If you were to walk down the limestone streets of Valletta, Malta’s capital, and listen closely to the locals, your ears might play tricks on you. You would hear the numbers wieħed, tnejn, tlieta, sounding remarkably similar to the Arabic wahid, ithnayn, thalatha. You would hear God referred to as Alla in the context of devout Catholicism. Yet, if you looked up at the street signs or opened a local newspaper, you wouldn’t see the flowing curvature of the Arabic script. Instead, you would see the Latin alphabet—the same ABCs used in English, French, and Italian—accented by a few curious dots and bars.

This is Maltese (Malti), a linguistic anomaly that defies standard categorization. It is the only Semitic language in the world written officially in the Latin script, and the only Semitic language holding official status within the European Union.

For linguists and language learners, Maltese is more than just a quirky outlier; it is a living fossil of Mediterranean history, showcasing what happens when a language born in the desert is raised on an island at the crossroads of Europe.

The Semitic Roots: A Survivor of History

To understand why Maltese is written in Latin script, we first have to understand its genetic makeup. Maltese is derived from Siculo-Arabic, an extinct dialect of Arabic that developed in Sicily and Malta between the 9th and 14th centuries. During the Arab rule of Malta (starting around 870 AD), the island adopted the speech of its conquerors.

Unlike Sicily, where the Arabic dialect eventually succumbed to the pressure of Italian dialects, Malta retained its Semitic tongue even after the Norman conquest of 1090. However, the island was cut off from the rest of the Arab-speaking world. Over the next several centuries, while Arabic continued to evolve in North Africa and the Middle East, the vernacular in Malta practically froze in time, developing in isolation.

The core grammar of Maltese remains inextricably Semitic. It utilizes the triliteral root system, where words are built from a root of three consonants. For example, the root K-T-B gives us kiteb (he wrote), ktieb (book), and kittieb (writer). If you speak Arabic or Hebrew, the bone structure of Maltese will feel incredibly familiar.

The Shift: Why Latin Script?

If the language is Arabic in origin, why don’t the Maltese use the Arabic alphabet? The answer lies in religion and geopolitics.

Following the Norman conquest, Malta began a long process of re-Christianization. The island eventually fell under the rule of the Knights of St. John (the Knights Hospitaller) in 1530. Culturally and religiously, Malta pivoted sharply toward Europe. The spoken language remained Semitic, but the written culture became Latin, Italian, and eventually English.

For centuries, Maltese was merely a spoken dialect; the language of administration and literature was Latin or Italian. When intellectuals finally began to write Maltese down systematically in the 18th and 19th centuries, it was natural for them to use the script of their education and their church: the Latin alphabet. They were writing a Semitic language through a European lens.

Decoding the Alphabet: Dots, Dashes, and Silent Ghosts

Standardizing the Maltese alphabet was a linguistic struggle that lasted until the early 20th century. The challenge was significant: How do you use an alphabet designed for Romance languages to express the guttural, throat-clearing sounds of a Semitic tongue?

The solution was the introduction of unique digraphs and diacritics. The modern Maltese alphabet consists of 30 letters. While it looks like English, a few unique characters signal its Semitic phonology:

• Ċ (c with a dot): Pronounced like the “ch” in church.
• Ġ (g with a dot): Pronounced like the “j” in job.
• Ż (z with a dot): Pronounced like the “z” in fuzz (distinct from the un-dotted ‘Z’ which is pronounced like ‘ts’ in pizza).
• Ħ (h with a bar): This is perhaps the most distinctively “Semitic” letter visually. It represents a voiceless pharyngeal fricative—similar to the Arabic letter Hau (ح). It is a sharp, breathy H sound.
• Għ (The Għajn): This digraph corresponds to the Arabic letters Ayn (ع) and Ghain (غ). Historically, these were deep throat sounds. In modern Maltese, however, the għ has become silent in most positions, simply lengthening the associated vowel. It acts as a “ghost” letter—a visual reminder of a sound that history eroded.
• X: Pronounced like “sh” in shop.

This alphabet allows a Maltese speaker to look at a word like laħam (meat) and pronounce it with the correct Semitic breathiness, while a word like ċikkulata (chocolate) reveals the Italian influence immediately.

The “Romance” Layer

While the grammar and basic vocabulary (numbers, body parts, family relations) are Semitic, Maltese is a “mixed language.” It is estimated that nearly 50% of the Maltese vocabulary is derived from Sicilian and Italian, with another significant chunk coming from English (especially regarding modern technology and government).

What makes Maltese fascinating for linguists is how these borrowed words are treated. Italian verbs are often conjugated using Arabic grammatical rules. This integration creates a linguistic hybrid that shouldn’t work, yet does effortlessly.

For example, consider the sentence: “L-istudenti qed jistudjaw għall-eżami.”

• L-istudenti: “The students” (Italian root: studenti).
• Qed: A progressive particle (Semitic origin, shortened from qiegħed).
• Jistudjaw: “They are studying.” This is the Italian verb studiare, but it has been forced into a Semitic conjugation pattern (begins with ‘j’ and ends with ‘w’ to denote third-person plural).
• Għall-eżami: “For the exam” (Għal is a Semitic preposition; eżami is Italian).

Official Status and the EU

When Malta joined the European Union in 2004, Maltese became an official EU language. This was a landmark moment for Semitic linguistics. Sudden, acts of European Parliament, product labels, and legal guidelines had to be translated into a language derived from medieval Arabic.

This status has helped standardize and protect the language. It has also created a fascinating niche for translators who must navigate a language that uses Arabic, Italian, and English logic simultaneously.

Why It Matters for Language Lovers

Maltese serves as a powerful reminder that languages are not static entities kept in pure boxes. They are fluid, adapting to the movements of armies, religions, and trade routes. Maltese is the result of a collision between the East and the West.

For the language learner, Maltese offers a unique challenge. If you know English and Italian, you already have half the vocabulary. If you know Arabic, you have the grammar and the other half of the vocabulary. But putting them together requires navigating the unique script that binds them.

In a world where we often divide cultures into broad categories of “European” or “Middle Eastern”, the Maltese language stands as proof that history is rarely so black and white. Sometimes, it is written in Latin letters, spoken with Semitic grammar, and seasoned with the flavors of Sicily.