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Maltese language

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Maltese language

Native to Malta
Native speakers
430,000  (2014)[1]
Latin (Maltese alphabet)
Maltese Braille
Official status
Official language in
 European Union
Regulated by National Council for the Maltese Language
Il-Kunsill Nazzjonali tal-Ilsien Malti
Language codes
ISO 639-1 mt
ISO 639-2 mlt
ISO 639-3 mlt
Glottolog malt1254[2]
Linguasphere 12-AAC-c

Maltese (Malti) is the [5] About half of the vocabulary is derived from standard Italian and Sicilian;[4] English words make up between 6% and 20% of the Maltese vocabulary, according to different estimates (see below).[6] It is the only Semitic language written in the Latin script in its standard form.


The origins of the Maltese language are attributed to the arrival, early in the eleventh century, of settlers from neighbouring Sicily, where the Siculo-Arabic dialect was spoken, following the Fatimid conquest at the end of the ninth century.[7] This claim has been corroborated by genetic studies, which show that contemporary Maltese people share common ancestry with Sicilians and Calabrians, with little genetic input from North Africa and the Levant.[8][9] The Norman conquest in 1090, followed by the expulsion of the Muslims (complete by 1249) permanently isolated the vernacular from its Arabic source, creating the conditions for its evolution into a distinct language.[10] In contrast to Sicily (where Siculo-Arabic became extinct, replaced by Sicilian Italian), the vernacular in Malta continued to develop alongside Italian, eventually replacing it as official language in 1934 (alongside English).[11]

The first written reference to the Maltese language is in a will of 1436, where it is called lingua maltensi. The oldest known document in Maltese is "Il Cantilena" (Xidew il-Qada) by Pietro Caxaro. It dates from the 15th century.[12]

The earliest known Maltese dictionary was a sixteenth-century manuscript entitled "Maltese-Italiano"; it was included in the Biblioteca Maltese of Mifsud in 1764, but is now lost.[13] A list of Maltese words was included in both the Thesaurus Polyglottus (1603) and Propugnaculum Europae (1606) of Hieronymus Megiser, who had visited Malta in 1588–89; Domenico Magri gave the etymologies of some Maltese words in his Hierolexicon, sive sacrum dictionarium (1677).[12] An early manuscript dictionary, Dizionario Italiano e Maltese, was discovered in the Biblioteca Vallicelliana in Rome in the 1980s, together with a grammar, the Regole per la Lingua Maltese, attributed to a French Knight named Thezan.[13][14] The first systematic lexicon is that of Ġan Pjer Franġisk Agius de Soldanis, who also wrote the first systematic grammar of the language and proposed a standard orthography.[13]

Maltese became an official language of Malta in 1934, alongside English, when Italian was dropped from official use.




Maltese is a [17]

The Maltese language has historically been classified in various ways, with some claiming that the ancient Punic language was the base of the language, instead of Siculo-Arabic,[12][18][19] while others believed the language to be Berber,[12] and under Fascist Italy, it was considered a dialect of Italian.[20]



Consonant phonemes[21][22]
Bilabial Labio-
Dental Alveolar Palatal Velar Pharyn-
Nasal m n
Stop p   b t   d k   ɡ ʔ
Affricate t͡s   d͡z t͡ʃ   d͡ʒ
Fricative f   v s   z ʃ   ʒ ħ
Trill r
Approximant l j w

Voiceless stops are only lightly aspirated and voiced stops are fully voiced. Voicing is carried over from the last segment in [23]


The two nasals /m/ and /n/ assimilate for [28]






Historical phonology

Many Classical Arabic consonants underwent mergers and modifications in Maltese:



The modern system of Maltese orthography was introduced in 1924.[29] Below is the Maltese alphabet, with symbols and approximate English pronunciation:

Letter Name Maltese example IPA Approximate English pronunciation
E e e envelopp (envelope) ɛ end
F f effe fjura (flower) f far
I i i ikel (food) ɪ bit
J j je jum (day) j yard
K k ke kelb (dog) k kettle
L l elle libsa (dress) l line
M m emme mara (woman) m march
N n enne nanna (granny) n next
P p pe paġna (page, sheet) p part
R r erre re (king) r road
S s esse sliem (peace) s sand
T t te tieqa (window) t tired
U u u uviera (egg cup) ʊ put
W w we widna (ear) w west
Z z ze zalza (sauce) t͡s / d͡z pizza




Written Maltese

Since Maltese evolved after the Normans ended the 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 the Order of the Knights of Malta, both French and Italian were used for official documents and correspondence. During the British colonial period the use of English was encouraged through education, with Italian regarded as the next most important language.

In 1934, Maltese was recognised as an official language. In the late eighteenth century and throughout the nineteenth century, philologists and academics such as Mikiel Anton Vassalli made a concerted effort to standardize written Maltese. Many examples of written Maltese exist from before this period, always in the Latin alphabet, "Il Cantilena" being the earliest example of written Maltese.


From the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe:

English Maltese







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,[4] although other sources claim from as low as 40%,[6] to as high as 55%.[33] These vocabularies tend to deal with more complicated concepts. 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 spellings such as: ambaxxata /ambaʃːaːta/ ('embassy'), xena /ʃeːna/ ('scene' cf. Italian ambasciata, scena).

Maltese Sicilian Italian English
skola scola scuola school
gvern cuvernu governo government
repubblika ripùbblica repubblica republic
re re re king
natura natura natura nature
pulizija pulizzìa polizia police
ċentru centru centro centre
teatru tiatru teatro theatre



Siculo-Arabic is the ancestor of the Maltese language,[4] and supplies between 32%[4] and 40%[6] of the language's vocabulary.

Maltese Siculo-Arabic
(in Sicilian)
bebbuxu babbaluciu snail
ġiebja gebbia cistern
ġunġlien giuggiulena sesame seed
saqqajja saia canal
kenur tanura oven
żaffran zaffarana saffron
zahar zagara blossom
żbib zibbibbu raisins
zokk zuccu tree trunk
tebut tabbutu coffin
kapunata caponata caponata
qassata cassata savoury pastry pie

Żammit (2000) 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 Lebanese Arabic (72%).[34] 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,[4] although another source claims 40%.[6][35] 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. Moreover, belles lettres in Maltese tend to aim mainly at diction belonging to this group.[36]



Maltese Cairene Damascene Iraqi
(Jewish Baghdad)
Moroccan English Modern Standard Arabic
waqt wa't wa'et -- wagt wagt wʌqt time وقت (waqt)
kelb kalb kaleb kalb čalb kalb kəlb dog كلب (kalb)


It is estimated that English loanwords, which are becoming more commonplace, make up 20% of the Maltese vocabulary,[6] although other sources claim amounts as low as 6%.[4] 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 are not included in certain dictionaries.[4] Also, English loanwards of Latinate origin are very often italianised, as discussed above. English loanwords are generally transliterated, although standard English pronunciation is virtually always retained. Below are a few examples:

Maltese English
futbol football
baskitbol basketball
klabb club
lift lift/elevator
friġġ fridge




Adjectives and adverbs







The proclitic il- is the definite article, equivalent to "the" in English.

The Maltese article becomes l- before or after a vowel.

  • l-omm (the mother)
  • rajna l-Papa (we saw the Pope)
  • il-missier (the father)


  • Ċ iċ-ċikkulata (the chocolate)
  • D id-dar (the house)
  • N in-nar (the fire)
  • R ir-razzett (the farm)
  • S is-serrieq (the saw)
  • T it-tifel (the boy)
  • X ix-xemx (the sun)
  • Ż iż-żarbun (the shoe)
  • Z iz-zalzett (the sausage)





Urban varieties of Maltese are closer to Standard Maltese than rural varieties,[36] which have some characteristics that distinguish them from Standard Maltese. They tend to show some archaic features[36] such as the realization of kh and gh and the imala of Arabic ā into ē (or ī especially in Gozo)-considered archaic because they are reminiscent of 15th century transcriptions of this sound.[36] Another archaic feature is the realization of Standard Maltese ā as ō in rural dialects.[36] There is also a tendency to diphthongize simple vowels, e.g., ū becomes eo or eu.[36] Rural dialects also tend to employ more Semitic roots and broken plurals than Standard Maltese.[36] In general, rural Maltese is less distant from its Siculo-Arabic ancestor than Standard Maltese.[36]



The use of the Maltese language on the Internet is not altogether common, and the number of websites written in Maltese are few. In a survey of Maltese cultural websites conducted in 2004 on behalf of the Maltese Government, 12 of 13 were in English only, while the remaining one was multilingual but did not include Maltese.[38]



See also


  1. ^ a b c Maltese at Ethnologue (17th ed., 2013)
  2. ^ Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Maltese". Glottolog 2.2. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. 
  3. ^ , I.5.(1)Constitution of Malta
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Brincat (2005).
  5. ^ a b Borg & Azzopardi-Alexander (1997).
  6. ^ a b c d e BBC Education - Languages
  7. ^ MED Magazine
  10. ^ MED Magazine
  11. ^ MED Magazine
  13. ^ a b c Dionisius A. Agius (1990). : A Contribution to Arabic Lexical DialectologyAl-Miklem MaltiReview article: . Bulletin (British Society for Middle Eastern Studies) 17 (2): 171-180. (subscription required)
  14. ^ Arnold Cassola (2012). Italo-Maltese Relations (ca. 1150 -1936): People, Culture, Literature, Language. Mediterranean Review 5 (1): 1–20.
  15. ^ "Malta Ħanina: the lingering Maltese presence in Tunisia". The Sunday Times (Times of Malta). 11 February 2007. pp. 54–55. 
  17. ^ Borg (1997).
  18. ^ Vella (2004), p. 263.
  20. ^ Malta, Sean Sheehan, pg. 80
  21. ^ Hume (1996), p. 165.
  22. ^ Borg (1997), p. 248.
  23. ^ Borg (1997), pp. 249–250.
  24. ^ Borg (1997), pp. 251–252.
  25. ^ Borg (1997), p. 255.
  26. ^ Borg (1997), p. 254.
  27. ^ Borg (1997), p. 247.
  28. ^ Borg (1997), p. 260.
  31. ^ Friggieri (1994), p. 59.
  32. ^ About Malta; GTS; retrieved on 2008-02-24
  33. ^
  34. ^ Żammit (2000), pp. 241–245.


External links

