The Maltese Language: A Convergence of Civilizations

Tunisian student Jamil Bou Said told Sky News Arabia: “If you visit Malta, do not worry, you will feel that you are in an Arab country, and if you need material transactions, the numbers are spoken in Maltese as if they were in Arabic completely.”

He explained, “They speak Arabic with the dialect of the people of the Maghreb, but they are not Arabs.”

Malta

• The small island nation of Malta joined the European Union in 2004 and became a member of the Schengen area in 2007.
• Located in the Mediterranean just 80 km south of Italy, Malta is one of the smallest and most densely populated countries in the world.
• It is considered one of the richest places in Europe culturally, historically and linguistically.
• It belongs to the European Union and the Schengen countries, and most of its residents speak Arabic.
• The presence of the Arabic language in it is a natural historical product.

According to Martin Zamit, a professor of Arabic at the University of Malta who translated the Holy Qur’an into the Maltese language, he confirms that “the relationship between the Maltese and Arabic languages ​​reaches the extent of conformity with the rules of grammar, morphology and other rules of the language.”

According to Zamit, “Many of the Maltese Christian religious words that are used in the liturgy are Arabic Islamic words, while we do not find this among the Christians of the Middle East, for example.”

History of the Maltese Language

And the researcher continues: “Malta is a European country with its own independent language, but more than half of its population speaks Arabic with the dialect of the countries of the Maghreb.”

How is that?

Research confirms that “the convergence of the islands that make up Malta played an important role over many decades in the transmission of the language between them during the succession of the powers controlling the Mediterranean.”

She explains that, “as a result of the interaction between the emerging countries of Europe and the ancient Arab cultures in Africa and the Middle East, Maltese society was formed during centuries of foreign rule by various powers such as the Phoenicians, Romans, Greeks and Arabs.”

A language carrying the Maghreb heritage

Moroccan writer and media figure Abd al-Rahim al-Turani said in an exclusive interview with Sky News Arabia that many Arabs are unaware that the people of Malta speak a language close to the colloquial Maghreb dialect, which some researchers describe as “a language that carries the Maghreb heritage.”

Al-Turani continues: “More than 80 percent of the words and phrases included in the Maltese language and rooted in the Arab colloquial lexicon in Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia have been counted. Not to mention that there are many names of cities and villages in Malta that are Arabic names.”

And he adds: “Going back to history, we find that Muslims entered Malta at the end of the ninth century AD, and stayed there for about two centuries.”

And he continues: “Despite the historical estrangement of Malta from Arabs and Muslims, and the introduction of European languages ​​to this Mediterranean island, until the English language became the official language of Malta, but the Maghreb Arabic dialect remained the language of communication and communication between the Maltese, and the instinctively acquired mother tongue outside the educational curricula.” in schools.”

Al-Turani concludes his speech to Sky News Arabia, “Historians say that the Maltese are of Arab origin, from the remnants of the Arabs who lived on the island since the end of the ninth century AD, and the evidence for this is their daily language, which is rooted in the colloquial dialect of the Maghreb, which is spoken in the Tunisian dialect.” .

The official language of Malta is Maltese, along with English as a second language in the country.

Language origins

• The Maltese language is one of the only Semitic languages ​​in the European Union written in Latin letters.
• Maltese is derived from the ancient, extinct Sicilian Arabic language that had spread during the Islamic rule of the islands of Malta and Sicily, which lasted for more than 350 years.

current clarity

• Arabic vocabulary makes up about 70 percent of the Maltese language, which is a mixture of Arabic, Italian, French and Spanish.
• I was influenced by the dialects of the Levant and the Arab Maghreb due to the commercial and tourist factor, and it resembles the Tunisian dialect more than any other dialect.