Maltese language

Maltese(Maltese:Malti, alsoL-Ilsien MaltiorLingwa Maltija) is aSemiticlanguage derived fromlate medieval Sicilian ArabicwithRomancesuperstrata. The  onlyofficialSemitic andAfroasiaticlanguage of theEuropean Unionand the only Semitic language to use theLatin alphabet, it is spoken by theMaltese peopleand is the national language ofMalta,According to John L. Hayes, it descended from aNorth African dialectof Colloquial Arabic which was introduced to Malta when Arab and Berber (Aghlabids) invaders captured it in 869/870 CE.It is also said to have descended from Siculo-Arabic, which developed as aMaghrebi Arabicdialect in theEmirate of Sicilybetween 831 and 1091.As a result of theNorman invasion of Maltaand the subsequentre-Christianization of the islands, Maltese evolved independently ofClassical Arabicin a gradual process of latinisation.It is therefore exceptional as a variety of historical Arabic that has nodiglossicrelationship with Classical orModern Standard Arabic.Maltese is thusclassifiedseparately from the 30 varieties constituting the modern Arabic macrolanguage. Maltese is also distinguished from Arabic and other Semitic languages since itsmorphologyhas been deeply influenced byRomance languages, namelyItalianandSicilian.
The original Arabic base comprises around one-third of the Maltese vocabulary, especially words that denote basic ideas and thefunction 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 inTunisian ArabicandLibyan 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 ofasymmetric intelligibilityis considerably lower than themutual intelligibilityfound between mainstream varieties of Arabic.
Maltese has always been written in theLatin script, the earliest surviving example dating from thelate Middle Ages.It is the only standardised Semitic language written exclusively in the Latin script.
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 theFatimid Caliphate's conquest of the island at the end of the 9th century.This claim has been corroborated by genetic studies, which show that contemporaryMaltese peopleshare common ancestry with Sicilians andCalabrians, with little genetic input from North Africa and the Levant.
TheNorman conquest in 1091, followed by theexpulsion 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 bySicilian, 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 calledlingua maltensi. The oldest known document in Maltese,Il-Kantilena(Xidew il-Qada) byPietru Caxaro, dates from the 15th century.
The earliest known Maltese dictionary was a 16th-century manuscript entitled "Maltese-Italiano"; it was included in theBiblioteca Malteseof Mifsud in 1764, but is now lost.A list of Maltese words was included in both theThesaurus Polyglottus(1603) andPropugnaculum Europae(1606) ofHieronymus Megiser, who had visited Malta in 1588–1589;Domenico Magrigave the etymologies of some Maltese words in hisHierolexicon, sive sacrum dictionarium(1677).
An early manuscript dictionary,Dizionario Italiano e Maltese, was discovered in theBiblioteca Vallicellianain Rome in the 1980s, together with a grammar, theRegole per la Lingua Maltese, attributed to a French knight named Thezan.The first systematic lexicon is that ofGiovanni Pietro Francesco Agius de Soldanis, who also wrote the first systematic grammar of the language and proposed a standardorthography.
Ethnologuereports a total of 530,000 Maltese speakers: 450,000 in Malta and 79,000 in thediaspora. Most speakers also use English,usually the local dialect known asMaltese English.
The largest diaspora community of Maltese speakers isin Australia, with 36,000 speakers reported in 2006 (down from 45,000 in 1996, and expected to decline further).
The Maltese linguistic community inTunisiaoriginated in the 18th century. Numbering several thousand in the 19th century, it was reported to be only 100 to 200 people as of 2017.
Maltese is descended from Siculo-Arabic, a Semitic language within theAfroasiatic family.In the course of itshistory, Maltese has been influenced by Sicilian, Italian, to a lesser extent byNorman, and, more recently, English. Today, the core vocabulary (including both the most commonly used vocabulary andfunction words) is Semitic, with a large number ofloanwords.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 ancientPunic(another Semitic language) instead of Siculo-Arabic,and others claiming it is one of theBerber languages(another language family within Afroasiatic).Less plausibly,Fascist Italyclassified it asregional Italian.
Urban varieties of Maltese are closer to Standard Maltese than rural varieties,which have some characteristics that distinguish them from Standard Maltese.
They tend to show some archaic featuressuch as the realisation of⟨kh⟩and⟨gh⟩and theimālaof 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 andbroken pluralsthan Standard Maltese.In general, rural Maltese is less distant from its Siculo-Arabic ancestor than is Standard Maltese.
Voiceless stops are only lightly aspirated and voiced stops are fully voiced. Voicing is carried over from the last segment inobstruentclusters; thus, two- and three-obstruent clusters are either voiceless or voiced throughout, e.g./niktbu/is realised[ˈniɡdbu]"we write" (similar assimilation phenomena occur in languages like French or Czech). Maltese hasfinal-obstruent devoicingof voiced obstruents and word-final voiceless stops haveno audible release, making voiceless–voiced pairs phonetically indistinguishable in word-final position.
Geminationis distinctive word-medially and word-finally in Maltese. The distinction is most rigidintervocalicallyafter a stressed vowel. Stressed, word-finalclosed syllableswith short vowels end in a long consonant, and those with a long vowel in a single consonant; the only exception is where historic*ʕand*ɣmeant thecompensatory lengtheningof the succeeding vowel. Some speakers have lost length distinction in clusters.
The two nasals/m/and/n/assimilate forplace of articulationin clusters./t/and/d/are usuallydental, whereas/t͡sd͡zsznrl/are all alveolar./t͡sd͡z/are found mostly in words of Italian origin, retaining length (if not word-initial)./d͡z/and/ʒ/are only found in loanwords, e.g./ɡad͡zd͡zɛtta/"newspaper" and/tɛlɛˈviʒin/"television".The pharyngeal fricative/ħ/is velar ([x]), uvular ([χ]), or glottal ([h]) for some speakers.
Maltese has five short vowels,/ɐɛɪɔʊ/, writtena e i o u;six long vowels,/ɐːɛːɪːiːɔːʊː/, writtena, e, ie, i, o, u,all of which (with the exception ofie/ɪː/) can be known to represent long vowels in writing only if they are followed by an orthographicgħorh(otherwise, one needs to know the pronunciation; e.g.nar(fire) is pronounced/nɐːr/); and sevendiphthongs,/ɐɪɐʊɛɪɛʊɪʊɔɪɔʊ/, writtenajorgħi, aworgħu, ejorgħi, ew, iw, oj,andoworgħu.
The Maltese consonant system has undergone several changes when compared to Classical Arabic:
While many of these changes (chiefly the merger ofemphatic consonantswith their non-pharyngealizedcounterparts) are the result of European influence, others (such as the merger ofق/q/into/ʔ/) are found in othervarieties of Arabic, and may be either independent developments or features of theSicilian Arabicdialect which Maltese descends from.
The modern system of Maltese orthography was introduced in 1924.Below is the Maltese alphabet, withIPAsymbols 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 aslibertà'freedom',sigurtà(old Italian:sicurtà'security'), orsoċjetà(Italian:società'society').
The official rules governing the structure of the Maltese language are recorded in the official guidebookTagħrif fuq il-Kitba Maltija(English:Knowledge on Writing in Maltese) issued by theAkkademja tal-Malti(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,iż-Żieda mat-Tagħrif, which focused mainly on the increasing influence of Romance and English words. In 1992 the academy issued theAġġornament tat-Tagħrif fuq il-Kitba Maltija, which updated the previous works.
TheNational Council for the Maltese Language(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.
Since Maltese evolved after theItalo-Normansended 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 theKnights Hospitaller, both French and Italian were used for official documents and correspondence. During theBritish 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 asMikiel Anton Vassallimade a concerted effort to standardise written Maltese. Many examples of written Maltese exist from before this period, always in the Latin alphabet,Il-Kantilenafrom the 15th century being the earliest example of written Maltese. In 1934, Maltese was recognised as an official language.
Maltese has bothSemiticvocabulary and words derived fromRomance languages, primarilyItalian. Words such astweġiba(Arabic origin) andrisposta(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 Romanceloanwords(from theTreaty establishing a Constitution for EuropeArchived2015-12-29 at theWayback Machine, seep. 17Archived2020-08-04 at theWayback Machine):
Below is theLord's Prayerin Maltese compared to other Semitic languages (ArabicandSyriac) withcognateshighlighted:
Although the original vocabulary of Maltese wasSiculo-Arabic, it has incorporated a large number of borrowings fromRomancesources (Sicilian,Italian, andFrench) and, more recently,Germanicones (fromEnglish).
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, mostfunction wordsare 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 toEnglish, aGermanic languagethat has been strongly influenced byNorman Frenchand 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 asĠeografikament, l-Ewropa hi parti tas-superkontinent ta' l-Ewrasja('Geographically, Europe is part of the supercontinent of Eurasia'), while not understanding a single word of a basic sentence such asIr-raġel qiegħed fid-dar('The man is in the house'), which would be easily understood by any Arabic speaker.
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 ofMaghrebifeatures,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 wordra('to see'). Arabic supplies between 32%and 40%of the language's vocabulary.
Żammit (2000)found that 40% of a sample of 1,821Quranic Arabicroots were found in Maltese, considerably lower than that found in theMoroccan(58%) andLebanese(72%) varieties of Arabic.An analysis of the etymology of the 41,000 words in Aquilina'sMaltese–English Dictionaryshows that 32% of the Maltese vocabulary is of Arabic origin,although another source claims 40%.Usually, words expressing basic concepts and ideas, such asraġel(man),mara(woman),tifel(boy),dar(house),xemx(sun), andsajf(summer), are of Arabic origin. Moreover,belles-lettresin Maltese aim to maximise their use of vocabulary belonging to this group.
Notes: * from Arabicاستقصى(istaqṣā) "to investigate", ** from Arabicاشتاق(ištāqa) "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 theancestorof the Maltese language,some Siculo-Arabic words are still used in modernSicilian(a Romance language spoken in Sicily):
The Maltese language has merged many of the original Arabic consonants (in particular theemphatic consonants) with others common to European languages. Thus, originalArabic/d/,/ð/, and/dˤ/all merged into Maltese/d/. The vowels, meanwhile, separated from the three in Classical Arabic (/aiu/) into five, as is more typical of many European languages (/aɛiou/). Some unstressed short vowels have been elided. The common Arabic greetingas salāmu 'alaykumis cognate withis-sliem għalikomin Maltese (lit. "the peace for you", peace be with you), as are similar greetings in other Semitic languages (e.g.shalom ʿalekheminHebrew).
An analysis of the etymology of the 41,000 words in Aquilina'sMaltese–English Dictionaryshows 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 fromSicilianand thus exhibit Sicilian phonetic characteristics, such as/u/rather than Italian/o/, and/i/rather than Italian/e/(e.g.tiatrunotteatroandfidinotfede). Also, as with Old Sicilian,/ʃ/(Englishsh) is writtenxand this produces spellings such as:ambaxxata/ambaʃːaːta/('embassy'),xena/ʃeːna/('scene'; compare Italianambasciata,scena).
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 wordsevaluation,industrial action, andchemical armamentsbecomeevalwazzjoni,azzjoni industrjali, andarmamenti kimiċiin Maltese, while the Italian terms arevalutazione,vertenza sindacale, andarmi chimicherespectively. (The origin of the terms may be narrowed even further toBritish English; the phraseindustrial actionis meaningless in the United States.) This is comparable to the situation with English borrowings into theItalo-Australian dialect. English words of Germanic origin are generally preserved relatively unchanged.
Some influences ofAfrican Romanceon the Arabic andBerberspoken in theMaghrebare theorised; these may then have passed into Maltese.For example, incalendarmonthnames, the wordfurar'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 inawi/ussu<augustus.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 asawi/ussuandfurarin 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 fromItalian, and retains both non-Italian forms such asawissu/awwissuandfrar, and Italian forms such asapril.
Like theMaghrebi Arabic dialects, Maltese has a significant vocabulary derived fromBerber languages. Whether these words entered Maltese by being inherited fromSiculo-Arabicor were directly loaned from Berber languages is not yet known. These include:
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 commonshorteningof "refrigerator". "Refrigerator" is a Latinate word which could be imported into Maltese asrifriġeratori, whereas theItalianword isfrigoriferoorrefrigeratore.
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 wordnharmeaning 'day'.
The months of the year (Maltese:xhur is-sena) in Maltese are mostly derived fromSicilian, thoughFrarandAwwissumay be derived fromAfrican RomanceviaSiculo-Arabic.
Maltese grammar is fundamentally derived fromArabic, althoughLatinandEnglishnoun pluralisation patterns are also used on borrowed words.
Adjectivesfollownouns. There are no separately formed nativeadverbs, and word order is fairly flexible. Both nouns and adjectives ofSemiticorigin take the definite article (for example,It-tifel il-kbir, lit. "The boy the elder"="The elder boy"). This rule does not apply to adjectives of Romance origin.
Nouns are pluralised and also have adualmarker. 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-atand Hebrew-ot/-oth) or-in(cf. Arabic-īnand Hebrew-im). If irregular, they fall in thepluralis 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-ior-jiet. For example,lingwa,lingwi"languages", from Sicilianlingua,lingui.
Words of English origin are pluralised by adding either an "-s" or "-jiet", for example,friġġ,friġisfrom the wordfridge. Some words can be pluralised with either of the suffixes to denote the plural. A few words borrowed from English can amalgamate both suffixes, likebrikksafrom the Englishbrick, which can adopt either collective formbrikksor the plural formbrikksiet.
As inArabic, nouns are often derived by changing, adding or removing the vowels within atriliteral root. These are some of the patterns used for nouns:
The so-called mimated nouns use theprefixm-in addition tovowelchanges. This pattern can be used to indicateplacenames,tools,abstractions, etc. These are some of the patterns used for mimated nouns:
Theprocliticil-is thedefinite article, equivalent to "the" in English and "al-" in Arabic.
The Maltese article becomesl-before or after a vowel.
The Maltese articleassimilatesto a following non-ġcoronal consonant(calledkonsonanti xemxin"sun consonants"), namely:
Verbs show the Semitictriliteralpattern, in which a verb isconjugatedwithprefixes,suffixes, andinfixes(for examplektibna, Arabickatabna, Hebrewkathabhnu(Modern Hebrew: katavnu) "we wrote"). An example is the Semitic root X-M-X ('sun'), for examplexemx(sun),xmux(suns),xemxi(sunny),xemxata(sunstroke),nixxemmex(I sunbathe),ma xxemmixtx(I didn't sunbathe),tixmix(the act of sunbathing).
Maltese also features theagglutinationof verb suffixes indicating direction of action, for exampleagħmilhomli"make them for me"←agħmel"make" in the imperative +homfromhuma"them" +lisuffix indicating first person singular andħasletielu"she washed it for him"←ħaslet"she washed" from the verbħasel"to wash" +iethe object +lusuffix indicating third person masculine singular.
The twotensesare 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.
As Malta is a multilingual country, the use of Maltese in the mass media is shared with other European languages, namelyEnglishandItalian. The majority of television stations broadcast from Malta in English or Maltese, although broadcasts fromItalyin 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.
The Maltese population, being fluent in both Maltese and English, displayscode-switching(referred to asMaltenglish) in certain localities and between certain social groups.