Maltese Literature
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Maltese Literature
Maltese literature is any literature originating from Malta or by Maltese writers or literature written in the Maltese language. This article will give an overview of the history of Maltese-language literature. History Written Maltese As Maltese evolved after Count Roger I of Sicily ended Arab rule on the island at the end of the 11th century, there was little interest in developing a written form of the language. Initially only the clergy, aristocracy and bourgeoisie were able to read and write and much of their communication was conducted in Latin. Throughout the centuries use of the 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 offic ... was often discouraged with varying enthusiasm, ostensibly in the hope that supplanting it would strengthen ties with the count ...
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Malta
Malta ( , , ), officially the Republic of Malta ( mt, Repubblika ta' Malta ), is an island country in the Mediterranean Sea. It consists of an archipelago, between Italy and Libya, and is often considered a part of Southern Europe. It lies south of Sicily (Italy), east of Tunisia, and north of Libya. The official languages are Maltese and English, and 66% of the current Maltese population is at least conversational in the Italian language. Malta has been inhabited since approximately 5900 BC. Its location in the centre of the Mediterranean has historically given it great strategic importance as a naval base, with a succession of powers having contested and ruled the islands, including the Phoenicians and Carthaginians, Romans, Greeks, Arabs, Normans, Aragonese, Knights of St. John, French, and British, amongst others. With a population of about 516,000 over an area of , Malta is the world's tenth-smallest country in area and fourth most densely populated sovereign cou ...
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Greek Language
Greek ( el, label=Modern Greek, Ελληνικά, Elliniká, ; grc, Ἑλληνική, Hellēnikḗ) is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, native to Greece, Cyprus, southern Italy (Calabria and Salento), southern Albania, and other regions of the Balkans, the Black Sea coast, Asia Minor, and the Eastern Mediterranean. It has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning at least 3,400 years of written records. Its writing system is the Greek alphabet, which has been used for approximately 2,800 years; previously, Greek was recorded in writing systems such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary. The alphabet arose from the Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of the Latin, Cyrillic, Armenian, Coptic, Gothic, and many other writing systems. The Greek language holds a very important place in the history of the Western world. Beginning with the epics of Homer, ancient Greek literature includes many works of lasting impo ...
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Burlesque
A burlesque is a literary, dramatic or musical work intended to cause laughter by caricaturing the manner or spirit of serious works, or by ludicrous treatment of their subjects."Burlesque"
''Oxford English Dictionary'', Oxford University Press, accessed 16 February 2011
The word derives from the Italian ', which, in turn, is derived from the Italian ' – a joke, ridicule or mockery. Burlesque overlaps in meaning with caricature, parody and travesty, and, in its theatrical sense, with extravaganza, as presented during the Victorian burlesque, Victorian era. "Burlesque" has been used in English in this literary and theatrical sense since the late 17th century. It has been applied retrospectively to works of Geoffrey Chaucer, Chaucer and William Shakespeare, Shakespeare and to the Graeco-Roman classics.Baldick, Chris

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Maltese Carnival
Carnival (Maltese: ''il-Karnival ta' Malta'') has had an important place on the Maltese cultural calendar for just under five centuries, having been celebrated since at least the mid-15th century. Carnival has been a prominent celebration in the Islands since the rule of Grand Master Piero de Ponte in 1535. The carnival is held during the week leading up to Ash Wednesday, and typically includes masked balls, fancy dress and grotesque mask competitions, lavish late-night parties, a colourful, ticker-tape parade of allegorical floats presided over by King Carnival (Maltese: ''ir-Re tal-Karnival''), marching bands and costumed revellers. History Maltese carnival has been celebrated since the 1400s. The general awakening for carnival tradition has been since 1535, five years after the arrival of the Order of St John, during the reign of Piero de Ponte. It started taking place officially in Birgu. where a number of knights played games and displayed their skills in various pageants ...
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Catechism
A catechism (; from grc, κατηχέω, "to teach orally") is a summary or exposition of doctrine and serves as a learning introduction to the Sacraments traditionally used in catechesis, or Christian religious teaching of children and adult converts. Catechisms are doctrinal manuals – often in the form of questions followed by answers to be memorised – a format #Secular catechisms, that has been used in non-religious or secular contexts as well. According to Norman DeWitt, the early Christians appropriated this practice from the Epicureans, a school whose founder Epicurus had instructed to keep summaries of the teachings for easy learning. The term ''catechumen'' refers to the designated recipient of the catechetical work or instruction. In the Catholic Church, catechumens are those who are preparing to receive the Sacraments of the Catholic Church, Sacrament of Baptism. Traditionally, they would be placed separately during Holy Mass from those who had been baptized, and wo ...
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Conspiracy Of The Slaves
The Conspiracy of the Slaves ( mt, il-konġura tal-ilsiera or ) was a failed plot by Muslim slaves in Hospitaller-ruled Malta to rebel, assassinate Grand Master Manuel Pinto da Fonseca and take over the island. The revolt was to have taken place on 29 June 1749, but plans were leaked to the order before it began; the plotters were arrested and most were later executed. Background In the mid-18th century, Hospitaller-ruled Malta enslaved around 9,000 Muslims. They were given freedom of religion, being allowed to gather for prayers. Although laws prevented them from interacting with the Maltese people, these were not regularly enforced. Some slaves also worked as merchants and at times were allowed to sell their wares in the streets and squares of Valletta. In February 1748, Hungarian, Georgian and Maltese slaves on board the Ottoman ship ''Lupa'' revolted, taking over 150 Ottomans prisoner, including Mustafa, the Pasha (i.e. 'lord' or 'governor') of Rhodes. They sailed the ca ...
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Punic
The Punic people, or western Phoenicians, were a Semitic people in the Western Mediterranean who migrated from Tyre, Phoenicia to North Africa during the Early Iron Age. In modern scholarship, the term ''Punic'' – the Latin equivalent of the Greek-derived term ''Phoenician'' – is exclusively used to refer to Phoenicians in the western Mediterranean, following the line of the Greek East and Latin West. The largest Punic settlement was Ancient Carthage (essentially modern Tunis), but there were 300 other settlements along the North African coast from Leptis Magna in modern Libya to Mogador in southern Morocco, as well as western Sicily, southern Sardinia, the southern and western coasts of the Iberian Peninsula, Malta, and Ibiza. Their language, Punic, was a dialect of Phoenician, one of the Northwest Semitic languages originating in the Levant. Literary sources report two moments of Tyrian settlements in the west, the first in the 12th century BCE (the cities Utica, Lix ...
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Lord's Prayer
The Lord's Prayer, also called the Our Father or Pater Noster, is a central Christian prayer which Jesus taught as the way to pray. Two versions of this prayer are recorded in the gospels: a longer form within the Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew, and a shorter form in the Gospel of Luke when "one of his disciples said to him, 'Lord, teach us to pray, as John the Baptist, John taught his disciples. Regarding the presence of the two versions, some have suggested that both were original, the Matthean version spoken by Jesus early in his ministry in Galilee, and the Lucan version one year later, "very likely in Judea". The first three of the seven petitions in Matthew address God; the other four are related to human needs and concerns. Matthew's account alone includes the "Your will be done" and the "Rescue us from the evil one" (or "Deliver us from evil") petitions. Both original Greek language, Greek texts contain the adjective ''epiousios'', which does not appear in a ...
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Nicolas Cotoner
Nicolas or Nicolás may refer to: People Given name * Nicolas (given name) Mononym * Nicolas (footballer, born 1999), Brazilian footballer * Nicolas (footballer, born 2000), Brazilian footballer Surname Nicolas * Dafydd Nicolas (c.1705–1774), Welsh poet * Jean Nicolas (1913–1978), French international football player * Nicholas Harris Nicolas (1799–1848), English antiquary * Paul Nicolas (1899–1959), French international football player * Robert Nicolas (1595–1667), English politician Nicolás * Adolfo Nicolás (1936–2020), Superior General of the Society of Jesus * Eduardo Nicolás (born 1972), Spanish former professional tennis player Other uses * Nicolas (wine retailer), a French chain of wine retailers * ''Le Petit Nicolas'', a series of children's books by René Goscinny See also * San Nicolás (other) * Nicholas (other) * Nicola (other) * Nikola Nikola () is a given name which, like Nicholas, is a version of the Greek ''Nikolaos ...
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Il-Kantilena
''Il-Kantilena'' is the oldest known literary text in the Maltese language. It dates from the 15th century (no later than 1485, the death of its author, and probably from the 1470s), but was not found until 1966 by historians Godfrey Wettinger and Mikiel Fsadni. The poem is attributed to Pietru Caxaro, and was recorded by Caxaro's nephew, Brandano, in his notarial register (Dec. 1533 – May 1563). It is preserved at the Notarial Archives in Valletta. Although written in Maltese, in Latin script, it was a very early form that had not yet been influenced much by Romance languages, and is thus an example of Old Maltese. This text contains many Arabic morphemes. The only Romance words are ''vintura'' 'luck', sometimes translated into English as 'fate', and ''et'' 'and'. In general, early Maltese texts contain very little non- Semitic vocabulary; even in later texts, poetry tends to use more Semitic vocabulary than general language use does, therefore while certainly of historical ...
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Pietru Caxaro
Pietru "Peter" Caxaro (c. 14001485) was a Maltese philosopher and poet. He is so far Malta's first known philosopher, fragments of whose works are extant. His philosophical views and positions qualify him as an honourable adherent of the mediaeval humanist movement. His contribution skilfully stands as a mature reflection of the social and cultural revival of his time. Caxaro's cultural preparation and his humanistic character, together with his philosophy, entirely reflect the peculiar force, functions and needs of a Mediterranean people whose golden age had still to come, but whose mental constitution and mode of expression were readily set. The discovery of the man and his philosophy is immeasurably relevant to further recognition of the wise tenure of an ancient civilization. No portrait of Caxaro has been found. Family Peter Caxaro was born of a noble Mdina family in Malta. The date of his birth is unknown, and it is doubtful that it had ever been recorded at all ...
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Oliver Friggieri
Oliver Friggieri (27 March 194721 November 2020) was a Maltese poet, novelist, literary critic, and philosopher. He led the establishment of literary history and criticism in Maltese while teaching at the University of Malta, studying the works of Dun Karm, Rużar Briffa, and others. A prolific writer himself, Friggieri explored new genres to advocate the Maltese language, writing the libretti for the first oratorio and the first cantata in Maltese. His work aimed to promote the Maltese cultural identity, while not shying from criticism: one of his most famous novels, ''Fil-Parlament Ma Jikbrux Fjuri'' (No Flowers Grow in Parliament, 1986), attacked the tribalistic divisions of society caused by politics. From philosophy, he was mostly interested in epistemology and existentialism.Mark Montebello, ''Il-Ktieb tal-Filosofija f’Malta'' (''A Source Book of Philosophy in Malta''), PIN Publications, Malta, 2001. Early life and education Friggieri was born in Floriana in 1947. ...
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