# All dialects: mutual intelligibility with Maltese



## Samo

hi everyone which arabic dialect is most like it,can you understans il malti?

Examples of Maltese words/phrases.


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## alahay

If you speak *any Arabic dialect* (or even the Modern Standard Arabic) *and Italian* you can get away with a decent understanding of the Maltese Language. I'm taking for granted that you speak english already - I mean who doesn't?


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## Heba

I suppose that it is close to the dialect of Kuwaities


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## suzie_pales

helloo...i used to live in malta..and its really related to arbic language cuz in its history arabs used to live in malta be4 maltese!!


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## ^MB^

Hallo suzie, 
             is maltese included arabic letter ? is it's sound like arabic?


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## suzie_pales

hi MB...
maltese language doesn't include arabic letters but some words u can say about it arabic antique...the letters are similar to eng. ,,they cant sound some arabic letters as ''kh'' they pronounce it as ''h''


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## ^MB^

Suzie

can u ad some maltese words to compare between arabic ?


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## suzie_pales

here r some words for examle:  no......''le'' in arabic la 
      how r u?.....''kif int?'' in arabic the same
      fine........ ''tajba'' they prononce it as tayba so the same in arabic 
can i?............''nista'' in arabic ''astatee3''
you want to speak?.....''trid tetkellem?'' in arabic tureed an tatkalam...........
of course no all off the words but im saying that theres a great words same to arabic and also they use alot of italian words cuz malta is situated near italy !!


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## haddad

The Phoenican who came from the arabian peninsula 3500 years ago occupy Malta and the Phoenican language shared similar grammar and words with Hebrew, Aramaic and Arabic.

Many Years later the "Arabs" ( Caanites included) invaded Malta and further adding the Semetic elemants and modern Arabic.

Maltese is a semetic language with Arabic foundation and about 20% Italian. 

The closest its being understood well is Tunisian.

Maltese and north african, sicialians,, levatines arabs and some arabians shared same genes.

So there.


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## Manuel_M

I came across this thread a little late in the day, but I can hopefully shed some light on the nature of Maltese.

As many posters implied Maltese was once a dialect of Arabic, although it has now evolved into a language in its own right. Modern scholarship discounts the Phoenician origin of Maltese - there is hardly a single word in the language which is traceable to Phoenician. It is now held that present-day Maltese originated from Siculo-Arabic, brought over from Sicily around the year 1050 by an Arab colonial force which repopulated Malta, after it had been vacated by its population almost 200 years previously, following a massive Arab attack on the Byzantine-ruled island. Siculo-Arabic was closely related to Maghreb Arabic. 

As time went by, Arab influence waned and European elements began to make their way into the language, reflecting political developments. Sicilian vocabularly, often adapted to fit Arabic structures, infiltrated at an ever-increasing pace, as contacts with a now Christianised Sicily grew. Sicily and Malta shared a common political fate, and were often colonized by the same powers. Sicilian and Latin became the languages of administration, and influenced the spoken local language as well. This trend towards Romanticisation of the language intensified when the Knights of St. John took over the island in 1530, and started using their lingua franca - Italian (Tuscan) - as the language of administration. 

Even the 2 –year occupation by the French (1798 1800) left its linguistic mark (*Bonġu* – _good morning _and *bonswa* – _good evening_) on us. The British period, which lasted 160 years saw the assimilation og thousands of English words into the language (anything from *futbol* to *strajk*).

Contemporary Maltese is thus considered to be basically Arabic , but with about 40% of it vocabulary of Romance (Italian/Sicilian) origin and 20% English.

If people would like more information they can always pm me.


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## mansio

Thank you Manuel, good information. I thought there was a remnant of Phoenician in the language but you showed me it isn't the case.


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## COF

Maltese takes a lot of English and Italian lonewords, but if you can speak Arabic, and know English, you'd be able to understand Maltese very well and would learn it very quickly.


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## suma

for non-Arabs I'd say that your dialect Arabic better be pretty good to attempt to understand Maltese.
Since the Maltese people are entirely Christian, they have had no attachement to the Arabic of the Quran or classical Arabic.

So what, in all likelihood began as the "Maltese dialect" over time diverted so much that it became almost incomprehensible with Arabic and so it became a separate language.

Note that even in among Christian Lebanese, the fact that they lived along side their Muslim neighbors hence the connection to classical Arabic was preserved to a larger extent and so the dialect is kept from diverting too much.


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## haddad

I agree with COF and Suma and manuel. 

Let me add Arabic are styled on root words. If You studied Modern Standard Arabic and Speak North African ( Tunisian/Libyan) Arabic and speak and understand English you can understand Maltese and even speak it but you have to be aware of heavy Italian words. But then again the Tunisian and Libyan dialect speakers can speak and understand Maltese better than to an old lady in North Yemen!

Any ways if you love Arabic language and studying MSA and at least one dialect ( Egytian, Levantine or Dareeja) you can still pick up Maltese faster than anyone else. 

A good way for to pick up or experience Maltese for arabic speakers are to visit Gozo , Valetta or anywhere in Malta and experience is wonderful culture and people. They are still quite similar to Christians Arabs in Syria, Lebanon,Jordan and Palestine in my views. I have been there and converse with Maltese in my own Fusion Arabic 

For more facts contact Manuel


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## MarcB

To add to te excelent description of Manuel.
Maltese is like colloquial Arabic not like fusHa. All colloquial variants have loan words Maltese having more than other varieties.Tunisians can understand Maltese well as it is almost the same also people from Tunis get Italian tv.


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## Anatoli

Day to day speech is like spoken Arabic but most learned words are from European languages To me Maltese sounds very much like Arabic.


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## Ayazid

Hello!

How difficult it is for an Arabic speaking person to understand spoken or written Maltese (give that he/she know its orthographic rules)? And vice-versa, how difficult it is for a Maltese person to understand Arabic (in any form)?


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## djara

When I visited Malta, I was able to read the newspapers and converse with the older generation of Maltese people, mainly using my native Tunisian Arabic darija. Like most Tunisians of my generation I understand some Italian, which obviously helps. I must say that some time is needed to adapt to the "music" of the language and the different pronunciation of some letters.


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## SofiaB

See this post http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=1268769


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## MarcB

For all practical purposes Maltese is a dialect of Arabic. It is closest to Tunisian Arabic. Malta has attended Arabic league meetings as an observer and identifies with Arabic when it is beneficial and does not when it is not.


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## szammel

Here is an interessing bolg article about Maltese in Tunisian arabic (wich the favorite language of tunisian bloggers writing in Araic) http://tarek-cheniti.blogspot.com/2007/09/blog-post.html


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## COF

I have wanted to learn Maltese for a while, but considering it's relative insignificance as a language, a few people have told me that it would be more worth my while studying Arabic to start with, and then perfecting Maltese later, as one would with any dialect of Arabic. Although officially, Maltese is not a dialect of Arabic, many people claim that Maltese is as Arabic as Morrocan or Tunisian is. 

Would speaking MSA in Malta get you anywhere? If you were to address someone in MSA, would they understand roughly what you were saying through their Maltese, or would they be hearing nothing but a foreign language to their ears?

Would studying MSA in any way help me in learning Maltese, or would it be pointless if my primary intention is speaking Maltese?

Also, if MSA is too distant from Maltese, would I have any more luck focusing on the colloquial dialects of North Africa? As far as I'm aware, a resonably comprehensive course is available in Moroccan Arabic, and there is certainly a lot of Egyptian Arabic material, although, Egyptian is more Middle Eastern than North African I believe.

Thanks


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## Qittat Ulthar

Maltese is about a third Arabic, a third Italian and a third English and French. Arabic would certainly help you in understanding Maltese, but I don't think it would get you far. I have never been to Malta so have never tried to get myself understood with Arabic, but looking at the language in papers etc. it seems quite different.


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## WadiH

Mutually intelligible with North African dialects (especially Tunisian)?  Yes, at least to a degree.  But with MSA?  I doubt it.  But then again, people rarely learn MSA in isolation, so if you learn MSA and simultaneously get exposed to dialects like Egyptian, then you could reach a point where it would help you understand Maltese (at least in writing).


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## Talib

Maltese? I would say my knowledge of English would come more in handy there, really, although I do notice a few Arabic words in it. It's not very much like MSA though, I can tell you.


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## clevermizo

Talib said:


> Maltese? I would say my knowledge of English would come more in handy there, really, although I do notice a few Arabic words in it. It's not very much like MSA though, I can tell you.



A few? Maltese can be spoken in such a way that almost its entire vocabulary is Arabic. Anyway, there are numerous threads on this topic; I'll add some links in a bit.


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## Abu Rashid

I have a friend who is Tunisian but also lived for some time in Italy and speaks Italian quite fluently, and he says he understands Maltese almost perfectly.

So perhaps learn Tunisian and Italian... or alternatively, just learn Maltese 

I'm sure there's some resources available for it.

Talib,



> I would say my knowledge of English would come more in handy there



I understand quite a few words from Maltese, and none of them are English. It is very much like Arabic, obviously it's been altered quite a lot, and since it's had no contact/standardisation with Fus7a, it's very colloquial.


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## barkley04

Can the maltese language be considered as a dialect of the arabic language??


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## Masjeen

Well, Maltese was an arabic dialect before the entering of the 50% of it's vocabulary  from Italian and English.


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## A.F.Ferri

Maltese is a Semetic language, meaning it is historically derived from the same linguistic group as Arabic. Its closest historical relation is with Sicilian Arabic: a language that existed during 10th century when Sicily, and Malta, were under Islamic, Arab, rule. Large parts of the modern Maltese vocabulary are derived from Italian and English. The former as Malta has largely been within the Italian cultural sphere and the latter because Malta was, from 1814 to 1964, a British territory. Maltese wouldn't be considered Arabic though the two are closely related.


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## barkley04

As far as the maltese language is concerned, i found it very close to the tunisian language; both languages have got a lot in common like prepositions, articles ............. and even at the sentence level, maltese people use the same ellipses we use in the tunisian language to avoid repetition.


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## clevermizo

A.F.Ferri said:


> Maltese is a Semetic language, meaning it is historically derived from the same linguistic group as Arabic.



Maltese is historically derived from Arabic is a more accurate way to say this. Maltese was originally a dialect of Sicilian Arabic. The connections that have been attempted between it and ancient Punic are akin to those proponents of Lebanese Arabic being truly Aramaic or Phoenician. These claims are not supported by more than circumstantial evidence. So yes it is Semitic, but to say "it is historically derived from the same linguistic group as Arabic" makes it sound like it is a cousin of Arabic and not a daughter.



> Maltese wouldn't be considered Arabic though the two are closely related.


Maltese is more or less within the range of variation exhibited by Arabic dialects, so it in theory _could_ be considered a dialect of Arabic. However, due to sociocultural reasons, it is considered a language in its own right. It is the only dialect of Arabic to have been standardized and attained separate language status.



barkley04 said:


> As far as the maltese language is concerned, i found it very close to the tunisian language; both languages have got a lot in common like prepositions, articles ............. and even at the sentence level, maltese people use the same ellipses we use in the tunisian language to avoid repetition.



Yes, Tunisian Arabic is alleged to be the closest living dialect of Arabic to the Maltese language. That said there are innovations in Maltese. In pronunciation they have lost the sounds ع, غ, ه, ص,ض,ط,ظ and now pronounce ق as ء, although this feature is shared by dialects in the Levant and Egypt. Actually, I believe that the pronunciation of ق as ء is a new feature (i.e., the last hundred years or so), and historical descriptions of Maltese speech from previous centuries still have it pronounced as ق. 

Since the title of this thread has been change to "Similarities Between Maltese and Arabic", I suppose it's a good place to note some, well, similarities. 

1. إمالة: Maltese exhibits al-ʔimāla to an extreme degree, where ــا is pronounce [īə] a bit like the English "ea" in "fear". Imāla is blocked in certain situations by the presence of ع or ح (għ or ħ in their orthography) or what were historicaly ط ص ض ظ: giddieb كذّاب but tallab طلّاب (meaning "beggar").

2. الإضافة exists however there is a preference for a structure with _ta'_ which functions like تبع،متاع،بتاع in Arabic dialects: _mart l-avukat_ the lawyer's wife vs. _il-mara ta' l-avukat_. 

3. اسم التصغير: fqayyar فقيّر from fqīr فقير. Fqayyar functions a bit like مسكين. Like Egyptian Arabic, there are some words that are actually تصغير but are more common than the regular forms (I'm thinking of Egyptian قريّب): For example, dgħayyef (ضعيّف) is the word for "thin/weak" rather than the "normal" form ضعيف dgħīf.

4. اسم التفضيل Interestingly, they have made a word for "better" (أحسن) from the root خير as أخير pronounced أحْــيَــر aħjar. Words of European origin do not get اسم تفضيل but are made into the comparative or superlative by using _aktar_ or _iżyed (aktar edukat: _more educated).
5. Most of the Arabic جموع التكسير forms can be found in Maltese, and they also have many European words fit to broken plural patterns. _bint/bniet _بنت/بنات, _dar/djar_ دار/ديار but also _serp/sriep_ (snake(s)).

6. Negation is made by m(a)...š ما .....ش common to many Arabic dialects. The personal pronouns are also negated this way.

7. The relative pronoun الذي/التي/الذين is _illi _or just _li_, which is nearly universal in Arabic dialects.

8. European verbs are usually fit to the pattern فعلل where the last consonant is usual ى: huwa kanta/ikanta (he sang/sings), huwa pinġa/ipinġi (he painted/paints). There is an interesting interplay between Semitic and Romance grammar here. If the original verb was of infinitives of type _-are_ in Italian, the form is _fagħla, (j)ifagħla _فعلى/يفعلى. If the original verb was of infinitives of type _-ire/ere_ in Italian, the form is _fagħla, (j)ifagħli_ فعلى يفعلي.

9. Like North African dialects, the first person in verbs has the prefix n-, and the plural has n-....-u/w. For example: _nikteb_ I write, _niktbu_ We write, نكتب/نكتبو.

10. Future tense: The particle _sa_ is used to indicate near future: _meta sa jiġi Malta ħuk_ When shall your brother come to Malta? I've only known Fus7a to have this _sa-_ particle. The other particles like ħa or għad are known in Arabic dialects. There is also the particle _ser_ which is a shortened form of _sejjer_ ساير.


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## WadiH

As Clevermizo has said, saying that Maltese is "related to" Arabic understates the case.  Maltese is descended from Arabic.  It is a dialect of Arabic that later developed into an independent language.


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## Bruss04

Clevermizo, you don't happen to know of any sites or clips online where maltese can be heard?


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## barkley04

Il Malti is really quite close to the tunisian arabic. That's a fact.
I listened to a maltese radio today and managed to understand some words and that was the first time ever that i could listen to Malti.


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## clevermizo

Bruss04 said:


> Clevermizo, you don't happen to know of any sites or clips online where maltese can be heard?



Youtube links are not allowed to be posted here on the forum, but if you search there a bit, there are lots of Maltese مسلسلات, just look for _drama maltija_. Also if you search on Google you can find Internet radio stations and similar things.


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## Josh_

clevermizo said:


> 4. اسم التفضيل Interestingly, they have made a word for "better" (أحسن) from the root خير as أخير pronounced أحْــيَــر aħjar. Words of European origin do not get اسم تفضيل but are made into the comparative or superlative by using _aktar_ or _iżyed (aktar edukat: _more educated).


Actually, أخير is apparently the original اسم التفضيل in Arabic (thus it conformed to the standard اسم التفضيل pattern), but the hamza was eventually lost due to frequency of use, at least according to the Arab grammarian Antoine Dahdah.  The same goes for شر. He says:

خير وشر أصلهما أَخْيَرُ وأَشْرُّ. فقد سقطت همزتاهما لكثرة الاستعمال.ا\

So, while it could be that أخير from خير was an innovation  originating within Maltese, it also could be that the hamza had not yet been (completely) dropped from the Arabic أخير when Maltese broke off as a separate language.of


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## clevermizo

Josh_ said:


> So, while it could be that أخير from خير was an innovation  originating within Maltese, it also could be that the hamza had not yet been (completely) dropped from the Arabic أخير when Maltese broke off as a separate language.of



Does your understanding of the original أخير make sense with the fact that the Arabs left Sicily and Malta in the 11th century after being conquered by the Normans? The Emirate of Sicily (إمارة صقلية) (which included Malta) began in 965 and that's when Arabic was adopted as the language of the islands. Wouldn't the form have been خير already by then?


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## Rochedileo

_*I do speak Maghreb Dialect because of my origines and I consider maltese as a part of Maghreb dialects with some few Italian and English Words!Gramatically,structurelly and in mater of vacabular Maltese is a maghrebian Dialect spoken with a foreigner accent!*_


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## Silky_Sword

Maltese is a North African branch of Arabic, we're told, however I'v noticed that at least half the time the words are pronounced the Lebanese Beiruti way. The 'a' sound is turned into 'ay' so 'baab' (door) becomes pronounced like the word 'babe'  'tuffah' (apples) becoems 'teffaih', EXACTLY like Lebanese people speak!!! This reinforces the 'Phoenician' Semitic origin of their language, or the skeleton of it.

I've, however, noticed (from what I remember, upon trying to study the language myself -before giving that up, as it just seemed like a corrupted Arabic / colloquial Arabic to me!) that their word for 'sun' is 'xamex' or was it 'xamxa'? Either way, the 'x' is the 'sh' sound and it's repeated twice, just like in ancient Semitic languages like Assyians from what I remember. Modern fus7a (fusHa) Arabic is the most refined and pleasantly sounding of all Semitic languageas know and still alive, like Assyrian, Hebrew or Aramaic. The second 'sh' in the word for 'sun' becomes 's' only in Arabic, making the word much more pleasant to hear  It has also less 'kh' sound compared to Assyrian and Hebrew.

The late amazing Levantine writer the Prince Shakib Arslan visited the island almost a century ago and wrote about its Arabic in one of his books which I have. He also visited parts of Europe that weren't conventionally known to have any Arab or Arabic influence, and he tried to trace that influence in those countries. It also included Geneva, the capital city of Switzerland, the word itself he traced its Arabic origin, and he did that with many other in his book! 

So while the Maltese have also city-names that follow the 'endearing' Lebanese way of giving things names (like Kammounah (Comino now?), Felflah), they say 'triq' like in Tunisian Arabic, or "ihna Nsara" (We are Christians) also the Tunisian way of making the first letter 'silent' (without a vowel after it), like also Felfla (not Felfelah) -"Nsara" in standarad Arabic is Nasara.

So while the Lebenese (Phoenician, ancient Semitic) origin is evident, the Tunisian (North African Arabic) influence is also very evident (another example: Mdina, not Madina).

It was sad to read, while I was familiarizing myself with the island and its language, to read bigot, anti-Islamic remarks by some Maltese politicians, due to what they perceived as the link to Islam their language's similarity to Arabic brings to the island and its people!


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## إسكندراني

Tunisian has this soft 'a' as well.


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## Silky_Sword

إسكندراني said:


> Tunisian has this soft 'a' as well.



Don't understand what you're referring to here, bro...


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## إسكندراني

Silky_Sword said:


> at least half the time the words are pronounced the Lebanese Beiruti way. The 'a' sound is turned into 'ay' so 'baab' (door) becomes pronounced like the word 'babe'  'tuffah' (apples) becoems 'teffaih', EXACTLY like Lebanese people speak!!! This reinforces the 'Phoenician' Semitic origin of their language, or the skeleton of it.
> 
> I've, however, noticed (from what I remember, upon trying to study the language myself -before giving that up, as it just seemed like a corrupted Arabic / colloquial Arabic to me!) that their word for 'sun' is 'xamex' or was it 'xamxa'? Either way, the 'x' is the 'sh' sound and it's repeated twice, just like in ancient Semitic languages like Assyians from what I remember.


I think all of this is true for Tunisian, so there might be no need to jump to Beirut.


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## Silky_Sword

إسكندراني said:


> I think all of this is true for Tunisian, so there might be no need to jump to Beirut.



I don't think the 'alef' in Tunis is مائلة like in Lebanese, bro, is it?

البيب and تفيحة is a well-known Lebanese way. But if the Tunisians do speak like that, then that only confirms the theory about the Phoenician origin of Malta, as the Tunisians themselves had on their coasts Phoenicians colonies (Carthage, an example). So that way of speaking must be the Phoenician way that originated on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean (Lebanon to be exact).

Tunisians noticiably look different from other North Africans, due to the Phoenician 'stock' I'd also say.


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## إسكندراني

Silky_Sword said:


> I don't think the 'alef' in Tunis is مائلة like in Lebanese, bro, is it?


Oh, this one is most certainly one of Tunisian's most funny perks 
لِتْوَيْنسَ
التوانسة


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## Abu Rashid

Silky_Sword said:
			
		

> Maltese is a North African branch of Arabic, we're told, however I'v  noticed that at least half the time the words are pronounced the  Lebanese Beiruti way.



There are some features of Maltese which do appear to resemble Eastern dialects more (not necessarily Beiruti Lebanese though). I think the Eastern dialects are a lot more conservative than the Western dialects, and since Maltese was separated from the Arabic world about 1000 years ago, it therefore still retains some of those conservative features the other Western dialects lost.



			
				Silky_Sword said:
			
		

> that their word for 'sun' is 'xamex' or was it 'xamxa'? Either way, the  'x' is the 'sh' sound and it's repeated twice, just like in ancient  Semitic languages like Assyians from what I remember.



I've heard of some Arabic speakers doing this, but more based on [lower] social status, or poorer education, than on regional variation. Akkadian merged sin & shin, hence the reason the word for sun is shamshu in Akkadian. Hebrew & Aramaic did it as well for this word, but the Arabian languages did not. Not just Arabic, but also the Sayhadic (Ancient South Arabian) languages kept it as shin-meem-sin. So it's not a distinction between ancient and modern Semitic languages.



			
				Silky_Sword said:
			
		

> The second 'sh' in the word for 'sun' becomes 's' only in Arabic



It didn't become s in Arabic, it remained s in Arabic (as it was in proto-Semitic), it changed in the other languages.



			
				Silky_Sword said:
			
		

> He also visited parts of Europe that weren't conventionally known to  have any Arab or Arabic influence, and he tried to trace that influence  in those countries. It also included Geneva, the capital city of  Switzerland, the word itself he traced its Arabic origin, and he did  that with many other in his book!



Actually Switzerland is known to have been settled by a large group of Arabs in the 10th. century. There is a book about this called Out of Arabia.



			
				Silky_Sword said:
			
		

> So while the Lebenese (Phoenician, ancient Semitic) origin is evident



I don't see why it's Lebanese specifically, it's more a generic Eastern Colloquial tendancy, and I think Phoenician influence is minimal. By the time Arabic arrived, Malta had been a Roman island for many centuries, and probably had very little Phoenician influence left.


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## Ustaath

; languages and their origins will remain debatable since they are living entities and change and morph in unexpected ways, and though linguists might not want to hear this, in unpredictable ways ... 
simplistically put, Maltese has Arabic syntax with a large base of non-semitic loan words, just like English has a Germanic syntax with a large base of non-Germanic loan words . but since English has evolved much longer, it has diverted away from it's Germanic roots more significantly and in a different direction than -for example- it's closest Germanic relative: Frisian, whereas Malta's relative isolation helped conserve a larger Arabic structure.
As much as I would like to as a Lebanese, I really can't support the archaic theory that Maltese has any Phoenician influence in it's language, though we do have a common gene stock.
However genetics of language differs form human genetics :0


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## clevermizo

Moderator's Note:

This thread is for the discussion of similarities between Maltese and Arabic. To discuss other topics (relationships between other dialects of Arabic and فصحى , Ancient Egyptian language, etc.) please post to related threads or start new threads where appropriate and in the appropriate forum (if not here, then Other Languages or Etymology & History of Languages).

Staying on-topic helps keep our corner of WR organized and easily searchable by users here.

Thank you for your understanding,

clevermizo
Moderator


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## Tracer

Ustaath said:


> simplistically put, Maltese has Arabic syntax with a large base of non-semitic loan words


 

I took someone's advice and went to YouTube to listen to a drama show in spoken Maltese. Although I could catch the Arabic and Italian words, the fact is *I had no idea what they were really saying, except in the vaguest way.*

I heard, for example, "shandak?" which in the context obviously was Arabic "weish 3andak?" {what's the matter with you?}. But the reply was totally lost to me.

I also went to a drama show in Moroccan and Tunisian.

Bottom line: Moroccan and Tunisian are definitely "Arabic": Maltese is definitely not.

I've run into a similar situation with Persian and Catalan. Although I can clearly hear and understand the many Arabic words in Persian, in the end, I have no idea what the speaker is really saying. Ditto with Catalan....supposedly, if you're a native Spanish speaker, you can understand spoken Catalan. Uhhh, no, you can't.

Upon first hearing the Maltese drama show, it sounded to me like an Italian dialect. The stress, emphasis and lilt of Maltese is very close to spoken Italian.......and nowhere near to Arabic in this respect. Also, it was the Italian words that seemed to predominate.

As Ustaadh mentioned above: Maltese has Arabic syntax with a large base of non-semitic loan words. Exactly. Problem is, a language is understood not by its syntax but by its vocabulary.

Here's a sample of written Maltese which I've previously used in this Forum (from wikipedia). The words in RED are from Latin, the word in BLACK show the Arabic syntax:

"L-Unjoni hija mibnija fuq il-valuri ta' rispett għad-dinjità tal-bniedem, ta' libertà, ta' demokrazija, ta' ugwaljanza, ta' l-istat tad-dritt u tar-rispett għad-drittijiet tal-bniedem, inklużi d-drittijiet ta' persuni li jagħmlu parti minn minoranzi.".....

It's obvious which predominates.

2nd Bottom Line: Maltese may technically be classified as a Semitic langauge with ultimate syntactic roots in Arabic and with a large number of Italian words.

But that doesn't mean that if you're a native Arabic or Italian speaker, you can understand it, even if you know both Italian and Arabic fluently. Anybody who says differently, well.......where's that salt shaker?

Maltese is now a separate independent language which must be learned as any other new language must be. Knowing Arabic or Italian will definitely help, but if you want to attain any useful proficiency level in it, you got to "hit the books."


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## clevermizo

Tracer said:


> I took someone's advice and went to YouTube to listen to a drama show in spoken Maltese. Although I could catch the Arabic and Italian words, the fact is *I had no idea what they were really saying, except in the vaguest way.*



The truth is though, that I could say the same about Tunisian Arabic or any Arabic dialect with which I'm unfamiliar. But I tend to agree with you.

Anecdotally, when I started learning Maltese, I found it very easy once I learned the orthography. I found the written Maltese completely intelligible to me as I have both a strong basis in colloquial Arabic and Romance languages. But it's definitely the combination of both - so I agree that we can't say just with Arabic alone can you find it intelligible. There are grammatical features of Maltese that are Romance in origin, even though using Arabic words within an otherwise Romance syntax! Without the marriage of the two, I think one would be lost.

Despite this intelligibility in writing, I did find the spoken language difficult to understand and still do to some extent. I try to watch dramas or other shows online when I can but I focus primarily on Arabic and I have not devoted myself fully to Maltese. The pace of the speech and the rhythm combining both the Arabic and Romance elements makes it quite unique to me but also difficult to understand in fluid speech.



> Upon first hearing the Maltese drama show, it sounded to me like an Italian dialect. The stress, emphasis and lilt of Maltese is very close to spoken Italian.......and nowhere near to Arabic in this respect. Also, it was the Italian words that seemed to predominate.


I hear a mixture of both, personally. There are some things that seem "So Arabic!" to me and some things that seem "So Italian!"



> As Ustaadh mentioned above: Maltese has Arabic syntax with a large base of non-semitic loan words. Exactly. Problem is, a language is understood not by its syntax but by its vocabulary.


Actually, I disagree with this. Maltese has a combination of Arabic and Romance syntax, and a combination of both Arabic and non-Arabic vocabulary. It's truly a mixture - you can't separate the two things!

For example consider how the verb "to download" was imported into Maltese.

This verb is _iddawnlodja_.

So the base of the verb is the English word _download_ pronounced [daunlo:d] as in English and spelled _dawnlod_ in Maltese orthography.

The initial _d_ is doubledand the initial _i_ is epenthetic to facilitate pronunciation. The initial doubling of the consonant in this way comes from southern Italian dialects. You even find it as far away as Neapolitan.

Finally, the final suffix -_ja_ is not a typical way to make verbs in Arabic, but it is suffixing a final _alif maqsuura_ ـى. You find this then in the conjugation:

jiena ddawnlodj*ajt* (I downloaded, etc.).

In a single word, an English loan has been modified morphologically in both _Arabic_ and _Italian_ ways. And that's grammar alone. 

Even if we only consider Arabic words, we see Italian influences in grammar. For example, a common way to form a passive voice is to use the verb _gie_ (to come, جاء) along with the passive participle of the verb.

_Hija giet miktuba_ - it (fem.) was written

All of these words are Arabic words. The structure comes from the Italian passive voice structure using the verb _venire_ although it applies to Arabic words as well here.

By the way, you can also say _hija nkitbet_ - it was written which I think is less colloquial.



> Furthermore, you find structures like
> Here's a sample of written Maltese which I've previously used in this Forum (from wikipedia). The words in RED are from Latin, the word in BLACK show the Arabic syntax:
> 
> "L-Unjoni hija mibnija fuq il-valuri ta' rispett għad-dinjità tal-bniedem, ta' libertà, ta' demokrazija, ta' ugwaljanza, ta' l-istat tad-dritt u tar-rispett għad-drittijiet tal-bniedem, inklużi d-drittijiet ta' persuni li jagħmlu parti minn minoranzi.".....
> 
> It's obvious which predominates.


That's only because you chose that one text. If we look at the Maltese Bible:

(Genesis 1:1 - 1:6)

Fil-bidu Alla ħalaq is-sema u l-art:*(Gen:1:2)* u kienet l-art tahwid u baħħ; u d-dlam kien fuq wicc l-abbissi u fuq wicc l-ibħra kien jittajjar l-ispirtu ta' Alla.*(Gen:1:3)* U qal Alla: ̋Ha jkun id-dawl.̏ U d-dawl sar.*(Gen:1:4)* U ra Alla d-dawl li kien tajjeb. U Alla fired id-dawl mid-dlam.*(Gen:1:5)* U d-dawl Alla semmieh jum, u d-dlam sejjahlu lejl.     U dalam u sebah - L-ewwel jum.*(Gen:1:6)*

In red, I have shown the Romance-derived vocabulary. Everything else is Arabic. There are only two. By the way, there was plenty of Italian influence in Maltese by the time the translation of the Bible was made into it.

I can even directly re-write it in Arabic characters 

في البدو الله خلق السما والأرط (أرض) وكانت الأرط تهويد وبحّ والضلام (ظلام) كان فوق وتش (وجه) الأبسّي (الوهدة) وفوق وجه الأبحرة كان يتطيّر الإسبيرتو (الروح) تاالله (تاع الله) . وقال الله: ها يكون الضول (الضوء) والضول صار. ورا الله اللي (إنه) كان طيب. والله فرد الضول مالضلام والضول سماه يوم والضلام صيّحله ليل. وضلم وصبح -الأول يوم.



By the way, although all those words except two are Arabic, can you find the Romance syntax?  It, by the way, is using the relative pronoun _li_ (from _illi_ which like other dialects is the colloquial form of الذي), however using it not as a relative pronoun, but as a conjunction (like _que_ in Romance languages which can function as both).  

(Interesting I thought that they use the verb صيّح to "call" سمّى whereas in Arabic it's only to shout or scream  .

It's important to note that a hallmark of Church Maltese is using mostly Arabic words. However it demonstrates that in Maltese you can often write a sentence which is mostly Arabic, or you can write one which is mostly Romance. I could re-write that paragraph from Genesis using many more Romance words if I wanted. That stylistic flexibility is very interesting in this language, and choosing from what stock you populate your sentences postures your utterance in different ways. Similarly in many dialects of Arabic, inserting more English words or French has a certain social effect, in Maltese choosing between Arabic and Romance synonyms can be conscious and have a similar effect on interlocutors. Most of the core influence in Maltese is from southern Italian dialects. However, in a previous generation, using more _standard_ Italian vocabulary was very "cool" and in vogue. Nowadays the same is true of English. But again, you could say the same sentences using mostly Arabic words if you wanted it. It depends on context and how "modern" you want to seem. It's very very similar to the way English is used by the youth in Jordan or the way that French and English are used in Lebanon. The difference being that these are readily admitted (although sometimes not without a fight  ) into the written language which is more flexible since it's all عامي. In Lebanon or Jordan you couldn't write a verb like شو بدك تدونلود ?  because there is still Fuṣħa which predominates as the written language.



> 2nd Bottom Line: Maltese may technically be classified as a Semitic langauge with ultimate syntactic roots in Arabic and with a large number of Italian words.
> 
> But that doesn't mean that if you're a native Arabic or Italian speaker, you can understand it, even if you know both Italian and Arabic fluently. Anybody who says differently, well.......where's that salt shaker?


Actually in my opinion, if you know a colloquial dialect of Arabic fluently and fluent Italian and maybe a southern Italian dialect fluently, you will find _written_ Maltese completely understandable, and you will be able to get used to spoken Maltese with time, especially if spoken slowly.

I'm not implying you shouldn't hit the books, by the way. 

However, if you don't have a good background in colloquial Arabic and Romance languages, learning Maltese will be very difficult. The reason for this is that the language was only standardized in the early 20th century. Because of this, many grammatical rules are not fully explained by the existing pedagogical works, of which there are very few. For example, Maltese doesn't mark stress or vowel length in words, and books don't explain it other than sometimes saying "this vowel is long sometimes, sometimes it's not, etc.", "sometimes this is stressed, sometimes it's not."! If I didn't know colloquial Arabic patterns and Romance patterns, I wouldn't know how to pronounce anything I read!


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## Ustaath

Great Job clevermizo  I enjoyed reading this


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## إسكندراني

Ustaath said:


> Great Job clevermizo  I enjoyed reading this


 Not to shake a stick at


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## Ihsiin

clevermizo said:


> Even if we only consider Arabic words, we see Italian influences in grammar. For example, a common way to form a passive voice is to use the verb _gie_ (to come, جاء) along with the passive participle of the verb.
> 
> _Hija giet miktuba_ - it (fem.) was written
> 
> All of these words are Arabic words. The structure comes from the Italian passive voice structure using the verb _venire_ although it applies to Arabic words as well here.



I have a (very) little knowledge of Italian, but I'm only aware of forming the passive with essere (era scritto) and with a reflexive pronoun (si è scritto). Could you provide some examples of the passive with venire?

I think one could compare Maltese to English. English is fundamentally a Germanic language with a heavy romance influence via French, in terms of vocabulary mainly, but also in terms of syntax. If you exposed an English speaker (who spoke no other language whatsoever) to various foreign languages, the language he would recognise most words from is French. However, if he sat down and analysed a passage of, taking any Germanic language almost at random, Swedish, say, he'll uncover a greater common "feeling" of the language (and I'm not just talking syntactically). 
Similarly, Maltese shares an Arabic "feeling", a sense of common constructions and a common idea of how language works.

I can see, since fus7a has no place in Malta, and perhaps there is a desire within Malta to appear more similar to Europe, that there is a case for calling it a distinct language from Arabic (and the Arabic dialects). I, however, don't think the yapping of politicians are anything to be taken account of, and looking at the language as a language and nothing more, it is fundamentally Arabic, despite the level of foreign influence.


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## clevermizo

Ihsiin said:


> I have a (very) little knowledge of Italian, but I'm only aware of forming the passive with essere (era scritto) and with a reflexive pronoun (si è scritto). Could you provide some examples of the passive with venire?



I'm not an Italian speaker, but there's a whole thread about it here on WR.   (And I'm sure if you search, there are bound to be some others, like this one I just found)



> I, however, don't think the yapping of politicians are anything to be taken account of, and looking at the language as a language and nothing more, it is fundamentally Arabic, despite the level of foreign influence.


Who are these yapping politicians?  I think Maltese does warrant itself being called a distinct language. It's distinct in that the informal mixing of Romance and Arabic or Arabic and non-Arabic which has taken place in other dialects of Arabic, *has actually been standardized in Maltese*. Once so established, it definitely sets itself apart from the Arabic-speaking world. The Maltese at some times have desired to purge themselves of European influence (the early attempts at standardization in the 18th-19th centuries for example by Mikiel Anton Vassalli) as well as at other times to purge themselves of an Arabic identity.

Like I said in my lengthy post, Maltese is very mixed. It is not just  Arabic grammar with non-Arabic vocabulary. There are elements of  non-Arabic grammatical influence on Arabic vocabulary and vice versa.  This is quite different from what we see in most Arabic dialects where  the non-Arabic influence seems entirely superficial at the level of lexicon and doesn't penetrate the core of the language.

Ultimately, the decision about language is a sensitive one and one must ask the native speaker himself. If he does not consider himself to be speaking Arabic, then we must respect that.  Because even if we think that objectively he may really be speaking Arabic,* the very fact that he chooses to say he doesn't*, in some ways means that he isn't. This conscious or non-conscious decision shapes the way language is used in my opinion. The overwhelming majority of Maltese say "We speak Maltese" and they don't say "We speak Arabic." That's quite enough for me. In the community of linguistic science, no one seriously denies however that Maltese falls under the umbrella of a continuum of spoken Arabic, except for fringe theories about it being Punic or something else (perhaps brought by space aliens  ) that have arisen over the years.


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## Ihsiin

Thanks for those links. I learn something new everyday.

The standardisation is precisely what I was getting at when I talked  about the "yapping of politicians". To me, it doesn't make a difference  whether a language is standardised or not. What matters to me is that  the language is spoken. Whereas in the bulk of the Arabic world, no  spoken language is the official standard language, Malta has made the  colloquial vernacular official. But to me, that's just politics. It  doesn't really change anything we call something "standard" or "not  standard".

I appreciate that Maltese has an extensive influence from non-Arabic  sources, greater than most (if not all) (other) Arabic dialects. I don't  think the use of some non-Arabic grammar is unique to Maltese. In  Iraqi, for example, there is the word "khosh" (from Persian, I believe),  meaning "good". Unlike other adjectives, khosh always comes before the  noun it qualifies, and is never inflected for gender or number. I don't  know if this reflects Persian grammar (I have virtually no knowledge  about Persian), but it's certainly out of line with normal, Arabic  grammar. Of course, such examples aren't as abundant in Iraqi (and other  Arabic dialects) as they are in Maltese, but that's not to say they  don't exist.

And I think this is where we come to the crux of the matter. You think  that how the native thinks of his language matters; I don't. I think the  language continues to exist in the same form whether any individual  speaker considers it to be this kind of a language, or that kind of a  language. I think on this issue, we're just going to have to agree to  disagree.

Incidentally, I'm of the opinion that Arabic is very much a language  family, and all the modern "dialects" of Arabic are languages in their  own right.
Well, to a certain degree. The exact nuances as to what distinguished a dialect from a language seem rather arbitrary to me, and that particular debate is not one I'd like to participate in.


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## إسكندراني

Listening to a random tv clip on youtube in maltese, (try searching programm tan-nies), it's a lot like an arab who's lived his whole life in Europe; like a super-extreme version of Egyptians who lived their whole life in the UK and when speaking amongst themselves would say stuff like (ye2oopen eldoor) in the middle of a long discussion because the arabic words didnt come to mind .
The syntax & feel is totally like tunisian Arabic.
In fact, even though I was aware it was very 'similar' to Arabic, I was shocked how Arabic it was when I just listened. It's so much like a خواجة speaking fluently, but adding lots of Italian and occasional English words. It could certainly 'be Arabic' if it avoided using so many loanwords for technical concepts, and 'chose to be'!


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## Bruss04

Tracer said:


> Upon first hearing the Maltese drama show, it sounded to me like an Italian dialect. The stress, emphasis and lilt of Maltese is very close to spoken Italian.......and nowhere near to Arabic in this respect.



If you listen to Libyan being spoken, the accent, the stress pattern and vowel sounds are, to my ears, _at times_ quiet similar sounding to Italian. Since Arabic dialects sound very different depending on the region I don't think the sound of Maltese makes it any less Arabic, when and if in fact Arabic words are used.


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## Ustaath

Political and ideological prejudices ( and in many cases religious) do influence where we draw a line between dialects and languages - Scandinavia chose to call them languages, Malta with it European affiliation acknowledges Maltese as a Semitic language- boasting to be the only official Semitic language in the union
According to one's definition of what is and is not a dialect- Maltese falls in the twilight zone with legitimate arguments on both sides.


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## إسكندراني

As it currently stands, there's no argument in my opinion about it being a language, but I believe that almost the only reason for this is having imported so many italian words!


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## rayloom

I don't know...
I got interested by the discussion here so I went and watched Maltese videos & material on Youtube (news, bible, series...etc), and strangely enough, I was able to identify more the Italian & English words than the Arabic words (although I don't know Italian, but I could understand quite a number based on my English & limited French). Only Arabic I could identify were the numbers and just some word every here & there (and the ta' of course)! Anyways I'd still remain oblivious to the scenario or topic.
Reading Maltese was another story. I found it more comprehensible that way.
I guess it's thus a problem of phonology that makes it so distant (to me)!
It would be interesting to know, however, whether native Maltese speakers are more able to understand Arabic (dialectal or otherwise) than the other way round.

P.S. I'm quite unfamiliar with the Western Arabic dialects, so it might be actually more understandable to them!


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## Hemza

clevermizo said:


> It's distinct in that the informal mixing of Romance and Arabic or Arabic and non-Arabic which has taken place in other dialects of Arabic, *has actually been standardized in Maltese*. Once so established, it definitely sets itself apart from the Arabic-speaking world.


Having been standardised isn't (in my modest opinion) enough to prevent Maltese being linked to an Arabic dialects. You claim that because Maltese is standardised (by some instance) makes it different? Standardisation is (but not only) a political process which imply some choices while speaking one's native language is often spontaneous without thinking about what it implies politically speaking hence to me, in such case what matters is rather how people speak and not how standardised it has been. Let's say that there had been some attempt to standardise Moroccan, Egyptian, Lebanese dialects, does it mean that these are set apart from the Arabic speaking world just because there have been attempts to standardise them which make them looking different from Standard Arabic? Even though this attempt to standardise them succeed, does this set them apart from other Arabic speaking countries which wouldn't have done such effort?

I'm not against your view on Maltese but as a French native speaker with a strongly limited ability to understand few Italian, and a speaker of a Maghrebi dialect, I can understand written Maltese pretty easily (spoken is a different kettle of fish for someone non used to their odd phonology  ) thus my point of view about Maltese (which is in no way superior to any other) will necessarily be different from yours since I can understand it easily thus more susceptible to establish a link between Maltese and the language I know, a Maghrebi dialect.

If anyone check a Maltese language related video on youtube and focus on the comment, he will notice the surprisingly high amount of Arabic speakers who show their amazement at being able to understand a language they had never expected to understand.



rayloom said:


> P.S. I'm quite unfamiliar with the Western Arabic dialects, so it might be actually more understandable to them!



Maltese is really easy for Moroccans, Algerians, Tunisians and Libyans to understand, especially amongst the speakers of urban dialects.
I did a small experience once: I was at my university library where I used to work, with my colleagues (we were having a break and we talked about languages  ) with one of them being native Algerian and another, native Italian. I made them listening to a record where Maltese people could be heard talking about their language. As expected, both of them were amazed to recognise words from here to here but the Algerian recognised much more words than the Italian and could understand many sentences while the Italian could only grasp Italian words (which were numerous). At least both agreed: Maltese sound like Italians speaking Arabic .

There is also an Emirati or Kuwaiti (I don't know) TV/youtube (?) show with a young man travelling to various places across the world. He goes there. The whole show, he's flabbergasted by the people talking Maltese and keep saying "they speak like us!! They speak Arabic!!". I think Maltese should be easy for any Arabic speaker although it requires three conditions:
Some knowledge of Maghrebi syntax
Some knowledge of Italian and to a lesser extent, English
Get used to their phonology (this may be the hardest  ).


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## Aliph

As my mother tongue is Italian and I am learning Arabic since a couple of years, Malti seems very accessible too me. I took a couple of lessons just for fun.


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## Tilmeedh

Maltese is such a cool mix between Arabic and Romance. What's particularly fascinating is the use of words that now appear only in MSA, such as 'sa' to mark the future.



suzie_pales said:


> here r some words for examle:  no......''le'' in arabic la
> ...
> can i?............''nista'' in arabic ''astatee3''



Are there any online resources delving into the etymology of the Semitic words in Maltese? 'nista' doesn't sound like anything I've come across in my Arabic studies.


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## fenakhay

Tilmeedh said:


> Are there any online resources delving into the etymology of the Semitic words in Maltese? 'nista' doesn't sound like anything I've come across in my Arabic studies.



*nista'* is the first singular person present tense form of *seta' *from *اِسْطَاعَ* (isṭāʿa) (which is an alternative form of *اِسْتَطَاعَ* (istaṭāʿa)).


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## Tilmeedh

Shukran, ya Fenakhay. Now that you explain it, the relationship between the words looks so obvious... 

And here we have another case of Maltese using a root only found in MSA (unless a Maghrebi dialect has retained/adapted 'isTaa3a' or 'istaTaa3a'?).


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## WadiH

Well the root is T-w-3, which appears in many word in many dialects, although the form istaTaa3a/isTaa3a is rare.

Another one in Maltese that people often point to is the verb رأى, which is rarely used outside of MSA/Classical, but I should note it still very much alive in Yemeni and southern Hejazi dialects (in addition to its derivatives like يورّي which appear in many other dialects as well).


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## fenakhay

Wadi Hanifa said:


> Another one in Maltese that people often point to is the verb رأى, which is rarely used outside of MSA/Classical, but I should note it still very much alive in Yemeni and southern Hejazi dialects (in addition to its derivatives like يورّي which appear in many other dialects as well).


The verb is still used in the Maghreb in pre-Hilali dialects alongside شاف.

Āna rīt, huwwa ra, ntūma rītu, etc...


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## Hemza

fenakhay said:


> The verb is still used in the Maghreb in pre-Hilali dialects alongside شاف.
> 
> Āna rīt, huwwa ra, ntuma rītu, etc...


As well as in Hassaniya


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## WadiH

fenakhay said:


> The verb is still used in the Maghreb in pre-Hilali dialects alongside شاف.
> 
> Āna rīt, huwwa ra, ntūma rītu, etc...



Thank you. Yet more evidence of the affinity between Maltese and North African Arabic dialects.


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## Hemza

Wadi Hanifa said:


> Thank you. Yet more evidence of the affinity between Maltese and North African Arabic dialects.


Especially the urban ones since Malta didn't undergo the influence of بنو هلال &co tribes (hence no ق>g, many words used across Maghreb rural/bedouin areas are absent from Maltese, etc.). The opposite happens when you compare Maghreb dialects with Upper Egyptian ones, you find many similarities (at least for the lexicon) because of a shared بنو هلال influence.

Something interesting as well is the influence of Tamazight on Maltese, similar to the one found across the Maghreb (not for all words though) like "fakruna" for turtle.


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