Views On The Improvement Of The Maltese Language

In this book, scholar Christoph Friedrich Schlienz shares his views on the improvement of the Maltese language. Schlienz provides a detailed analysis of the language, including its history, structure, and grammar, and offers suggestions for how it can be improved. This book is an important resource for anyone interested in linguistics or the Maltese language in particular. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1838 edition. Excerpt: ... Having considered the various inconveniences and evils, arising to the Maltese, from the present state of their language, as well as the inadequacy of the modes hitherto employed for removing them, I now, in conclusion, proceed to mention those means, by the adoption of which, I think the existing evils may not only be remedied, but also great advantages obtained. It is simply this: gradually to introduce, and eventually to use, the literal Arabic, for the purposes of education and of literature; to bring the advantages of such an education within the reach of every child, that is capable of profiting by it; and to treat all other languages, according to their nature, as foreign, giving, however, to the English, as its due, the preference, by making provision for its study in every public school, and by encouraging its general use. In this case, by using the literal Arabic, the Maltese will have the advantage of a highly cultivated language, and will not be in want either of common words, or scientifical terms. Sir William Jones says: "As it is unquestionably one of the most ancient (languages) of the world, so it yields to none ever spoken by mortals in the number of its words, and the precision of its phrases." (His works, Vol. I. p. 39.) Thousands of intellects have been advantageously developed therein, and hundreds of thousands of clear, useful, great, majestic thoughts have flowed through this healthy channel, in correct and graceful style, to revive and enlighten Europe during the middle ages. As the literal Arabic has been successfully tried in a variety of extensive and valuable translations, as well as in many original works, we have already prepared to hand a collection of literature and science of easy access to the Maltese, ...

Throughout the ages, the Maltese language has undergone a series of internal changes as well as modifications and accretions caused by various external forces. Internal changes are not easy to date and explain because they require a painstaking comparative exercise that can be carried out only by experts in Semitic languages. As a result, their systematic description in a historical grammar of Maltese has not yet been published. By contrast, the external history of Maltese is essentially an account of its contact with various languages. All languages are marked by contact, albeit to varying degrees. Gumperz holds that "most words in most modern languages would count as borrowed" (1982: 67), but what makes Maltese unique is that it blends together elements from three distinct language families: the Semitic, the Romance, and the Germanic. The language spoken in Malta today is the result of a process that has been going on for a thousand years and, consequently, the account presented in this book will show how social, political, and cultural events are reflected in the changing face of the language. As the lexicon is the most tangible aspect of a language, it will naturally be privileged in this account. Thanks to its position exactly at the centre of the Mediterranean Sea, 90 km from Sicily and 290 km from the Tunisian coast, Malta's relations have not been limited to its immediate neighbours, Sicily and North Africa. Since time immemorial, Malta has been at the mercy of all the great naval powers that sailed the Sicilian channel. As a result, the Maltese language has been shaped by its inhabitants' interactions with all the peoples who, throughout the centuries, have landed on the islands to govern it or establish colonies there. In a territory as small as 27 km by 14 km, the ratio between the numbers of the rulers and the ruled is highly significant. For thousands of years, when the inhabitants had to live off the islands' resources, the size of the population must have been consistently small, around 5,000 in all; this factor may have allowed the language to be substituted a number of times. This may surprise us today, but before the Romantic Age, people had a very pragmatic view of language. Like any other tool, language was prized mostly for its efficiency. The population of the Maltese islands has multiplied in the past one thousand years, rising to around 400,000, and such a rapid increase in such a small place could not fail to exert a strong influence on the linguistic scenario. The increase in population was due not only to natural growth but also to cumulative waves of settlers from abroad. Social interaction between the locals and the visitors was strong, bilingual communication took place in various domains at all social levels and relations were especially strong when mixed marriages took place. For this reason, a history of the Maltese language must be seen in the wider context of a linguistic history of the Maltese islands, and will offer linguists belonging to both the historical and typological fields an intriguing case study of what can be considered a "minor" language from the international point of view (used only in a small state, but spoken by the great majority of the islanders) which has managed to survive alongside a series of "major" languages such as Arabic, Latin, Sicilian, Italian, and English, languages which were widely spoken and written abroad and which also enjoyed prestige in Malta itself, but whose local circulation was generally limited to the literate minority.