserved relatively unchanged. Some influences of
African Romance African Romance, African Latin or Afroromance is an extinct Romance languages, Romance language that was spoken in the various provinces of Africa (Roman province), Roman Africa by the African Romans under the later Roman Empire and its various ...
on the Arabic and
Berber Berber or Berbers may refer to: Ethnic group * Berbers, an ethnic group native to Northern Africa * Berber languages, a family of Afro-Asiatic languages Places * Berber, Sudan, a town on the Nile People with the surname * Ady Berber (1913–196 ...
spoken in the
Maghreb The Maghreb (; ), also known as the Arab Maghreb () and Northwest Africa, is the western part of the Arab world. The region comprises western and central North Africa, including Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, and Tunisia. The Maghreb al ...
are theorised; these may then have passed into Maltese. For example, in
calendar A calendar is a system of organizing days. This is done by giving names to periods of time, typically days, weeks, months and years. A calendar date, date is the designation of a single and specific day within such a system. A calendar is ...
month A month is a unit of time, used with calendars, that is approximately as long as a natural phase cycle of the Moon; the words ''month'' and ''Moon'' are cognates. The traditional concept of months arose with the cycle of Moon phases; such lunar mo ...
names, the word 'February' is only found in the Maghreb and in Maltese – proving the word's ancient pedigree. The region also has a form of another Latin month in < . This word does not appear to be a loan word through Arabic, and may have been taken over directly from Late Latin or African Romance. Scholars theorise that a Latin-based system provided forms such as and in African Romance, with the system then mediating Latin/Romance names through Arabic for some month names during the Islamic period. The same situation exists for Maltese which mediated words from Italian, and retains both non-Italian forms such as and , and Italian forms such as .


Berber

Like the Maghrebi Arabic dialects, Maltese has a significant vocabulary derived from
Berber languages The Berber languages, also known as the Amazigh languages or Tamazight, are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They comprise a group of closely related but mostly mutually unintelligible languages spoken by Berbers, Berber communities, ...
. Whether these words entered Maltese by being inherited from
Siculo-Arabic Siculo-Arabic or Sicilian Arabic is a group of Arabic variaties that were spoken in the Emirate of Sicily (which included Malta) from the 9th century, persisting under the subsequent County of Sicily, Norman rule until the 13th century. It was d ...
or were directly loaned from Berber languages is not yet known. These include:


English

English loanwords, which are becoming more commonplace, may constitute up to 20% of Maltese vocabulary, though other sources claim as little as 6%. This percentage discrepancy is due to the fact that a number of new English loanwords are sometimes not considered part of the official Maltese vocabulary, hence they are not included in certain dictionaries. Also, English loanwords of Latinate origin are very often Italianized, as discussed above. English loanwords are generally transliterated, although standard English pronunciation is virtually always retained. Below are a few examples: "Fridge" is a common
shortening Shortening is any fat that is a solid at room temperature and is used to make crumbly pastry and other food products. The idea of shortening dates back to at least the 18th century, well before the invention of modern, shelf-stable vegetable ...
of "refrigerator". "Refrigerator" is a Latinate word which could be imported into Maltese as ''rifriġeratori'', whereas the Italian word is ''frigorifero'' or ''refrigeratore''.


Calendar

The days of the week (Maltese: ''jiem il-ġimgħa'') in Maltese, which are derived from Arabic, are referred to by number which is also typical in other Semitic languages, Days of the week are commonly preceded by the word ''nhar'' meaning 'day'. The months of the year (Maltese: ) in Maltese are mostly derived from Sicilian, though and may be derived from
African Romance African Romance, African Latin or Afroromance is an extinct Romance languages, Romance language that was spoken in the various provinces of Africa (Roman province), Roman Africa by the African Romans under the later Roman Empire and its various ...
via
Siculo-Arabic Siculo-Arabic or Sicilian Arabic is a group of Arabic variaties that were spoken in the Emirate of Sicily (which included Malta) from the 9th century, persisting under the subsequent County of Sicily, Norman rule until the 13th century. It was d ...
.


Time


Question words


Sample phrases


Grammar

Maltese grammar is fundamentally derived from
Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...
, although
Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
and English noun pluralisation patterns are also used on borrowed words.


Adjectives and adverbs

Adjective An adjective (abbreviations, abbreviated ) is a word that describes or defines a noun or noun phrase. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun. Traditionally, adjectives are considered one of the main part of speech, parts of ...
s follow
noun In grammar, a noun is a word that represents a concrete or abstract thing, like living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, and ideas. A noun may serve as an Object (grammar), object or Subject (grammar), subject within a p ...
s. There are no separately formed native
adverb An adverb is a word or an expression that generally modifies a verb, an adjective, another adverb, a determiner, a clause, a preposition, or a sentence. Adverbs typically express manner, place, time, frequency, degree, or level of certainty by ...
s, and word order is fairly flexible. Both nouns and adjectives of Semitic origin take the definite article (for example, , lit. "The boy the elder"="The elder boy"). This rule does not apply to adjectives of Romance origin.


Nouns

Nouns are pluralised and also have a dual marker. Semitic plurals are complex; if they are regular, they are marked by ''-iet''/''-ijiet'', e.g., ''art'', ''artijiet'' "lands (territorial possessions or property)" (cf. Arabic ''-at'' and Hebrew ''-ot''/''-oth'') or ''-in'' (cf. Arabic ''-īn'' and Hebrew ''-im''). If irregular, they fall in the ''pluralis fractus'' ( broken plural) category, in which a word is pluralised by internal vowel changes: ''ktieb'', ''kotba'' " book", "books"; ''raġel'', ''irġiel'' "man", "men". Words of Romance origin are usually pluralised in two manners: addition of ''-i'' or ''-jiet''. For example, ''lingwa'', ''lingwi'' "languages", from Sicilian ''lingua'', ''lingui''. Words of English origin are pluralised by adding either an "-s" or "-jiet", for example, ''friġġ'', ''friġis'' from the word ''fridge''. Some words can be pluralised with either of the suffixes to denote the plural. A few words borrowed from English can amalgamate both suffixes, like ''brikksa'' from the English ''brick'', which can adopt either collective form ''brikks'' or the plural form ''brikksiet''.


Derivation

As in
Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...
, nouns are often derived by changing, adding or removing the vowels within a
triliteral root The roots of verbs and most nouns in the Semitic languages are characterized as a sequence of consonants or " radicals" (hence the term consonantal root). Such abstract consonantal roots are used in the formation of actual words by adding the vowel ...
. These are some of the patterns used for nouns: * CaCiC – ''xadin'' (monkey), ''sadid'' (rust) * CCiC – ''żbib'' (raisin) * CaCCa – ''baqra'' (cow), ''basla'' (onion) * CeCCa – ''werqa'' (leaf), ''xewqa'' (wish) * CoCCa – ''borka'' (wild duck), ''forka'' (gallows) * CaCC – ''qalb'' (heart), ''sajd'' (fishing) * CeCC – ''kelb'' (dog), ''xemx'' (sun) * CCuCija – ''tfulija'' (childhood), ''xbubija'' (maidenhood) * CCuCa – ''rtuba'' (softness), ''bjuda'' (whiteness) * CaCCaC – ''tallab'' (beggar), ''bajjad'' (whitewasher) The so-called mimated nouns use the
prefix A prefix is an affix which is placed before the stem of a word. Particularly in the study of languages, a prefix is also called a preformative, because it alters the form of the word to which it is affixed. Prefixes, like other affixes, can b ...
''m-'' in addition to
vowel A vowel is a speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract, forming the nucleus of a syllable. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness a ...
changes. This pattern can be used to indicate
place Place may refer to: Geography * Place (United States Census Bureau), defined as any concentration of population ** Census-designated place, a populated area lacking its own municipal government * "Place", a type of street or road name ** Of ...
name A name is a term used for identification by an external observer. They can identify a class or category of things, or a single thing, either uniquely, or within a given context. The entity identified by a name is called its referent. A person ...
s,
tool A tool is an Physical object, object that can extend an individual's ability to modify features of the surrounding environment or help them accomplish a particular task. Although many Tool use by animals, animals use simple tools, only human bei ...
s,
abstraction Abstraction is a process where general rules and concepts are derived from the use and classifying of specific examples, literal (reality, real or Abstract and concrete, concrete) signifiers, first principles, or other methods. "An abstraction" ...
s, etc. These are some of the patterns used for mimated nouns: * ma-CCeC – ''marden'' (spindle) * mi-CCeC – ''minkeb'' (elbow), ''miżwed'' (pod) * mu-CCaC – ''musmar'' (nail), ''munqar'' (beak)


Article

The proclitic ''il-'' is the
definite article In grammar, an article is any member of a class of dedicated words that are used with noun phrases to mark the identifiability of the referents of the noun phrases. The category of articles constitutes a part of speech. In English, both "the" ...
, equivalent to "the" in English and "al-" in Arabic. The Maltese article becomes ''l-'' before or after a vowel. * ''l-omm'' (the mother) * ''rajna l-Papa'' (we saw the Pope) * ''il-missier'' (the father) The Maltese article assimilates to a following non-ġ
coronal consonant Coronals are consonants articulated with the flexible front part of the tongue. Among places of articulation, only the coronal consonants can be divided into as many articulation types: apical (using the tip of the tongue), laminal (using the ...
(called ''konsonanti xemxin'' " sun consonants"), namely: * Ċ ''iċ-ċikkulata'' (the chocolate) * D ''id-dar'' (the house) * N ''in-nar'' (the fire) * R ''ir-razzett'' (the farm) * S ''is-serrieq'' (the saw) * T ''it-tifel'' (the child) * X ''ix-xemx'' (the sun) * Ż ''iż-żarbuna'' (the shoe) * Z ''iz-zalzett'' (the sausage)


Verbs

Verbs show the Semitic
triliteral The roots of verbs and most nouns in the Semitic languages are characterized as a sequence of consonants or " radicals" (hence the term consonantal root). Such abstract consonantal roots are used in the formation of actual words by adding the vowel ...
pattern, in which a verb is conjugated with
prefixes A prefix is an affix which is placed before the stem of a word. Particularly in the study of languages, a prefix is also called a preformative, because it alters the form of the word to which it is affixed. Prefixes, like other affixes, can b ...
,
suffix In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns and adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can ca ...
es, and
infix An infix is an affix inserted inside a word stem (an existing word or the core of a family of words). It contrasts with '' adfix,'' a rare term for an affix attached to the outside of a stem, such as a prefix or suffix. When marking text for ...
es (for example ''ktibna'', Arabic ''katabna'', Hebrew ''kathabhnu'' (Modern Hebrew: katavnu) "we wrote"). An example is the Semitic root X-M-X ('sun'), for example ''xemx'' (sun), ''xmux'' (suns), ''xemxi'' (sunny), ''xemxata'' (sunstroke), ''nixxemmex'' (I sunbathe), ''ma xxemmixtx'' (I didn't sunbathe), ''tixmix'' (the act of sunbathing). Maltese also features the
agglutination In linguistics, agglutination is a morphology (linguistics), morphological process in which words are formed by stringing together morphemes (word parts), each of which corresponds to a single Syntax, syntactic feature. Languages that use agglu ...
of verb suffixes indicating direction of action, for example ''agħmilhomli'' "make them for me"← ''agħmel'' "make" in the imperative + ''hom'' from ''huma'' "them" + ''li'' suffix indicating first person singular and ''ħasletielu'' "she washed it for him"←''ħaslet'' "she washed" from the verb ''ħasel'' "to wash" + ''ie'' the object + ''lu'' suffix indicating third person masculine singular. The two tenses are present and perfect. The Maltese verb system incorporates Romance verbs and adds Maltese suffixes and prefixes to them, for example; ''iddeċidejna'' "we decided" ← ''(i)ddeċieda'' "decide", a Romance verb + ''-ejna'', a Maltese first person plural perfect marker.


Media

As Malta is a multilingual country, the use of Maltese in the mass media is shared with other European languages, namely English and Italian. The majority of television stations broadcast from Malta in English or Maltese, although broadcasts from
Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...
in Italian are also received on the islands. Similarly, there are more Maltese-language radio programs than English ones broadcast from Malta, but again, Italian broadcasts are also picked up. Coverage in newspaper periodicals is generally equally split between Maltese and English. Maltese is little used on the internet and few websites are written in the language. In a survey of Maltese cultural websites conducted in 2004 on behalf of the Maltese government, 12 of 13 were in English only and the remaining one was multilingual but did not include Maltese. In 2011, only 6.5 per cent of Maltese internet users reported employing Maltese online, which may be a consequence of the lack of online support for the language.


Code-switching

The Maltese population, being fluent in both Maltese and English, displays
code-switching In linguistics, code-switching or language alternation occurs when a speaker alternates between two or more languages, or language varieties, in the context of a single conversation or situation. These alternations are generally intended to ...
(referred to as Maltenglish) in certain localities and between certain social groups.


See also

* Languages of Malta *
Maltese people The Maltese () people are an ethnic group native to Malta who speak Maltese, a Semitic language with a substantial Romance superstratum, and share a common Maltese history and culture characterised by Roman Catholicism, which remains the ...


Footnotes


Notes


References

* * * * * * Bugeja, Kaptan Pawlu, ''Kelmet il-Malti'' (Maltese—English, English—Maltese Dictionary). Associated News Group, Floriana. 1999. * * * * * * *


Further reading

* (it) Giovan Pietro Francesco Agius de Soldanis,
Della lingua punica presentemente usata da maltesi
'', per Generoso Salomoni alla Piazza di S. Ignazio. Si vendono in Malta, 1750 * (it) Antonio Emanuele Caruana,
Sull'origine della Lingua Maltese
'', Malta, Tipografia C. Busuttil, 1896 * (it) Giovanni Battista Falzon,
Dizionario Maltese-Italiano-Inglese
'', G. Muscat
1845 (1 ed.)
, 1882 (2 ed.) * (it) Giuseppe Nicola Letard,
Nuova guida alla conversazione italiana, inglese e maltese ad uso delle scuole
'', Malta, 1866–75 * (it) Fortunato Panzavecchia,
Grammatica della Lingua Maltese
', M. Weiss, Malta, 1845 * (it) Michele Antonio Vassalli,
Grammatica della lingua Maltese
', 2 ed., Malta, 1827 * (it) Michele Antonio Vassalli,
Lexicon Melitense-Latino-Italum
'', Roma, Fulgonius, 1796 * (it) Francesco Vella,
Osservazioni sull'alfabeto maltese
'', 1840 * (it) Francesca Morando, ''Il-lingwa Maltija. Origine, storia, comparazione linguistica e aspetti morfologici'', Prefazione di Joseph M. Brincat, Palermo, Edizioni La Zisa, 2017, ISBN 978-88-9911-339-1 * (en) S. Mamo,
English-Maltese Dictionary
'', Malta, A. Aquilina, 1885 * (en)
A Short Grammar of the Maltese Language
'', Malta, 1845 * (en) C. F. Schlienz,
Views on the Improvement of the Maltese Language
'', Malta, 1838 * (en) Francesco Vella,
Maltese Grammar for the Use of the English
'', Glaucus Masi, Leghorn, 1831 * (en) Francesco Vella,
Dizionario portatile delle lingue Maltese Italiana, Inglese. pt. 1
'', Livorno, 1843 * (en) Joseph Aquilina, ''Teach Yourself Maltese'', English University Press, 1965 * (en) Geoffrey Hull, ''The Malta Language Question: A Case Study in Cultural Imperialism'', Said International, Valletta, 1993 * (mt) Vicenzo Busuttil,
Diziunariu mill Inglis ghall Malti
', 2 parts, N. C. Cortis & Sons, Malta, 1900


External links

*
Maltese languages and literatures
collection of L-Università ta' Malta {{Authority control Maghrebi Arabic Languages of Malta Languages of Sicily Subject–object–verb languages Articles containing video clips Articles containing Arabic-language text Articles containing Syriac-language text