The origins of the Maltese language are attributed to the arrival, early in the 11th century, of settlers from … See more

Ethnologue reports a total of 530,000 Maltese speakers: 450,000 in Malta and 79,000 in the diaspora. Most speakers also use English.
The largest diaspora community of Maltese speakers is … See more

Maltese is descended from Siculo-Arabic, a Semitic language within the Afroasiatic family, that in the course of its history has been influenced by Sicilian and Italian, to a lesser extent French, and more recently English. To… See more

Urban varieties of Maltese are closer to Standard Maltese than rural varieties, which have some characteristics that distinguish them from Standard Maltese.
They tend to show some archaic features such as th… See more

Voiceless stops are only lightly aspirated and voiced stops are fully voiced. Voicing is carried over from the last segment in obstruent clusters; thus, two- and three-obstruent clusters are either voiceless or voiced thro… See more

The modern system of Maltese orthography was introduced in 1924. Below is the Maltese alphabet, with IPA symbols and approximate English pronunciation:
Final vowels with grave accents (à, è, ì, ò, ù) are also … See more

Although the original vocabulary of the language was Siculo-Arabic, it has incorporated a large number of borrowings from Romance sources of influence (Sicilian, Italian, and French) and, more recently, Germanic ones … See more