Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Maltesisk (sprog)" in Danish language version.
In fact, Maltese displays some areal traits typical of Maghrebine Arabic, although over the past 800 years of independent evolution it has drifted apart from Tunisian Arabic
Maltese is the chief exception: Classical or Standard Arabic is irrelevant in the Maltese linguistic community and there is no diglossia.
yet it is in its morphology that Maltese also shows the most elaborate and deeply embedded influence from the Romance languages, Sicilian and Italian, with which it has long been in intimate contact….As a result Maltese is unique and different from Arabic and other Semitic languages.
To summarise our findings, we might observe that when it comes to the most basic everyday language, as reflected in our data sets, speakers of Maltese are able to understand less than a third of what is being said to them in either Tunisian or Benghazi Libyan Arabic.
Speakers of Tunisian and Libyan Arabic are able to understand about 40% of what is said to them in Maltese.
Fundamentally, Maltese is a Semitic tongue, the same as Arabic, Aramaic, Hebrew, Phoenician, Carthaginian and Ethiopian. However, unlike other Semitic languages, Maltese is written in the Latin alphabet, but with the addition of special characters to accommodate certain Semitic sounds. Nowadays, however, there is much in the Maltese language today that is not Semitic, due to the immeasurable Romantic influence from our succession of (Southern) European rulers through the ages.
Originally Maltese was an Arabic dialect but it was immediately exposed to Latinisation because the Normans conquered the islands in 1090, while Christianisation, which was complete by 1250, cut off the dialect from contact with Classical Arabic. Consequently Maltese developed on its own, slowly but steadily absorbing new words from Sicilian and Italian according to the needs of the developing community.
En analyse af de 41.000 ord i Aquilinas Maltesisk-Engelsk ordbog viser, at 32,41% er af arabisk afstamning, 52,46% er fra siciliansk eller italiensk og 6,12% fra engelsk. Selvom vi i dag ved, at alle sprog er en blanding i et eller andet omfang, så er denne kombination usædvanlig. Ordene fra arabisk er oftere forekommende, da de viser de grundlæggende begreber og funktionsord.
Originally Maltese was an Arabic dialect but it was immediately exposed to Latinisation because the Normans conquered the islands in 1090, while Christianisation, which was complete by 1250, cut off the dialect from contact with Classical Arabic. Consequently Maltese developed on its own, slowly but steadily absorbing new words from Sicilian and Italian according to the needs of the developing community.
Maltese is the chief exception: Classical or Standard Arabic is irrelevant in the Maltese linguistic community and there is no diglossia.
yet it is in its morphology that Maltese also shows the most elaborate and deeply embedded influence from the Romance languages, Sicilian and Italian, with which it has long been in intimate contact….As a result Maltese is unique and different from Arabic and other Semitic languages.
En analyse af de 41.000 ord i Aquilinas Maltesisk-Engelsk ordbog viser, at 32,41% er af arabisk afstamning, 52,46% er fra siciliansk eller italiensk og 6,12% fra engelsk. Selvom vi i dag ved, at alle sprog er en blanding i et eller andet omfang, så er denne kombination usædvanlig. Ordene fra arabisk er oftere forekommende, da de viser de grundlæggende begreber og funktionsord.
Fundamentally, Maltese is a Semitic tongue, the same as Arabic, Aramaic, Hebrew, Phoenician, Carthaginian and Ethiopian. However, unlike other Semitic languages, Maltese is written in the Latin alphabet, but with the addition of special characters to accommodate certain Semitic sounds. Nowadays, however, there is much in the Maltese language today that is not Semitic, due to the immeasurable Romantic influence from our succession of (Southern) European rulers through the ages.
