Maltese is a Semitic language descended from the now extinct Sicilian-Arabic (Siculo-Arabic) dialect (from southern Italy) that developed during the Emirate of Sicily. The Maltese alphabet consists of 30 letters based on the Latin alphabet, including the diacritically altered letters ''ż'', ''ċ'' and ''ġ'', as well as the letters ''għ'', ''ħ'', and ''ie''.