''Il-Kantilena'' is the oldest known literary text in the

Maltese language Maltese ( mt, Malti, links=no, also ''L-Ilsien Malti'' or '), is a Semitic language derived from late medieval Sicilian Arabic with Romance superstrata spoken by the Maltese people. It is the national language of Malta and the only offic ...

. It dates from the 15th century (no later than 1485, the death of its author, and probably from the 1470s), but was not found until 1966 by historians Godfrey Wettinger and Mikiel Fsadni. The poem is attributed to Pietru Caxaro, and was recorded by Caxaro's nephew, Brandano, in his notarial register (Dec. 1533 – May 1563). It is preserved at the

Notarial Archives The Notarial Archives ( mt, L-Arkivji Nutarili) is an archive in Valletta, Malta, that contains about 20,000 volumes of contracts, wills and other legal documents from the 15th century to the present day. Its collections are significant both from ...

Valletta Valletta (, mt, il-Belt Valletta, ) is an administrative unit and capital of Malta. Located on the main island, between Marsamxett Harbour to the west and the Grand Harbour to the east, its population within administrative limits in 2014 wa ...

. Although written in Maltese, in

Latin script The Latin script, also known as Roman script, is an alphabetic writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae, in southern I ...

, it was a very early form that had not yet been influenced much by

Romance languages The Romance languages, sometimes referred to as Latin languages or Neo-Latin languages, are the various modern languages that evolved from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages in the Indo-European language ...

, and is thus an example of Old Maltese. This text contains many Arabic

morpheme A morpheme is the smallest meaningful constituent of a linguistic expression. The field of linguistic study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology. In English, morphemes are often but not necessarily words. Morphemes that stand alone are ...

s. The only

Romance Romance (from Vulgar Latin , "in the Roman language", i.e., "Latin") may refer to: Common meanings * Romance (love), emotional attraction towards another person and the courtship behaviors undertaken to express the feelings * Romance languages, ...

words are ''vintura'' 'luck', sometimes translated into English as 'fate', and ''et'' 'and'. In general, early Maltese texts contain very little non- Semitic vocabulary; even in later texts, poetry tends to use more Semitic vocabulary than general language use does, therefore while certainly of historical interest, ''Il-Kantilena'' most likely does not reflect the spoken language of the common Maltese of the time, but rather that of the elite who spoke a stilted form more pleasing to the ruling class. However, literary evidence suggests that the spoken language in the 13th century was Arabic since ire was raised when the bishop of Malta resident in Sicily appointed Italian-speaking priests to the island. Both islands were occupied by the Arabs in the early medieval period, but Malta's relative isolation limited the diffusion of Italian cognates until much later. __TOC__

Text

* Original orthography * Modern orthography *

Modern Standard Arabic Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) or Modern Written Arabic (MWA), terms used mostly by linguists, is the variety of standardized, literary Arabic that developed in the Arab world in the late 19th and early 20th centuries; occasionally, it also ref ...

orthography

Approximate English translation

Witness my predicament, my friends (neighbours), as I shall relate it to you:
hat A hat is a head covering which is worn for various reasons, including protection against weather conditions, ceremonial reasons such as university graduation, religious reasons, safety, or as a fashion accessory. Hats which incorporate mecha ...
never has there been, neither in the past, nor in your lifetime, A imilarheart, ungoverned, without lord or king (sultan), That threw me down a well, with broken stairs Where, yearning to drown, I descend the steps of my downfall, I climb back up and down again, always faced with high seas. It (she) fell, my building, its foundations collapsed; It was not the builders’ fault, but the rock gave way, Where I had hoped to find rock, I found loose clay It (she) fell, my edifice, (that) which I had been building for so long. And so, my edifice subsided, and I shall have to build it up again, You change it to the site that suits her/it Who changes his place, changes his fate! for each (piece of land) has its own shape (features); there is white land and there is black land, and red But above all, (what) you want from it is a fruit.http://melitensiawth.com/incoming/Index/The%20Arabs%20in%20Malta/1975Approaches%20to%20medieval%20Malta%20Luttrell.pdf pp. 66-7.

References

Bibliography

*{{citation , last=Friggieri , first=Oliver , authorlink=Oliver Friggieri , year=1994 , title=Main Trends in the History of Maltese Literature , journal=Neohelicon , volume=21 , issue=2 , pages=59–69 , doi=10.1007/BF02093244 , s2cid=144795860

External links

Il Cantilena"Il-Kantilena ta' Pietru Kaxaru"
talk by the Akkademja tal-Malti on Campus FM.

is a translation of the Cantilena using similarity to classical and contemporary Arabic, by an Arabic speaker.

the second oldest known document in Maltese (nearly 200 years younger than the Cantilena) Maltese literature Maltese-language literature 15th-century poems Earliest known manuscripts by language 15th century in Malta