Query: The Maltese language emerged before Semitic languages.

Relevant passages:
Varieties of Arabic <=SEP=> There are many varieties of Arabic ( dialects or otherwise ) in existence . Arabic is a Semitic language within the Afroasiatic family that originated on the Arabian Peninsula . The largest divisions occur between the spoken languages of different regions . Some varieties of Arabic in North Africa , for example , are incomprehensible to an Arabic speaker from the Levant or the Persian Gulf . Within these broad regions further and considerable geographic distinctions exist , within countries , across country borders , even between cities and villages .   Another major distinction is to be made between the widely diverging colloquial spoken varieties , used for nearly all everyday speaking situations , and the formal standardized language , found mostly in writing or in prepared speech . The regionally prevalent variety is learned as the speaker 's first language while the formal language is subsequently learned in school . The formal language itself varies between its modern iteration , Modern Standard Arabic ( often called MSA in English ) and the Classical Arabic that serves as its basis , though Arabic speakers typically do not make this distinction .   The largest differences between the classical/standard and the colloquial Arabic are the loss of grammatical case ; a different and strict word order , the loss of the previous system of grammatical mood , along with the evolution of a new system ; the loss of the inflected passive voice , except in a few relic varieties ; restriction in the use of the dual number and ( for most varieties ) the loss of the feminine plural . Many Arabic dialects , North African Arabic in particular also have significant vowel shifts and unusual consonant clusters . Unlike other dialects , in Moroccan Arabic first person singular verbs begin with a n - .   Further substantial differences exist between Bedouin and sedentary speech , the countryside and major cities , ethnicities , religious groups , social classes , men and women , and the young and the old . These differences are to some degree bridgeable . Often , Arabic speakers can adjust their speech in a variety of ways according to the context and to their intentions -- for example , to speak with people from different regions , to demonstrate their level of education or to draw on the authority of the spoken language .

Semitic languages <=SEP=> The Semitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family originating in the Middle East . Semitic languages are spoken by more than 330 million people across much of Western Asia , North Africa and the Horn of Africa , as well as in often large expatriate communities in North America and Europe , with smaller communities in the Caucasus and Central Asia . 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 .   The most widely spoken Semitic languages today are ( numbers given are for native speakers only ) Arabic ( 300 million ) , Amharic ( 22 million ) , Tigrinya ( 7 million ) , Hebrew ( unknown ; 5 million native and non-native L1 speakers ) , Tigre ( 1.05 million in 2006 ) , Aramaic ( 575,000 to 1 million largely Assyrian fluent speakers ) and Maltese ( 520,000 speakers ) .   Semitic languages occur in written form from a very early historical date , with East Semitic Akkadian and Eblaite texts ( written in a script adapted from Sumerian cuneiform ) appearing from the 29th century BCE and the 25th century BCE in Mesopotamia and the northern Levant respectively . The only earlier attested written languages are Sumerian , Elamite ( both language isolates ) and Egyptian . However , most scripts used to write Semitic languages are abjadsa type of alphabetic script that omits some or all of the vowels , which is feasible for these languages because the consonants in the Semitic languages are the primary carriers of meaning .   Among them are the Ugaritic , Phoenician , Aramaic , Hebrew , Syriac , Arabic , and South Arabian alphabets . The Ge'ez script , used initially in Yemen , and later also for writing the Semitic languages of Ethiopia and Eritrea , is technically an abugida a modified abjad in which vowels are notated using diacritic marks added to the consonants at all times , in contrast with other Semitic languages which indicate diacritics based on need or for introductory purposes . Maltese is the only Semitic language written in the Latin script and the only Semitic language to be an official language of the European Union .   The Semitic languages are notable for their nonconcatenative morphology . That is , word roots are not themselves syllables or words , but instead are isolated sets of consonants ( usually three , making a so-called triliteral root ) . Words are composed out of roots not so much by adding prefixes or suffixes , but rather by filling in the vowels between the root consonants ( although prefixes and suffixes are often added as well ) . For example , in Arabic , the root meaning `` write '' has the form k-t-b . From this root , words are formed by filling in the vowels and sometimes adding additional consonants , e.g. كتاب kitāb `` book '' , كتب kutub `` books '' , كاتب kātib `` writer '' , كتّاب kuttāb `` writers '' , كتب kataba `` he wrote '' , يكتب yaktubu `` he writes '' , etc. .

Maltese language <=SEP=> Maltese ( links = no ) is the national language of Malta and a co-official language of the country alongside English , while also serving as an official language of the European Union , the only Semitic language so distinguished . Maltese is descended from Siculo-Arabic , the variety of Arabic that developed in Sicily and was later introduced to Malta , between the end of the ninth century and the end of the twelfth century . Maltese is a unique branch of Arabic because it has evolved independently of Literary Arabic into a standardized language over the past 800 years in a gradual process of Latinisation .   The original Semitic base ( Siculo-Arabic ) 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 .   Maltese has always been written in the Latin script , the earliest surviving example dating from the late Middle Ages .