Language Alexander Borg

Language Alexander Borg I Apart from Cypriot Arabic (§ Ill) - now in a terminal state - Maltese is today the f all the social and cultural institutions _only living vestige of dialectal Arabic 0 created by the inhabitants of the spoken on European soil, surviving by Maltese Islands on their long and eventful many centuries the extinction of the path to nationhood, their language, medieval Arabic vernaculars of Sicily (12th Maltese, is without doubt one of the most century), Spain and Pantelleria (16th striking and original. It is, in fact, not easy century). for the historical linguist to account for the Geographically detached from the remarkable survival of this island Arabic-speaking mainland and culturally -vernacular in the face of the numerous isolated from the sources of native Arabic soci6-political upheavals that have sp~ech, especially after the Norman characterized the history of this small invasion of the Islands in 1090 and the archipelago, which 'since it was first ~xpujsioll_ of the local Muslim population colonised ... has never been very far from int~ (Wettinger 1986: 9~ the centre of events and has often played a the Arabic vernacular of the Maltese critical part in the making of history' Islands evolved in line with its own internal (Blouet 1981: 11). logic and drifted away from the norms of Throughout most of their medieval and spoken Arabic with the result that Maltese modern history, these strategically located and Arabic are today not mutually islands have been administered and comprehensible. culturally dominated by a succession of One important catalyst for independent foreign regimes associated with linguistic linguistic development in Maltese has been power symbols of incomparably greater the factor of language contact, first with prestige and utility than the indigenous Italian and later with English, a process rural vernacular of Malta, which achieved that introduced into the language a the status of a literary medium as late as considerable number of extraneous (i.e. l the 19th century. · non-Arabic) elements, mainly in the realms ~rTwhat kind of language is Maltese? of phonology, syntax, and lexicon. The I \\<;<!\Oh Briefly, the vernacular of the Maltese cumulative impact of autonomous Islands initially developed from a medieval development and language contact on variety of dialectal Arabic - presumably Maltese has altered its structure so after the Arab invasion of the archipelago profoundly that though Maltese is not in the late 9th century (870 A.D.). As infrequently referred to as an 'Arabic noted in Thomas (1937: 117), dialect' in the linguistic and popular From the moment the Arabs had established supremacy literature, this designation is today more over the Byzantines at sea, the fate of the islands of the appropriate as a genetic classification than Mediterranean was sealed, and one by one they passed as a synchronic one, since in its present into Moslem hands ... They had invaded Malta at about form, Maltese has distanced itself the same time as Sicily, ruled it till 1091, and were structurally far too profoundly from the resident for another 350 years, when they departed leaving behind them their dialect of Arabic, which is norms of spoken Arabic to be regarded ·as the language of the Maltese to this day. anything but a separate language. 27 From an erstwhile Arabic colloquial Maltese has extended the derivational spoken by a small rural community, scope of this root and scheme process in an Maltese has gradually and spontaneously autonomous fashion and has continued to expanded as a linguistic system, winning generate from native roots inherited from for itself new functional domains beyond Arabic new words that do not occur in those of ordinary speech communication Classical or vernacular Arabic, e.g. Maltese and popular wisdom literature (proverbs, ndalial 'he interfered', ndlii:l 'interference,' folk-tales, etc.), e.g., those of formal and from dalial 'to enter'. private prayer, litigation in the law courts, In addition to the recycliqg of its native etc. As a literary medium it has become the elements, the expansion of the Maltese repository of an interesting literary corpus lexicon has been achieved, through massive (including popular novels, plays, and borrowing from foreign languages, poetry), and of religious texts (the Bible, especially Italian. These borrowed elements the Catholic liturgy). Maltese is also the display varying degrees of assimilation into language of most local journalism, and of the grammatical norms of Maltese. These a large body of didactic works ranging different degrees of integration no doubt from theology to cookery. correlate with such factors as chronology Maltese is today, alongside English, the (i.e. when the word was borrowed), and official language of Malta. It is, in fact, the socio-linguistic context in which the the only dialect of Arabic to have achieved borrowing occurred. this national status. It is taught at all The unusual circumstance that Maltese, educational levels from the primary school a Semitic language, found itself completely to university. isolated from the sources of Semitic speech, and in close interaction with Indo II European (principally Italian), has created a 'Semitic-Romance polarization' in the Maltese is the only national language in minds of many Maltese speakers as is Europe belonging to the Semitic family, witnessed by the movement - active in which also includes Hebrew, Arabic, inter-war period - advocating the use of Aramaic, Phoenician, Ethiopic, etc. One Malti safi 'pure Maltese'. Though no one salient typological trait of this language seriously advocates the systematic family distinguishing it from other elimination of all non-Arabic elements in language families, e.g., Indo-European, is the language, many Maltese speakers feel the root and scheme structure of most that the language is adopting more foreign native words. Thus, the Classical Arabic terms that it can formally integrate. This word rakiba 'he rode' consists of: feeling of being inundated by foreign (i) the consonantal root (r-k-b) associated lexicon is not new; it echoes views first with the notion 'riding'; expressed in the 18th century by the (ii) a vocalic scheme (a-i) typical of many Maltese linguist and orientalist Mikiel past tense verbs in Classical Arabic; Anton Vassallo (1764-1829), who earned (iii) the final vowel (-a) indicating the 3rd for himself the title of 'father of the person masculine singular. Maltese language' for his efforts at Arabic and Maltese words displaying this arousing a national linguistic consciousness specific root usually have meanings and a responsible attitude on the part of associated with the basic idea of 'riding': the Maltese community of his time towards Arabic rika:b 'stirrup', raku:ba 'mount, their language (cf. Cremona 1975). In female riding animal', Maltese rikeb 'he recent times, the most fervent advocate for rode', rikba 'a ride', etc., (where the a more systematic expansion of the Semitic 'colon' symbol after a vowel indicates component of Maltese was the Maltese phonetic length). Hebraist and Biblical scholar Peter Paul 28 Saydon (1895-1971), who single-handedly tendency for young people to adopt translated the Old and New Testaments English as a firs.t language - usually as a from their Hebrew and Greek originals strategy for enhancing their social status - into Maltese, and in the process, often would seem to present a serious threat to resorted to innovative lexical and stylistic the transmission of unimpaired fluency in norms that fully exploited the generative Maltese that could in the long run lead to potential of native Maltese derivational marginalization of the language and to its morphology as well as a certain amount of ultimate demise. conscious borrowing from Arabic. Since there ha:s traditionally been a In practice, when two separate words - laissez-faire attitude in linguistic matters a native term and an Italian equivalent - within the Maltese educational system, the are available in Maltese for a particular need for an official language policy - to concept e.g., native izza liayr and the loan advocate rather than to enforce linguistic term rringraccya <It. ringraziare, both norms in the schools and in the state meaning 'he thanked', the selection process bureaucracy - is· keenly felt at the present on the part of the individual native speaker time. or writer tends not to be a random one, but often reflects his cultural aspirations, Ill educational background and, not infrequently, political affiliations. With Previously we stressed the fact that, regard to the latter point, it is generally despite the patently Semitic and Arabic recognized that the newspapers of the two typology of its grammatical system, . principal political parties have developed Maltese cannot in its present form be distinct linguistic and rhetorical styles: the simply designated as an Arabic dialect. It is Labour organ inclines to the use of Semitic worth noting that Maltese is not a· unique Sprachgut, while the Nationalist one is case in this regard since there exist a more receptive to Romance loans. The considerable number of former Arabic communicative functions attaching to this dialects that have survived outside the type of 'lexical colouring' in the context of Arabic countries and are today spoken Maltese political discourse have yet to be exclusively by ethnic non-Arabs, such as studied. the Arabic vernaculars of Central Asia, Throughout Malta's colonial period Central Africa, South East Anatolia

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