Maltese Italian is the

Italian language Italian (''italiano'' or ) is a Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire. Together with Sardinian, Italian is the least divergent language from Latin. Spoken by about ...

spoken in

Malta Malta ( , , ), officially the Republic of Malta ( mt, Repubblika ta' Malta ), is an island country in the Mediterranean Sea. It consists of an archipelago, between Italy and Libya, and is often considered a part of Southern Europe. It lies ...

. It has received some influences from 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 ...

History

For many centuries since the Middle Ages and until 1934, Italian was the official language of Malta. Indeed, it had been considered the language of culture in Malta since the Italian

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (800 BC to AD ...

. In the 19th century, Italian irredentists and Italian Maltese wanted to promote its use throughout Malta for plans to re-unify it with Italy as Malta was part of the Kingdom of Sicily up to the 13th century. In the first decades of the 20th century there was even a struggle within Maltese society and politics over the " language problem", which came to a head before

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

. Although only the rich could speak Italian, it was however understood by nearly all the population, and with Maltese being generally spoken by those less well-off, Italian was used as the official language in Malta until 1934. But in 1933, the Constitution was withdrawn over the Government's budgetary vote for the teaching of Italian in elementary schools. and furthermore Italian was dropped by the British authorities from official language status in Malta in 1934, its place being taken by Maltese. In 1935, there were protests against all these decisions, promoted by the Maltese nationalists: the Nationalist Party of Enrico Mizzi declared that most of the Maltese population was supporting directly or indirectly the Italian Maltese's struggle. One of the most fanatical supporters of the Italian language in Malta was

Carmelo Borg Pisani Carmelo Borg Pisani (10 August 1915 – 28 November 1942) was a Maltese artist and Italian Fascist spy, condemned to death for treason in 1942. Early life Born into a Maltese Nationalist family in Senglea on 10 August 1915, Borg Pisani enr ...

. The greatest Italian-speaking Maltese of the second half of the 20th century is Vincenzo Maria Pellegrini (1911–1997), who wrote most of his works in Italian and composed a poem in Maltese Italian in honor of

Garibaldi Giuseppe Maria Garibaldi ( , ;In his native Ligurian language, he is known as ''Gioxeppe Gaibado''. In his particular Niçard dialect of Ligurian, he was known as ''Jousé'' or ''Josep''. 4 July 1807 – 2 June 1882) was an Italian general, pat ...

in 1982, a hundred years after the death of the "hero of the two worlds". Since the 1950s, there has been a huge increase in Maltese people who are able to speak or understand (or both) the Italian language, thanks mainly to broadcasts of Italian television: from 15% (nearly 40,000) in 1950 to 36% (145,000) in 2002 and to 86% (360,000) in 2010. Furthermore, since 1970, Maltese Italian has been considered for possible reinstatement as an official language in Malta. In 1981, the government of Malta began to publish the monthly magazine ''Lo Stivale'' in Maltese Italian. The Malta Constitution allows 3 languages to be official in Malta and this rule is favorable to the reinstatement of the Italian language.Italian language in Malta
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Notes

Bibliography

* Brincat, Giuseppe. ''Malta. Una storia linguistica''. Ed. Le Mani. Recco, 2004 * Brincat, J. ''La lingua italiana a Malta: storia, scuola e società''. Istituto italiano di cultura. Valletta, 1992 * Caruana, S. ''The Italian Job: the impact of input from television on language learning'' (in J. Borg, M. A. Lauri, & A. Hillman (eds.), Exploring the Maltese Media Landscape). Allied Newspapers Ltd. Valletta, 2009 * Fabei, Stefano. ''Carmelo Borg Pisani (1915–1942) – eroe o traditore?''. Lo Scarabeo Ed. Bologna, 2006 * Hull, Geoffrey. ''The Malta Language Question: A Case Study in Cultural Imperialism''. Said International, Valletta, 1993.

External links

* Sandro Caruana & Mario Pace ''Percorsi dell’italiano a Malta: storia, intrattenimento, scuola''. Malta University

Development of languages in Middle Ages Malta (in Italian)
{{Italian language in the world Languages of Malta Geographical distribution of the Italian language

History

See also

Notes

Bibliography

External links