page_title: Languages of Malta
section_title: Italian
hierarchical_section_title: Languages of Malta / Italian
caption_attribution_description: English: Żabbar
context_page_description: Malta has two official languages: Maltese and English. Maltese is the national language. Until 1934, Italian was also an official language in Malta. The Maltese population is generally able to converse in languages which are not native to the country, particularly English and Italian.
  According to the Eurobarometer poll conducted in 2012, 98% of Maltese people can speak Maltese, 88% can speak English, 66% can speak Italian, and more than 17% speak French. This shows a recent increase in fluency in languages, since in 1995, while 98% of the population spoke Maltese, only 76% spoke English, 36% Italian, and 10% French. It shows an increase in Italian fluency, compared to when Italian was an official language of Malta, due to Italian television broadcasts reaching Malta.
  According to the 2011 census, there were 377,952 people aged 10 and over, of whom 357,692 people declared that they spoke Maltese at least at an average level, 248,570 that they spoke English at least at an average level and 93,401 that they spoke Italian at least at an average level, out of a scale made of "Well", "Average", "A little" and "Not at all".
context_section_description: For many centuries and until 1934, Italian was the official language of Malta. Indeed, it was considered the language of culture in Malta since the Italian Renaissance. In the 19th century  Italian irredentists and Italian Maltese wanted to promote its use throughout Malta for plans to re-unify it to Italy as Malta was part of the Kingdom of Sicily up to 13th century. In the first decades of the 20th century there was even a struggle within Maltese society and politics over the "language problem", which came to a head before World War II. In 1933 the Constitution was withdrawn over the Government's budgetary vote for the teaching of Italian in elementary schools. The use of Italian in official matters was politically motivated by the antireformist party and by the Roman Catholic Church as a form of status quo and conservative measures against the Protestant British colonial power.
  Today, 66% of the Maltese population can speak Italian, and 8% of the population "prefer" to use it in day-to-day conversation, due to the large recent influx of Italian immigrants. Although Italian has been replaced by English as the official language, it is still used and is spoken commonly in certain professional workplaces by Italian immigrants. The percentage of speakers today, 66%, is in fact much greater than when the language was actually official, in 1931, when only 14% spoke it.
  A large number of Maltese learn Italian through Italian television as Italian media broadcast reach the Maltese Islands.
caption: Italian inscription from the former Ġnien tal-Kmand at Żabbar. This inscription dates back from the early 19th century, when Malta was a British protectorate
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