a people; the principal population of the state of Malta. Population, more than 300,000 (1970, estimate). They speak a Semitic language, Maltese.
The Maltese are Catholics. They are the descendants of ancient settlers, possibly of Phoenician origin. For many centuries, the Maltese were dominated by foreigners: Greeks, Carthaginians, Romans, Goths, Byzantines, Arabs, Normans, Spaniards, knights of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, French, and English. These conquerors influenced the Maltese way of life and culture to various degrees. The chief occupations of the Maltese are farming, horticulture, animal husbandry, fishing, and navigation.
the language of the population of the islands of Malta and Gozo; along with English, one of the two official languages of the state of Malta.
Maltese is related to the Semitic language family. It originates from the language of the Arabs who occupied Malta between the ninth and 11th centuries. The sound system of Arabic underwent significant changes in Maltese: the emphatic consonants and h were lost; the phonemes p, v, ż [c], and ċ [č] appeared; the vowel system became more complex (five short and five long vowels and the diphthong ie [iə]); and the Arabic short vowels disappeared in many positions. The Arabic morphology remains basically the same, although cases and several other categories have been lost, and internal inflection has become considerably more complicated. New auxiliary words (for example, the preposition of the genitive case ta) appeared.
The vocabulary and syntax of Maltese were influenced by European languages, especially Italian. The writing system is based on the Roman alphabet. Along with Italian and English, Maltese is the language of the schools, literature (since the 19th century), and the press.
A. B. DOLGOPOL’SKH