The Maltese Language

3. The Maltese Language The Maltese Language ‘materia semitica in bocca romanza’ - Giovanni Mangion a ‘hybrid language which […] stands today as a truly unique linguistic mosaic’ – Hubert-Bonnal and Anne Tronche Since it was first colonised Malta has never been very far from the centre of events and has often played a critical part in the making of history.

4. Malta as ‘l’île sacrée de la Mediterranée’ ’ Ggantija Hal Tarxien Hal Tarxien Ggantija

5. Haġar Qim Hal Tarxien Hal Saflieni

6. History of the Maltese Islands 800 BC The Phoenicians and Carthaginians 218 BC The Romans 870 AD The Arabs 13th century Aragonese/Spanish 1530 The Knights of St John 1798 The French 1800 The British 1964 Maltese independence 1974 Maltese republic

7. St Paul’s Bay St Paul’s Cathedral in Mdina Catacombs of St Paul

8. The Maltese Alphabet Pronunciation ċ ~ church ġ ~ jar għ is silent h is silent like h in heir ħ ~ hat ie ~ peer ż ~ buzz Vowels a e i ie o u a, b, ċ, d, e, f, ġ, g, għ, h, ħ, i, ie, j, k, l, m, n, o, p, q, u, r, s, t, v, w, x, ż, z

9. Maltese words of Semitic origin

10. Trilitteralism

11. The trilitteral system has the capability of creating new words from the verb which exhibits such a root, e.g. mitjar (airport) from T – J – R or semmiegha (a listening audience) from S – M – Għ. Many words of non-Arabic origin have also been incorporated into Maltese through the use of this system, e.g. P – T – R from Pittore (Italian for painter) are extracted and used to derive many of the tenses, verbs, and nouns of this same word, e.g. PiTTeR (he painted), PiTTuR (painter), and tPiTTeR (he is painted). From the S – R – P of serpe (Italian for snake) are derived SeRP (snake), SRieP (snakes), SeRReP (he snaked), SSeRReP (he is snaked), etc.

12. Some sentences utilising verbs designed from trilitteralism Maltese has extended triliterralism in an autonomous fashion and has continued to generate from native roots inherited in Arabic, new words that do not occur in Classical or vernacular Arabic, e.g. ndaħal (he interfered) and ndħil (interference) from daħal (to enter).

13. The Maltese Numbers Unlike French and English, the Maltese numbers after 20, have their tens preceded by the units. E.g. 21 is wieħed u għoxrin Also, unlike French, there is one word for each of the following:

14. Like French, in Maltese, an adjective follows the noun it qualifies and agrees with it in gender and number. However, the adjective is placed after the noun.

15. 1266-83 The Angevins 1283-1410 The Aragonese 1412-1530 The Castillians

16. The effects of Semitic linguistic isolation on Maltese Lexical fusion of discrete Arabic elements Semantic shifts Old Arabic words attested in Classical Arabic

19. Italian influence on Maltese

20. Concatenate Morphology The principle part of a free morpheme is created through a morphemic stem that does not change, and with which are added prefixes and/or suffixes. to pretend

21. to consult

23. French influence on Maltese

24. Inter-War Malta The Semitic-Romance Polarisation Examples of different lexicons for the same concept Il-ġellieda qalbiena kisbu rebħa kbira għal Malta. Is-suldati kuraġġjużi akkwistaw vittorja grandjuża lil Malta. (The courageous warriors won a great victory for Malta.)

25. Malta after 1870 The Language Question Italian as language of social distinction English as language of the empire Labour party → preference of English to Italian Nationalist part → the paripassu system

26. Malta after World War II English Influence on Maltese

27. Maltese Verbs derived from English

28. the national language of Malta in 1934 ↑ Maltese ↓ an official language of the EU in 2004 Bilingualism in Malta …and the Manglishphenomenon