Maltese

Maltese, the national language of the Island of Malta, remains the only Semitic language of Europe, and is spoken by almost 400,000 people. Focusing primarily on Standard Maltese, the authors clarify many areas which, until now, remain undefined, with emphasis on syntax and intonation. English loanwords continue to find their way into Standard Maltese, especially as the Maltese inhabitants become increasingly bilingual, and the variations are studied, as well as their morphological behavior. The book describes the syntactic, morphological and phonological structure of Maltese as one integrated linguistic system composed of different strands (Arabic, Romance and English).

Marie Azzopardi-Alexander is Executive Director of the Institute of Linguistics at the University of Malta.