Arab Heritage in Malta

The article is somewhat simple, childlike in its understanding of the complexity of the history of Malta, its people and the Maltese language.

Yes Maltese, Malti is semitic derived from the people who spoke a North African version of Arabic. Not many would deny that. North African Arabic is not understandable by speakers of Modern Standard Arabic. It should gain its own status as a language rather than as a dialect. The version of North African Arabic that come to Malta can from Sicily, it was a form of Siculo-Arabic. Malti is twice removed from Arabic by its derivation from North African Arabic base and as used in Sicily. Without the Romance and other non semitic words in Malti, it would not be understood by any Arabic speakers even from North Africa.

The Maltese history goes a lot further back than the brief advent of the Arabs from the 7th century. There are buildings in Malta that are older than the pyramids or Stonehenge in England. The Phoenicians and other ancient peoples were in Malta. The "Arabs" were just one of many foreigners who sojourned in Malta.

Maltese people have taken a foreign tongue, the Siculo-Arabic of Sicily, changed it and made it their own. It owes nothing to Arabic or Sicilian or Italian. It is its own language.

As for religion, the people of Spain, Sicily and Malta were Christians before the muslims came to their countries and have returned to that religion. It is interesting that most of the muslim world in the Middle East and Turkey were once Christian like Egypt, Lebanon, Syria and Turkey. Arabic and Islam are not even Middle Eastern but belong to a small part of the Arabian Peninsula.

Whilst neither an academic nor capable of fluent Maltese owing to an upbringing and lifetime spent outside of Malta, simple observation of language, attitudes and often cultural activities increasingly convinces me that although our bloodlines have been broadened over the generations by the inputs of Normans, Spanish, Portuguese, Italians and as in my case Bavarian(German)let alone the British and to a much lesser extent British Colonial subject nations, especially Egyptian and Chinese a small colony of whom existed until very recently in the naval dock area, fundamentally in our language and family names traces of arab/aramaic remain. I recall that following a recent popular film 'The Life of Christ' in which much of the script was aramaic, a number of village Maltese said they preferred listening to the soundtrack rather than reading the English sub-titles. Once whilst in Bahrain I got into conversation with a group of Iraqi's from a district in the Upper Euphrates and felt able to understand much of what they said in their dialect. (Incidentally could the 'Dilmun' of Bahrain have any connection with the 'Delmon' of Malta?) I had similar experiences in Khor Fakkan and Fujeirah in the 1970's. Abdulmoisin Al-Mutlaq from Eastern Province Saudi Arabia, whom I knew well and who knew a number of Maltese then living in The Kingdom, strongly believed Maltese was heavily influenced by dialects still current in parts of Lebanon, Syria and Northern Iraq. On an entirely separate but perhaps historically interesting track, in the 1920's my father visited fishing villages in South Wales (UK), probably Pembroke. Using his Maltese he was both understood and able to communicate with the fishermen. He recalled they said he was the first 'outsider' ever to do so. They claimed to be the descendents of 'Mediterranean Traders' so perhaps at least in the confines of language at least there could perhaps be some truth in believing Near and Middle Eastern dialectic influences remain strong in isolated outposts such as Malta where for the vast majority of it's indigenous people travel outside of their homeland was impossible till well into the 20th. century.

i happen to have come to this website for my maltese projetc and its awsome gdjob

Dear Sir,
maltese semitic religious terminology resembles has many in common to christian arabic(ex qassis,raheb,qrar,tqarbin,titlit,xbin,dejr,isqof,knisja,Ghid il-Milied etc) although some muslim influence such as the words Randan, Ghasar and possibly Gilwa can also be found.
As you may be aware Arab speaking christians are a diverse group.
It would be interesting if someone makes a profound study of our religious terminology.

Regards
C.A