The Maltese alphabet is based on the

Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet, also known as the Roman alphabet, is the collection of letters originally used by the Ancient Rome, ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered except several letters splitting—i.e. from , and from � ...

with the addition of some letters with

diacritic A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacrit ...

marks and digraphs. It is used to write the

Maltese language Maltese (, also or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language derived from Siculo-Arabic, late medieval Sicilian Arabic with Romance languages, Romance Stratum (linguistics), superstrata. It is the only Semitic languages, Semitic language pred ...

, which evolved from the otherwise extinct

Siculo-Arabic Siculo-Arabic or Sicilian Arabic is a group of Arabic variaties that were spoken in the Emirate of Sicily (which included Malta) from the 9th century, persisting under the subsequent County of Sicily, Norman rule until the 13th century. It was d ...

dialect, as a result of 800 years of independent development. It contains 30 letters: 24 consonants and 6 vowels (a, e, i, o, u, ie). There are two types of Maltese consonants: * ( sun consonants): ''ċ d n r s t x ż z'' * ( moon consonants): ''b f ġ g għ h ħ j k l m p q v w''

Samples

Older versions of the alphabet

Before the standardisation of the Maltese alphabet, there were several ways of writing the sounds peculiar to Maltese, namely , , , , , , and . was formerly written as (in front of and , in Italian fashion). Vella used for . was used in other books during the 19th century. Rather than using a c with a cedilla, , Panzavecchia used a c with

ogonek The tail or ( ; Polish: , "little tail", diminutive of ) is a diacritic hook placed under the lower right corner of a vowel in the Latin alphabet used in several European languages, and directly under a vowel in several Native American langu ...

. ''A Short Grammar of the Maltese Language'' used for , in English fashion. However, the first appearance of the letter for its current sound was in 1822 in the first ever Maltese written gospel by Martin Cannolo instituting the modern . and , now written with and respectively, were formerly confused. When they were differentiated, was written as , , and (by Vassalli) as a mirrored Arabic/Syriac

gimel Gimel is the third (in alphabetical order; fifth in spelling order) letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician ''gīml'' 𐤂, Hebrew ''gīmel'' , Aramaic ''gāmal'' 𐡂, Syriac ''gāmal'' ܓ and Arabic ''ǧīm'' . It is also rela ...

resembling a sideways V. On the other hand, was more commonly written as or in English fashion. Vella used a with diaeresis, , but in 1843 reduced it to one dot. The first appearance for this letter was once again in the first Maltese Gospel by Martin Cannolo instituting yet again the modern . Until the middle of the 19th century, two sounds which would merge into were differentiated in Maltese. These were variously represented as , , , and with two letters not represented in Unicode (they resembled an upside down U). Panzavecchia used a specially designed font with a curly . ''A Short Grammar of the Maltese Language'' used with a superscript Arabic ʿayn () to represent . itself was first used in ''Nuova guida alla conversazione italiana, inglese e maltese''. The letter had the most variations before being standardised in 1866. It was variously written as , and as a with various diacritics or curly modifications. Some of these symbols were used for and some for . None of these are present in Unicode. The letter was first used by Martin Cannolo in the same aforementioned script, although the capital was used later on (in 1845), where its lower case counterpart was a dotted h. was written as , or as a modified u (not present in Unicode). The sounds , (now represented with ) were traditionally written as or . Vassalli invented a special character similar to , just wider, and Panzavecchia used an ligature to represent and , in the Italian fashion. Interestingly, the first ever use of for was in the first ever Maltese document (that we know of) Il-Kantilena by Pietru Caxaro, which makes sense as he was of Spanish descent (hence the surname) and the Spanish language also used to use the same letter for that sound at the time. and (now represented with ) were formerly confused with, (now represented with ). When they were differentiated, and were written as , , or even . On the other hand, was written as , , , and . Prior to 1900, was written as , as well as , and (in words derived from Italian and Latin). Vassalli's 1796 work contained several new letters to represent the sounds of the Maltese language, which included the invention of several ad-hoc letters as well as the importation of

Cyrillic The Cyrillic script ( ) is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking countries in Southeastern Europe, Ea ...

ge, che, sha, and ze. His alphabet is set out in full with modern-day equivalents where known: A, a = a B, b = b T, t = t D, d = d E, e = e F, f = f [V, or a Syriac/Arabic

open to the right] = g [Ч], ɥ = ċ H, h = h ȣ Ө, ө Y, y = j Г = ġ З, з U = ħ I, i = i J, j = j K, k = k with a small c superimposed on it L, l = l M, m = m N, n = n O, o = o P, p = p R, r = r S, s = s Ɯ, ɯ = x V, v = v U, u = u W, w = w Z, z = z Ʒ, ʒ = ż Æ, æ = final e Five grave accented vowels are also used to indicate which syllable should be stressed: Àà, Èè, Ìì, Òò, and Ùù.

Notes

References

* (it) Giovan Pietro Francesco Agius de Soldanis,
Della lingua punica presentemente usata da maltesi
', per Generoso Salomoni alla Piazza di S. Ignazio. Si vendono in Malta, 1750 * (it) Antonio Emanuele Caruana,
Sull'origine della Lingua Maltese
', Malta, Tipografia C. Busuttil, 1896 * (it) Giovanni Battista Falzon,
Dizionario Maltese-Italiano-Inglese
', G. Muscat
1845 (1 ed.)
(2 ed.) * (it) Giuseppe Nicola Letard,
Nuova guida alla conversazione italiana, inglese e maltese ad uso delle scuole
', Malta, 1866-75 * (it) Fortunato Panzavecchia,
Grammatica della Lingua Maltese
', M. Weiss, Malta, 1845 * (it) Michele Antonio Vassalli,
Grammatica della lingua Maltese
', 2 ed., Malta, 1827 * (it) Michele Antonio Vassalli,
Lexicon Melitense-Latino-Italum
', Roma, Fulgonius, 1796 * (it) Francesco Vella,
Osservazioni sull'alfabeto maltese
', 1840 * (it) Francesca Morando, ''Il-lingwa Maltija. Origine, storia, comparazione linguistica e aspetti morfologici'', Prefazione di Joseph M. Brincat, Palermo, Edizioni La Zisa, 2017, ISBN 978-88-9911-339-1 * (en) S. Mamo,
English-Maltese Dictionary
', Malta, A. Aquilina, 1885 * (en)
A Short Grammar of the Maltese Language
', Malta, 1845 * (en) C. F. Schlienz,
Views on the Improvement of the Maltese Language
', Malta, 1838 * (en) Francesco Vella,
Maltese Grammar for the Use of the English
', Glaucus Masi, Leghorn, 1831 * (en) Francesco Vella,
Dizionario portatile delle lingue Maltese Italiana, Inglese. pt. 1
', Livorno, 1843 * (en) Joseph Aquilina, ''Teach Yourself Maltese'', English University Press, 1965 * (en) Geoffrey Hull, ''The Malta Language Question: A Case Study in Cultural Imperialism'', Said International, Valletta, 1993 * (mt) Vicenzo Busuttil,
Diziunariu mill Inglis ghall Malti
', 2 parts, N. C. Cortis & Sons, Malta, 1900 * (mt) Mons. L. Cachia, ''L-Ilsien Malti l-Bieraħ u l-Lum''. 1994. * (mt) Pietru Caxaro, ''Il-Kantilena ''. 1400s * (mt) Giusseppe Martin Cannolo, ''Il Vangelo Di Nostro Signore Gesù Cristo, Secondo San Giovanni''. 1822.

External links

''L-Użu tal-Malti fil-Kompjuter (manwal)''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Maltese Alphabet Latin alphabets Maltese language Semitic writing systems arz:مالطى#الألف-به المالطى