Learning some Maltese!

We've had an exciting first couple of days in Malta. Yesterday a Maltese writer, Dr. Adrian Grima, gave a talk to us on the Maltese language. It was really interesting because we had all been trying to decipher the language on signs and buildings when we were out and about during the day.

We thought it would be basically the same as Italian, but it turns out the roots of the language are Arabic. Historians think that Arabic was the first language used here, which was adopted when the Arabs came to Malta in 870 AD. This is actually really controversial for the Maltese people because 98% of the population is Catholic. As one of the most Catholic countries, it's hard for the people to become aware of the fact that they have Arab roots.

Another thing we found fascinating was that even though the Maltese language has been around for over 1000 years, it didn't start being written socially until about 200 years ago. Then during WWII, there was a huge spike in the amount of English being spoken. Especially among the working class, almost everyone started speaking English because they wanted to repel Italian "power" through language.

Now, 35% of the language is influenced by Arabic, and the rest is a mixture of Italian, English, and Sicilian. Maltese and English are both spoken about equally among the people.

On an end note, here's an example of Maltese: 'Gisasakrajs' means 'Jesus Christ'. If you say them both out loud, they sound about the same, but they look COMPLETELY different written. Now when I go outside and look at signs, I just try to pronounce the word out loud and sometimes it's almost exactly the same as English!

Check out the alphabet. Guess how the 'gh' is pronounced.

It's silent!