18 Facts About Maltese language

Maltese language is a latinised variety of spoken historical Arabic through its descent from Siculo-Arabic, which developed as a Maghrebi Arabic dialect in the Emirate of Sicily between 831 and 1091.

Maltese language has always been written in the Latin script, the earliest surviving example dating from the late Middle Ages.

Origins of the Maltese language are attributed to the arrival, early in the 11th century, of settlers from neighbouring Sicily, where Siculo-Arabic was spoken, reversing the Fatimid Caliphate's conquest of the island at the end of the 9th century.

Largest diaspora community of Maltese language speakers is in Australia, with 36, 000 speakers reported in 2006.

Maltese language has historically been classified in various ways, with some claiming that the ancient Punic language was its origin instead of Siculo-Arabic, while others believed the language to be one of the Berber languages (another family within Afroasiatic), and under the Fascist Kingdom of Italy, it was classified as regional Italian.

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In general, rural Maltese language is less distant from its Siculo-Arabic ancestor than is Standard Maltese language.

Maltese language has final-obstruent devoicing of voiced obstruents and voiceless stops have no audible release, making voiceless–voiced pairs phonetically indistinguishable.

Since Maltese evolved after the Italo-Normans ended 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.

Many examples of written Maltese language exist from before this period, always in the Latin alphabet, Il Cantilena being the earliest example of written Maltese language.

Maltese language has a tendency to have both Semitic vocabulary and vocabulary derived from Romance languages, primarily Italian.

Tendency in modern Maltese language is to adopt further influences from English and Italian.

Complex Latinate English words adopted into Maltese are often given Italianate or Sicilianate forms, even if the resulting words do not appear in either of those languages.

Maltese language has merged many of the original Arabic consonants, in particular the emphatic consonants, with others that are common in European languages.

Days of the week in Maltese are referred to by number, as is typical of other Semitic languages, especially Arabic.

Months of the year in Maltese language are mostly derived from Sicilian, but Frar and Awwissu are possibly derived from African Romance through Siculo-Arabic.

Maltese language il- is coincidentally identical in pronunciation to one of the Italian masculine articles, il.

Maltese language generally receives equal usage in newspaper periodicals to English.

Maltese language population, being fluent in both Maltese language and English, displays code-switching in certain localities and between certain social groups.