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Maltese language
*** Shopping-Tip: Maltese language
{{Infobox Language
|name=Maltese
|nativename=Malti
|familycolor=Afro-Asiatic
|states=
Malta,
Canada,
Australia,
United States,
United Kingdom
|speakers=600,000 +
|fam2=
Semitic languages Semitic
|fam3=Central Semitic
|fam4=South Central Semitic
|fam5=
Arabic language Arabic
|nation=Malta
|agency=
Il-Kunsill Nazzjonali ta' l-Ilsien Malti (since April 2005)
|iso1=mt|iso2=mlt|iso3=mlt}}
'''Maltese''' is a
Semitic language of the
Afro-Asiatic languages Afro-Asiatic language family. It is the national language of
Malta, and an
Languages of the European Union official language of the European Union. It is derived from, and most closely related to,
Arabic language Arabic. Apart from its
phonology, Maltese is quite similar to urban varieties of
Tunisian Arabic, and they are in fact moderately interintelligible, more so than Tunisian Arabic is to other Arabic "dialects" such as
Gulf Arabic. Maltese also shares similarities with other
Maghrebi Arabic North African Arabic dialects; however, in the course of
History of Malta#British Rule Malta's recent history, the language has adopted many loanwords, and even phonetic and phonological features, from
Italian language Southern Italian,
Sicilian language Sicilian, and
English language English.
Maltese is the only Semitic language written in the
Latin alphabet in its
standard language standard form. It is also the only Semitic language native to a
Geopolitics geopolitically European country, although,
Geophysics geophysically, Malta is generally regarded as forming part of the
African plate African continental plate.
Maltese became an
official language of Malta in
1936, alongside English. Before that year, the official language of Malta was
Italian language Italian. Today, there are an estimated 330,000 Maltese speakers. There are a significant number of Maltese expatriates in
Australia, the
United States and
Canada who can still speak the language.
The oldest known document in Maltese is "Il
Cantilena" , a poem from the 15th century written by Pietro Caxaro. For centuries, Maltese was nearly exclusively a spoken language, with writing being done in Arabic or, later, Italian.
Grammar
Its basis is Arabic, with a very large influx of
Romance languages Romance vocabulary, especially
Sicilian language Sicilian and
Norman language Norman French. Although influenced by
Romance languages Romance languages, Maltese grammar is still strongly Semitic.
Adjectives follow
nouns, there are no separately formed native
adverbs, and word order is fairly flexible. As in
Arabic language Arabic and
Hebrew language Hebrew, both nouns and adjectives (those of
Semitic languages Semitic origin) take the definite article (for example ''L-Art l-Imqaddsa'', lit. "The Land the Holy = The Holy Land";
cf. Arabic '''al-'ar{{unicode|�}} 'al-muqaddasa'', Hebrew ''ha'arets hakkedoša''). This rule does not apply to nouns and adjectives of Romance origin.
Nouns are pluralized and also have a
dual grammatical number dual marker (rare among modern European languages, others including
Icelandic language Icelandic,
Slovenian language Slovene and
Sorbian language Sorbian). Verbs still show a
triliteral Semitic pattern, in which a verb is
grammatical conjugation conjugated with
prefixes,
suffixes, and
infixes (for example ''ktibna'', Arabic ''katabna'', Hebrew ''katavnu'' "we wrote"). There are two
grammatical tense 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'' 'Arabic first person plural perfect marker'). Arabic only rarely does this, although several
Varieties of Arabic Arabic dialects like Tunisian do.
Maltese grammar generally shows two patterns, a Semitic pattern and a Romance pattern, usage being selected by word origin and tradition. An Anglo-Saxon pattern in the form of English words adapted to a Maltese structure is a recent linguistic phenomenon.
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"; ''art'', ''artijiet'' "lands (territorial possessions or property)". Semitic plurals, however, are much more complex; if they are regular, they are marked by ''-iet''/''-ijiet'' (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". This is very well-developed in Arabic and also exhibited by Hebrew (''sefer'', ''sfarim'' "books").
Vocabulary
Maltese vocabulary is a hybrid based on a foundation of
Arabic language Arabic Semitic languages Semitic roots with a heavy borrowing of
Sicilian language Sicilian (rather than
Italian language Tuscan Italian) loanwords. In this respect it is similar to
English language English (a Germanic language heavily influenced by French) and
Persian language Persian (an Indo-Iranian language heavily influenced by Arabic).
It is estimated that 60% of the vocabulary is Semitic, the rest being Romance. Usually words expressing basic concepts and ideas are of Arabic origin, whereas more 'learned' words, having to do with new ideas, objects, government, law, education, art, literature, and general learning, are derived from Sicilian. Thus words like ''raġel'' man, ''mara'' woman, ''tifel'' child, ''dar'' house, ''xemx'' sun, ''sajf'' summer, are of Arabic origin. While words like ''skola'' school, ''gvern'' government, ''repubblika'' republic, ''re'' king, ''natura'' nature, ''pulizija'' police, ''ċentru'' center, ''teatru'' theater, ''differenza'' difference, are derived from Sicilian. The perverse result of this highly uneven distribution of loanwords throughout the language is that a speaker of the loanword-source language (in this case Romance language speakers) can understand, for instance, the [http://mt.wikipedia.org main page of the Maltese ] or know the subject of a newspaper article, but cannot understand even such basic things as ''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's formal, academic writing but not understand much simpler sentences.
Romance words usually reflect Sicilian and not Tuscan pronunciation. Thus final 'o' becomes 'u' in Maltese, after Sicilian (e.g. ''teatru'' not ''teatro'' as in Tuscan). Also, final Italian 'e' becomes 'i': ''arti'' art, ''fidi'' faith, ''lokali'' local (cf. Italian ''arte'', ''fede'', ''locale''). This effect is also found in
Brazilian Portuguese. {{IPA|/ʃ/}} (English 'sh') is written 'x' and this produces interesting spellings: ''ambaxxata'' {{IPA|/ambaʃːaːta/}} is 'embassy', ''xena'' {{IPA|/ʃeːna/}} is 'scene' (cf. Italian ''ambasciata, scena'').
English loan words are commonplace, including ''strajk'' strike, ''daljali'' dial, along with ''union'' (as in
trade union), ''leave'' and ''bonus'', which are not transliterated.
Alphabet
Below is the
Maltese alphabet, with
International Phonetic Alphabet IPA symbols and approximate English pronunciation:
{| class="wikitable" cellpadding="3"
!Letter !! IPA !! Approximate English pronunciation
|-
| '''A''' || {{IPA|a}}
| align=left|similar to 'a' in f'''a'''ther
|-
| '''B''' || {{IPA|b}}
| align=left|'''b'''ar, but at the end of a word it is pronounced as [p].
|-
| '''Ċ''' || {{IPA|tʃ}}
| align=left|'''ch'''urch (note: dotless C has been replaced by K.)
|-
| '''D''' || {{IPA|d}}
| align=left|'''d'''ay, but at the end of a word it is pronounced as [t].
|-
| '''E''' || {{IPA|É›}}
| align=left|'''e'''nd
|-
| '''F''' || {{IPA|f}}
| align=left|'''f'''ar
|-
| '''Ä ''' || {{IPA|dÊ’}}
| align=left|'''j'''ump
|-
| '''G''' || {{IPA|É¡}}
| align=left|'''g'''ame, but at the end of a word it is pronounced as [k].
|-
| '''GĦ''' ||
| align=left|has the effect of lengthening and pharyngealizing associated vowels, except when immediately followed by a 'h', in which case it has the sound of a double 'ħ'. (It is slightly akin to English silent 'gh' in words such as "fight", "though", "sigh"). However, if it is found at the end of a word, it has the sound of 'ħ' (qtigħ for example)
|-
| '''H''' ||
| align=left|not pronounced unless it is at the end of a word, in which case it has the sound of 'ħ'.
|-
| '''Ħ''' || {{IPA|ħ}}
| align=left|no English equivalent; sounds like a breathy "h", '''h'''eavy or like the "ch" in German or Scottish 'loch'.
|-
| '''I''' || {{IPA|i}}
| align=left|happ'''y'''
|-
| '''IE''' || {{IPA|iÉ›}}, {{IPA|iË?}}
| align=left|f'''ee'''t
|-
| '''J''' || {{IPA|j}}
| align=left|'''y'''ard
|-
| '''K''' || {{IPA|k}}
| align=left|'''c'''ave
|-
| '''L''' || {{IPA|l}}
| align=left|'''l'''ine
|-
| '''M''' || {{IPA|m}}
| align=left|'''m'''arch
|-
| '''N''' || {{IPA|n}}
| align=left|'''n'''ext
|-
| '''O''' || {{IPA|o}}
| align=left|like 'aw' in l'''aw''', but shorter.
|-
| '''P''' || {{IPA|p}}
| align=left|'''p'''art
|-
| '''Q''' || {{IPA|Ê”}}
| align=left|glottal stop, found in the Cockney English pronunciation of "bo'''tt'''le" or the phrase "uh-oh".
|-
| '''R''' || {{IPA|r}}
| align=left|'''r'''oad
|-
| '''S''' || {{IPA|s}}
| align=left|'''s'''and
|-
| '''T''' || {{IPA|t}}
| align=left|'''t'''ired
|-
| '''U''' || {{IPA|u}}
| align=left|f'''oo'''d
|-
| '''V''' || {{IPA|v}}
| align=left|'''v'''ast, but at the end of a word it is pronounced as [f].
|-
| '''W''' || {{IPA|w}}
| align=left|'''w'''est
|-
| '''X''' || {{IPA|ʃ / ʒ}}
| align=left|'''sh'''ade, sometimes as mea'''s'''ure; when doubled the sound is elongated, similar to "Men'''sch'''" in German.
|-
| '''Å»''' || {{IPA|z}}
| align=left|ma'''z'''e, but at the end of a word it is pronounced as [s].
|-
| '''Z''' || {{IPA|ts / dz}}
| align=left|pi'''zz'''a; when doubled may change to go'''ds'''
|}
External links
{{InterWiki|code=mt}}
-
ChooseMalta.com - Maltese phrase sampler
-
Open source spellchecker (aspell/ispell)
-
Online version of above
-
Tom Edgar's Maltese language page
-
Maltese verbal morphology (PDF)
-
L-Akkademja tal-Malti
-
Il-Kunsill Nazzjonali ta' l-Ilsien Malti
-
Maltese English Dictionary from [http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org Webster's Online Dictionary] - the Rosetta Edition
{{Official EU languages}}
Category:Languages of Malta
Category:Maltese language
af:Maltees
ar:لغة مالطية
ast:Maltés
br:Malteg
bg:МалтийÑ?ки език
zh-min-nan:Malta-gÃ
ca:Maltès
cs:Maltština
da:Maltesisk (sprog)
de:Maltesische Sprache
es:Idioma maltés
eo:Malta lingvo
eu:Maltera
fr:Maltais
gl:Lingua maltesa
ko:몰타어
id:Bahasa Malta
it:Lingua maltese
he:מלטית
li:Maltees
hu:Máltai nyelv
mt:Lingwa Maltija
nl:Maltees
ja:マルタ語
ms:Bahasa Malta
no:Maltesisk språk
nn:Maltesisk språk
pl:Język maltański
pt:LÃngua maltesa
ro:Limba malteză
ru:МальтийÑ?кий Ñ?зык
scn:Lingua maltisi
sk:MaltÄ?ina
fi:Maltan kieli
sv:Maltesiska
wa:Maltès
zh:马尔他è¯
{{catmore}}
Category:Languages of Malta
Category:Arabic languages
*** Shopping-Tip: Maltese language
