Maltese language

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Maltese
Malti
Native to Malta

 Australia
 Canada
 Gibraltar
 Italy
 UK

 USA [1]
Native speakers
330 000[1]
Official status
Official language in
European Union European Union
Malta Malta
Regulated byIl-Kunsill Nazzjonali ta' l-Ilsien Malti
Language codes
ISO 639-1mt
ISO 639-2mlt
ISO 639-3mlt

Maltese (Maltese: Malti) is the national language of Malta, and a co-official language of the country alongside English,[2] while the language also serves as an official language of the European Union. Maltese is generally accepted to be descended from Siculo-Arabic (the Arabic dialect that developed in Sicily and the rest of Southern Italy)[3] and with substantial borrowing from other languages such as Sicilian and Italian. A connection to the ancient Punic language has been mostly discredited.[4] It is the only Semitic language written in the Latin alphabet in its standard form.

In the course of history, the language adopted large vocabulary and grammar influences from Italian (particularly Sicilian), making them the now majority vocabulary influence of the language. An increasing vocabulary (some with their plural forms) are also borrowed from English.

Maltese became an official language of Malta in 1934, alongside English, when Italian was dropped as official.[5] Today, there are an estimated 500,000 Maltese speakers, of whom 400,000 reside in Malta. Thousands of Maltese emigrants in Australia, Canada, Gibraltar, Italy, the UK, the USA can still speak the language.[1] In 2007 it was reported that Maltese is still spoken by Maltese descendants in Tunisia.[6]

For centuries, Maltese was generally only spoken, with writing being done in Sicilian, the language of the country's governing power. The oldest known document in Maltese is "Il Cantilena," a poem from the 15th century written by Pietro Caxaro.[7]

Phonology

Consonants

Consonants of Maltese[8]
  Bilabial Labio-
dental 		Dental Post-
alveolar 		Velar Pharyn-
geal 		Glottal
Nasal m   n        
Plosive voiceless p   t   k   ʔ
voiced b   d   g    
Fricative voiceless   f s ʃ   ħ  
voiced   v z        
Affricate voiceless     t͡s t͡ʃ      
voiced     d͡z d͡ʒ      
Trill     r        
Approximant     l        

Vowels

Vowels of Maltese[9]
Front Back
Close i u
Mid e o
Open a

Orthography

Alphabet

Main article: Maltese alphabet

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

Letter Name IPA Approximate English pronunciation
A a a (for anġlu (angel)) a similar to 'a' in father
B b be (for ballun (ball)) b bar, but at the end of a word it is devoiced to [p].
Ċ ċ ċe (for ċavetta (key)) tʃ church (note: undotted 'c' has been replaced by 'k', so when 'c' does appear, it is to be spoken the same way as 'ċ')
D d de (for dar (home)) d day, but at the end of a word it is devoiced to [t].
E e e (for envelopp (envelope)) ɛ end
F f effe (for fjura (flower)) f far
Ġ ġ ġe (for ġelat (ice-cream)) dʒ gem, but at the end of a word it is devoiced to [tʃ].
G g ge (for gallettina (biscuit)) ɡ game, but at the end of a word it is devoiced to [k].
GĦ għ ajn (for għasfur (bird)) ˤː, ħː 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))   not pronounced unless it is at the end of a word, in which case it has the sound of 'ħ'.
Ħ ħ ħe (for ħanut (shop)) ħ no English equivalent; sounds like /h/ to English speakers.
I i i (for ikel (food)) i seat
IE ie ie (for ieqaf (stop)) iɛ, iː yet, feet
J j je (for jasar (bondage)) 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 like 'aw' in law, but shorter.
P p pe (for paġna (page)) p part
Q q qe (for qattus (cat)) ʔ glottal stop, found in the Cockney English pronunciation of "bottle" or the phrase "uh-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 food
V v ve (for vjola (violet)) v vast, but at the end of a word it is devoiced to [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 devoiced to [s].
Z z ze (for zalza (sauce)) ts / dz pizza; when doubled may change to gods

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

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 English 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.[citation needed]

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.[citation needed]

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 for foreign tongues undermined the early development of Maltese in literature and prose. Furthermore, as the islands were almost[10] 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 1934 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 affected 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.

Vocabulary

Although originally a dialect of Arabic with its predominately Semitic vocabulary, long-term contact with non-Arabic sources of influence, especially English and several Romance languages, have changed the nature of the lexicon to include a high percentage of non-Semitic words.[11] The present lexicon is based on a historical foundation of Siculo-Arabic roots with a large (now majority) percentage of Sicilian, Italian, English, and French roots and stems.

The historical influence of Maltese vocabulary is 52% Italian/Sicilian, 32% Siculo-Arabic, and 6% English, with some of the remainder being French.[3][12] In this respect it is similar to English (a Germanic language heavily influenced by Norman French). 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 find a number of familiar words in, for instance, the main page of the Maltese Wikipedia 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 French if it is formal academic writing, but not understand much simpler sentences.

Romance

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,[3] although other sources claim from as low as 40% to as large as 55%.[13][14] These vocabulary 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

There are also strong similarities between Maltese and Sicilian words of Arabic origin, on account of the comparable cultural situation between the two countries. Although Siculo-Arabic is extinct in Sicily, it survived on Malta and developed into what is now the Maltese language.[15].

Maltese Siculo-Arabic English
Bebbuxu Babbaluciu Snail
Kapunata Caponata Caponata
Qassata Cassata [Sicilian cake]
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

Quranic Arabic

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%).[16] 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[3], although another source claims 40%.[17] 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. Thus, original Arabic /d/, /ð/, and /dˤ/ all merged into Maltese /d/. The vowels, however, separated from the three in Arabic (/a i u/) to the five that are common in most other European languages (/a ɛ i o u/). Some unstressed short vowels have been elided. The common Arabic greeting as-salāmu 'alaykum would look like is-sliem għalikom in Maltese.

English

It is estimated that English loanwords, which are becoming more commonplace, make up 20% of the Maltese vocabulary [18], although other sources claim the value amount to 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 are not included in certain dictionaries.[3] English loanwords are generally transliterated, although standard English pronunciation is virtually always retained. Below are a few examples:

Maltese English
Futbol Football
Baskitbol Basketball
Mowbajl Mobile [Phone]
Lift Lift/Elevator
Friġġ Fridge

Grammar

Maltese grammar is fundamentally derived from Siculo-Arabic, although Romance and English noun pluralization patterns are also used on borrowed words.

Adjectives & Adverbs

As in Italian and other Romance languages, adjectives follow nouns. There are no separately formed native adverbs, and word order is fairly flexible. As in Siculo-Arabic, 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"). This rule does not apply to adjectives of Romance origin.

Nouns

Nouns are pluralized and also have a dual marker. 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 "man","men". Words of Romance origin are usually pluralized in two manners: addition of -i or -jiet (for example lingwa, lingwi "languages", from Sicilian lingua, lingui.) 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 be pluralized with either of the suffixes to denote the plural. A few words borrowed from English can amalgamate both suffixes together, like brikksa from the English brick, which can adopt either collective form brikks or the plural form brikksiet.

Verbs

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. 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, an Arabic first person plural perfect marker). Arabic only rarely does this, although several Arabic dialects like Tunisian do.

Media

Main article: Languages of Malta § Media

With Malta being a multilingual country, the usage of Maltese in the mass media is shared with other European languages, namely English and Italian. The majority of television stations broadcasted from Malta are in English or Maltese, although broadcasts from Italy in Italian are also received on the islands. Similarly, there are more Maltese language radio programs than English ones broadcast from Malta, but again, as with television, Italian broadcasts are also picked up. Maltese generally receives equal usage in newspaper periodicals to English.[19]

The use of the Maltese language on the internet is not altogether common and the number of websites written in Maltese are few. Out of a survey conducted on 13 Maltese websites, 12 of them were English only, and the remainder was bilingual with neither language being Maltese.[20]

Future

Possible scenarios for the future of the Maltese language are a subject of speculation among scholars. Dialectal variation of Maltese are in decline while towards a more standardized usage.

Death

Amongst the population, a language shift towards English has begun,[19] and some argue that Maltese is comparable to a language like Irish, which is being displaced by English in its native country.[21] If this trend continues, Maltese may eventually become redundant in place of English.

Morphing into an Anglo-Italian mix

A tendency in modern Maltese is to adopt further influence from English and Italian.[19] Maltese people tend to prefer to bring their children up in English, while the number of people speaking Italian has also been noted to be increasing due to media outlets, leaving a situation in which if Maltese does survive, it may do so as an even further mix of English and Italian.[21]

Spelling

The media is a large factor in influencing the language, since most media content received in Malta is in English or Italian. Also, online use of Maltese, being very limited, has not allowed for specific requirements of the language, meaning that when typing, 'ċ' is often replaced with 'c', and 'ħ' with 'h'. The undotted 'z' is often written as 'tz' to distinguish it from 'ż' which is written as 'z', while 'ġ' is written as english influenced 'dj' to distinguish it from undotted 'g'. The letter 'y' is also increasingly used to write the letter 'j', which has instead come to be more used for 'ġ', while there is also a tendency to leave out 'j' from situations such as "-ija". [citation needed]

See also

Maltese edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Notes

  1. ^ a b c Ethnologue entry for Maltese
  2. ^ Constitution of Malta, I.5.(1),
  3. ^ a b c d e Brincat (2005)
  4. ^ Vella, Alexandra (2004). "Language contact and Maltese intonation: Some parallels with other language varieties". In Kurt Braunmüller and Gisella Ferraresi (ed.). Aspects of Multilingualism in European Language History. Hamburg Studies on Muliculturalism. John Benjamins Publishing Company. pp. p. 263. ISBN 9027219222. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help); line feed character in |editor= at position 17 (help); line feed character in |publisher= at position 15 (help)
  5. ^ Ignasi Badia i Capdevila. ""A view of the linguistic situation in Malta"". Retrieved 2008-01-04.
  6. ^ Times of Malta, 11 February 2007
  7. ^ "The 'Cantilena'". Retrieved 2007-07-29.
  8. ^ Hume (1996:165)
  9. ^ Hume (1996:165)
  10. ^ Except for a period of roughly one hundred years of nominal Spanish rule over the island, while the government lay in the hands of the Maltese Kunsill Popolari, Malta was continuously in foreign hands up until independence in 1964. This period was termed Żmien l-Ispanjoli.
  11. ^ Friggieri (1994:59)
  12. ^ About Malta; GTS; retrieved on [2008-02-24]
  13. ^ BBC Education - Languages
  14. ^ [1]
  15. ^ Brincat, Joseph, M;Maltese – an unusual formula MED Magazine; [2005-02]; retrieved on [2008-02-22]
  16. ^ Żammit (2000:241-245)
  17. ^ BBC Education - Languages
  18. ^ BBC Education - Languages
  19. ^ a b c Ignasi Badia i Capdevila; A view of the linguistic situation in Malta; NovesSl; [2004]; retrieved on [2008-02-24]
  20. ^ Country report for MINERVA Plus in 2005; Multilingual issues in Malta; Retrieved on [2008-02-24]
  21. ^ a b [2]

References

  • Azzopardi, C. (2007). Gwida għall-Ortografija. Malta: Klabb Kotba Maltin..
  • Borg, A. J; Azzopardi-Alexander, M (1997), Maltese, Routledge, ISBN 0415022436
  • Brincat, Joseph M. (2005), Maltese-an unusual formula, MED Magazine, retrieved 2008-02-22
  • Friggieri, Oliver (1994), "Main Trends in the History of Maltese Literature", Neohelicon, 21 (2): 59–69
  • Hume, Elizabeth (1996), "Coronal Consonant, Front Vowel Parallels in Maltese", Natural Language & Linguistic Theory, 14 (1): 163–203
  • Mifsud, M. (1997). Fuq l-għatba tal-Malti. Strasbourg: Council of Europe. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help).
  • Zammit, Martin (2000), "Arabic and Maltese Cognate Roots", in Mifsud, Manwel (ed.), Proceedings of the Third International Conference of Aida, pp. 241–245, ISBN 99932-0-044-1
  • Vassalli, Michelantonio (1827). Grammatica della lingua Maltese.

External links

Dictionaries

Laws

Organisations

Technology and Maltese

Literature and linguistics

Translations into Maltese

Glossaries and resources of the Maltese language

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