Information about Maltese Language

Maltese Malti
Spoken in:	Australia Gibraltar Malta United Kingdom Canada United States
Total speakers:	ca 500,000
Language family:	}}}  Semitic   Central Semitic    South Central Semitic     Arabic      Maltese}}}
Official status
Official language of:	European Union Malta
Regulated by:	Il-Kunsill Nazzjonali ta' l-Ilsien Malti
Language codes
ISO 639-1:	mt
ISO 639-2:	mlt
ISO 639-3:	mlt

Maltese is the national language of Malta^[1], and an official language of the European Union. It is descended from Maghrebi Arabic ^[2][3]. It is the only Semitic language written in the Latin alphabet in its standard form.

Apart from its phonology, Maltese bears considerable similarity to urban varieties of Tunisian Arabic and other North African Arabic dialects. In the course of history, the language has adopted numerous loanwords, phonetic and phonological features, and even morphological and syntactic patterns from Sicilian and Italian, while many words (some with their plural forms) are also borrowed from English.

Maltese became an official language of Malta in 1936, alongside English . Today, there are an estimated 500,000 Maltese speakers, of whom 400,000 reside in Malta. Thousands of Maltese emigrants in Australia, the United States, Canada and Gibraltar (can) still speak the language. In 2007 it was reported that Maltese is still spoken by Maltese descendants in Tunisia.^[4]

The oldest known document in Maltese is "Il Cantilena," a poem from the 15th century written by Pietro Caxaro.^[5] For centuries, Maltese was nearly exclusively a spoken language, with writing being done in Arabic, or later, Italian .

Grammar

Maltese grammar is fundamentally derived from Arabic, although Romance and Anglo-Saxon patterns are also used.

Semitic grammatical structure

Adjectives follow nouns, there are no separately formed native adverbs, and word order is fairly flexible. As in Arabic and Hebrew, both nouns and adjectives of Semitic origin take the definite article (for example It-tifel il-kbir, lit. "The boy the elder=The elder boy"; cf. Arabic at-tifl-u l-kabi:r, Hebrew ha-na`ar ha-gadol). This rule does not apply to adjectives of Romance origin.

Nouns are pluralized and also have a dual marker (rare among modern European languages, others including Slovene and Sorbian, as well as Serbian and Czech, which have preserved a somewhat vestigial dual form for certain body parts and nouns, but common among Semitic languages).

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) or -in (cf. Arabic -īn and Hebrew -im). If irregular, they fall in the pluralis fractus category, in which a word is pluralized by internal vowel changes: ktieb, kotba "books", raġel, irġiel "men".

Verbs still show a triliteral Semitic pattern, in which a verb is conjugated with prefixes, suffixes, and infixes (for example ktibna, Arabic katabna, Hebrew katavnu "we wrote"). There are two tenses: present and perfect.

Romance grammatical structure

The Romance pattern is generally simpler. Words of Romance origin are usually pluralized in two manners: addition of -i or -jiet (for example lingwa, lingwi "languages", from Sicilian lingua, lingui.)

The Maltese verb system incorporates Romance verbs and adds Arabic suffixes and prefixes to them (for example iddeċidejna "we decided" < (i)ddeċieda 'Romance verb' + -ejna 'Arabic first person plural perfect marker'). Arabic only rarely does this, although several Arabic dialects like Tunisian do.

English grammatical structure

The English pattern is similar to the Romance pattern, in that words of English origin are pluralized by adding either an "-s" or "-jiet", for example tojlit, tojlits from the English toilet, toilets and friġġ, friġis from the word fridge. Some words can actually adopt either of the suffixes to denote the plural. More curious still, a few words loaned from English in Maltese can amalgamate both suffixes together, like brikksa from the English brick, which can adopt either collective form brikks or the plural form brikksiet.

Vocabulary

Maltese vocabulary is a hybrid based on a foundation of Arabic Semitic roots with a heavy borrowing of Sicilian, Italian, and English loanwords. In this respect it is similar to English (a Germanic language heavily influenced by French, particularly the Norman variety rather than the standard language). The result of this highly uneven distribution of loanwords throughout the language is that a speaker of the loanword-source language (in this case Romance or English language speakers) can understand, for instance, the or comprehend the subject of a newspaper article, but cannot understand even such basic Maltese sentences such as Ir-raġel qiegħed fid-dar (The man is in the house). This situation resembles that of a monolingual English speaker, who will often be able to guess the content of something in if it is formal academic writing, but not understand much simpler sentences.

Quranic Arabic roots

Żammit found that 40% of a sample of 1,820 Quranic Arabic roots were found in Maltese, a lower percentage than found in Moroccan (58%) and Syrian Arabic (72%).^[6] 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 ^[7], although another source claims 40%^[8]. Usually, words expressing basic concepts and ideas, such as raġel man, mara woman, tifel boy, dar house, xemx sun, sajf summer, are of Arabic origin.

The Maltese language has merged many of the original Arabic consonants together, in particular the emphatic consonants, with others that are common in European languages. So, original Arabic dal, dhal, and dad all merged into Maltese "d". The vowels, however, separated from the three in Arabic (a, i, u) to the five in Maltese and most other European languages, or, in the case of some unstressed short vowels, disappeared. The common Arabic greeting as-salāmu 'alaykum would look like is-sliem għalikom in Maltese.

Words of Romance origin

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 ^[9], although another source claims 40%^[10]. These are generally more 'learned' words, having to do with new ideas, objects, government, law, education, art, literature, and general learning. They are mostly derived from Sicilian and thus exhibit Sicilian phonetic characteristics, such as 'u' in place of 'o' and 'i' in place of 'e' (e.g. tiatru not teatro and fidi not fede). Also, as with Old Sicilian, /ʃ/ (English 'sh') is written 'x' and this produces interesting spellings: ambaxxata /ambaʃːaːta/ is 'embassy', xena /ʃeːna/ is 'scene' (cf. Italian ambasciata, scena).

Below are just a few examples (Arabic is included for comparison):

Maltese	Sicilian	Italian	English	Arabic
Skola	Scola	Scuola	School	مدرسة (madrassah)
Gvern	Cuvernu	Governo	Government	حكومة (ḥukūmah)
Repubblika	Ripùbblica	Repubblica	Republic	جمهورية (ǧummhūriyyah)
Re	Re	Re	King	ملك (malik)
Natura	Natura	Natura	Nature	طبيعة (ṭabīʿah)
Pulizija	Pulizzìa	Polizia	Police	شرطة (shurta)
Ċentru	Centru	Centro	Centre	مركز (markaz)
Teatru	Tiatru	Teatro	Theatre	مسرح (masraḥ)

Siculo-Arabic Similarities

There are also strong similarities between Maltese and Sicilian words of Arabic origin, on account of the comparable cultural situation. between the two countries.

Siculo-Arabic	Maltese	English
Babbaluciu	Bebbuxu	Snail
Caponata	Kapunata	Caponata
Cassata	Qassata	Sicilian cake
Gebbia	Ġiebja	Cistern
Giuggiulena	Ġunġlien	Sesame seed
Saia	Saqqajja	Canal
Tanura	Kenur	Oven
Zaffarana	Żaffran	Saffron
Zagara	Zahar	Blossom
Zibbibbu	Żbib	Raisins
Zuccu	Zokk	Tree trunk

English loan words

It is estimated that English loanwords, which are becoming more commonplace, make up 20% of the Maltese vocabulary ^[11], although other sources claim it's only 6%. This percentage discrepancy is due to the fact that a number of new English loanwords are sometimes not officially considered part of the Maltese vocabulary, hence they're not included in certain dictionaries ^[12]. English loanwords are generally transliterated, although standard English pronunciation is virtually always retained. Below are just a few examples:

Maltese	English
Futbol	Football
Baskitbol	Basketball
Mowbajl	Mobile [Phone]
Lift	Lift/Elevator
Friġg	Fridge
Friżer	Freezer
Wejter	Waiter
Biljard	Billiard
Strajk	Strike
Plejer	Player
Frejm	Frame
Blic	Bleach
Fowlder	Folder
Kompjuter	Computer
Spikers	Speakers
Televixin	Television
Tojlit	Toilet

Semitic form vs Romance form

Maltese can be spoken using either the Semitic or the Romance forms. A case in point is the English sentence The temple is situated opposite the village plaza:

• Romance form: It-tempju sitwat oppost il-pjazza tal-villaġġ.

(Italian: Il tempio è situato davanti (opposto) alla piazza del villaggio.)

• Semitic form: Il-maqdes jinsab biswit il-misraħ tar-raħal.

Both sentences are in Maltese and have exactly the same meaning. Generally though, no one form is ever spoken exclusively, and sentences are usually made up of words from both influences.

It is interesting to note that Church-related language during church services, mass and liturgies is heavily Semitic, and many words are not used in every-day common speech amongst the native Maltese-speaking population.

On the other hand, academic language frequently adopts a large number of Romance words, which is becoming the norm, a trend which is making the Maltese language more Europeanized, as opposed to poetry and literature which tend to utilize a lot of Semitic words which are not usually used in everyday speech.

Written Maltese

Since Maltese evolved after the Normans ended the Arab rule of the islands, there was little interest in developing a written form of the language for a long time after the Arabs' expulsion in the eleventh century. This was caused by the clergy's preference of Latin or Italian vernacular over the local tongue, and since the clergy was the educated class of Maltese society, their preference of foreign tongues undermined the early development of Maltese in literature and prose. Furthermore, as the islands were almost^[13] always under foreign rule, those in power preferred the advancement of their own mother language over the native tongue. Throughout the centuries, the use of the Maltese language was often discouraged with varying degrees of enthusiasm and success, ostensibly in the hope that supplanting it would strengthen ties with the country which held possession of Malta at that particular point in time, a concept which has continuously surfaced in the islands and is also present to a certain extent in the present day. Under the rule of the Order of the Knights of Malta both French and an embryonic version of Italian were used for official documents and correspondence. During the British colonial period the use of English was encouraged through education, while Italian was regarded as the next most important language. It was not until 1936 that Maltese was even recognised as an official language, more as a British coup to offset Italian influence from that increasingly belligerent country than as a genuine belief in the importance of Maltese in the islands' administration. Uniquely, no other European country lacked a standardised written form of its language until the nineteenth century, when philologists and academics such as Mikiel Anton Vassalli made a concerted effort to transcribe spoken Maltese in a comprehensive written form. One would hence have to note that the lack of an established written tradition effected Maltese culture and fueled apathy towards the Maltese language in certain segments of the nation.

Sample

From the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe:

English

Maltese

The Union is founded on the values of respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities. These values are common to the Member States in a society in which pluralism, non-discrimination, tolerance, justice, solidarity and equality between women and men prevail.

L-Unjoni hija mibnija fuq il-valuri ta' rispett għad-dinjità tal-bniedem, ta' libertà, ta' demokrazija, ta' ugwaljanza, ta' l-istat tad-dritt u tar-rispett għad-drittijiet tal-bniedem, inklużi d-drittijiet ta' persuni li jagħmlu parti minn minoranzi. Dawn il-valuri huma komuni għall-Istati Membri f'soċjetà karatterizzata mill-pluraliżmu, in-non-diskriminazzjoni, it-tolleranza, il-ġustizzja, is-solidarjetà u l-ugwaljanza bejn in-nisa u l-irġiel.

Alphabet

Below is the Maltese alphabet, with IPA symbols and approximate English pronunciation:

Letter	Name	IPA	Arabic	Approximate English pronunciation
A a	a (for anġlu (angel))	a	ـَ ، ـَ?	similar to 'a' in father
B b	be (for ballun (ball))	b	?	bar, but at the end of a word it is pronounced as [p].
Ċ ċ	ċe (for ċavetta (key))	ʧ	(چ)	church (note: dotless C has been replaced by K.)
D d	de (for dar (home))	d	?	day, but at the end of a word it is pronounced as [t].
E e	e (for envelopp (envelope)	ɛ	(ـَ ، ـَي)	end
F f	effe (for fjura (flower))	f	?	far
Ġ ġ	ġe (for ġelat (ice-cream))	ʤ	?	jump, but at the end of a word it is pronounced as [tʃ].
G g	ge (for gallettina (biscuit))	ɡ	(ج ، گ)	game, but at the end of a word it is pronounced as [k].
GĦ għ	ajn (for għasfur (bird))	ˤ:, ħ:	ع ، ?	has the effect of lengthening and pharyngealizing associated vowels. When found at the end of a word or immediately before 'h' it has the sound of a double 'ħ' (see below).
H h	akka (for hu (he))		ه ، ?	not pronounced unless it is at the end of a word, in which case it has the sound of 'ħ'.
Ħ ħ	ħe (for ħanżir (pig))	ħ	?	horse
I i	i (for ikel (food))	i	ـ?	seat
IE ie	ie (for ieqaf (stop))	iɛ, iː	ـِ?	has no English equivalent. Sounds like a long 'i'
J j	je (for jott (yacht))	j	?	yard
K k	ke (for kelb (dog))	k	?	cave
L l	elle (for libsa (dress))	l	?	line
M m	emme (for mara (woman))	m	?	march
N n	enne (for nanna (granny))	n	?	next
O o	o (for ors (bear))	o	(ـُ ، ـَو)	like 'aw' in law, but shorter.
P p	pe (for paġna (page))	p	(پ)	part
Q q	qe (for qattus (cat))	ʔ	ء ، ?	glottal stop, found in the Cockney English pronunciation of "bottle" or the phrase "(ʔ)uh-(ʔ)oh".
R r	erre (for reġina (queen))	r	?	road
S s	esse (for salib (cross))	s	?	sand
T t	te (for tieqa (window))	t	?	tired
U u	u (for uviera (egg-cup))	u	ـُ ، ـُ?	food
V v	ve (for vjola (violet)	v	(ڤ)	vast, but at the end of a word it is pronounced as [f].
W w	we (for widna (ear))	w	?	west
X x	exxe (for xadina (monkey))	ʃ / ʒ	?	shade, sometimes as measure; when doubled the sound is elongated, as in "Cash shin" vs. "Cash in."
Ż ż	że (for żarbun (shoes))	z	?	maze, but at the end of a word it is pronounced as [s].
Z z	ze (for zalza (sauce))	ʦ / ʣ	(تْس)	pizza; when doubled may change to gods

Final vowels with grave accents (à, è, ì, ò, ù) are also found in Maltese in words of Italian origin, such as libertà freedom, sigurtà security, or soċjetà society.

Dictionaries

• Malta Online Dictionary
• English-Maltese-English dictionary
• ParadiseMalta'sEnglish-Maltese dictionary
• Collection of Maltese dictionaries
• English-Maltese-English online translator

Orthography Rules

The official rules governing the structure of the Maltese language are found in the official guidebook issued by the Akkademja tal-Malti, the Academy of the Maltese language, which is named Tagħrif fuq il-Kitba Maltija, that is, Knowledge on Writing in Maltese. 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 Anglo-Saxon words. In 1992 the Academy issued the Aġġornament tat-Tagħrif fuq il-Kitba Maltija, which updated the previous works. All these works were included in a revised and expanded guidebook published in 1996.

Nowadays, the National Council for the Maltese Language (KNM) is the main regulator of the Maltese language (see Maltese Language Act, below) and not the Akkademja tal-Malti anymore. However, these orthography rules are still valid and official.

See also

• Maltenglish
• Order of St. John's legacy to the Maltese language

External links

Laws of Malta on Maltese as the only national language of Malta

• L-Att dwar l-Ilsien Malti (Kap. 470)PDF (97.5 KiB)
• Il-Kostituzzjoni ta' Malta (Kap. 1, Art. 5)PDF (359 KiB)
• Maltese Language Act (Chap. 470)PDF (3.38 KiB)
• Constitution of Malta (Chap. 1, Art. 5)PDF (293 KiB)

Organisations

• Il-Kunsill Nazzjonali ta' l-Ilsien Malti
• L-Akkademja tal-Malti
• Għaqda tal-Malti - Università
• Għaqda Poeti Maltin

Technology and Maltese

• Enabling the Maltese Language in Windows XPPDF (176 KiB)
• Unicode for Maltese
• XML for Maltese
• Maltese Spellchecker
• YahooGroup Kelmet - The Maltese language online forum

Broadcasting in Maltese

• Linji gwida mill-Awtorità tax-Xandir

Literature and Linguistics

• The Technical Committee for Literature within the National Council for the Maltese Language
• Maltese Language in Broadcasting
• Maltese verbal morphologyPDF (208 KiB)

Translations into Maltese

• Technical Documentation for Europe: Malta

Glossaries and Resources of the Maltese Language (Keep on adding your stuff here)

• Rimarju Malti
• Kappelli Maltin
• L-ewro
• Il-Lingwa tas-Sinjali Maltija
• Ikteb l-inviti tat-tieġ bil-Malti

Notes

References

Azzopardi, C. (2007) Gwida għall-Ortografija. Malta, Klabb Kotba Maltin.

Borg, A. J. & Azzopardi-Alexander, M. (1997) Maltese. Routledge, ISBN 0415022436

Mifsud, M. & Borg, A. J. (1997) Fuq l-għatba tal-Malti. Strasbourg, Council of Europe.

• http://www.macmillandictionary.com/MED-magazine/February2005/27-LI-Maltese.htm

•  • [ e] Modern Semitic languages
Amharic Arabic Chaha Harari Hebrew Inor Maltese Neo-Aramaic Silt'e Soddo South Arabian Syriac Tigre Tigrinya

•  • [ e] Semitic languages
East Semitic	Akkadian Eblaite
West/Central Semitic	Northwest: Amorite Ugaritic Canaanite: Ammonite Moabite Edomite Hebrew: Biblical Mishnaic Medieval Mizrahi Yemenite Sephardi Ashkenazi Samaritan Modern Hebrew Phoenician: Punic Aramaic: Western: Nabataean Western Neo-Aramaic Western Middle: Jewish Middle Palestinian Samaritan Christian Palestinian Eastern: Biblical Hatran Syriac Jewish Middle Babylonian Chaldean Neo-Aramaic Assyrian Neo-Aramaic Senaya Koy Sanjaq Surat Hrtevin Turoyo Mlahs Mandaic Judeo-Aramaic Arabic languages: Ancient North Arabian Arabic: Literary: Classical - Middle Arabic - Modern Standard Arabic Arabic dialects: Eastern Arabic dialects: Sudanese Arabian Peninsular dialects: Dhofari Hejazi Najdi Omani Yemeni Judeo-Yemenite Bedouin/Bedawi: Eastern Egyptian Bedawi Arabic Peninsular Bedawi Arabic Central Asian dialects: Central Asian Arabic Khuzestani Arabic Shirvani Egyptian Arabic: Saidi Arabic Gulf dialects: Baharna Gulf Shihhi Levantine Arabic: Cypriot Maronite Arabic Lebanese Palestinian Iraqi Arabic: Judeo-Iraqi Arabic Maghrebi: Algerian Saharan Shuwa Hassānīya Andalusian Libyan Arabic: Judeo-Tripolitanian Siculo-Arabic: Maltese Moroccan Arabic: Judeo-Moroccan Tunisian Arabic: Judeo-Tunisian
South Semitic	Western: Old South Arabian: Sabaean Minaean Qatabanian Hadhramautic Ethiopian: North: Ge'ez Tigrinya Tigre Dahlik South: Transversal: Amharic-Argobba: Amharic Argobba Harari-East Gurage: Harari East Gurage: Silt'e Zay Ulbare Wolane Inneqor Outer: n-group: Gafat Soddo tt-group: Mesmes Muher West Gurage: Masqan: CPWG Central Western Gurage: Ezha Chaha Gura Gumer Peripheral Western Gurage: Gyeto Ennemor Endegen Eastern: Bathari Harsusi Hobyot Jibbali Mehri Soqotri

•  • [ e] Official languages of the European Union
Bulgarian Czech Danish Dutch English Estonian Finnish French German Greek Hungarian Irish Italian Latvian Lithuanian Maltese Polish Portuguese Romanian Slovak Slovenian Spanish Swedish
Source: European Union website