[5] As a result of the Norman invasion of Malta and the subsequent re-Christianization of the islands, Maltese evolved independently of Classical Arabic in a gradual process of latinisation.

[16] Maltese has always been written in the Latin script, the earliest surviving example dating from the late Middle Ages.

[20][21] The Norman conquest in 1091, followed by the expulsion of the Muslims, complete by 1249, permanently isolated the vernacular from its Arabic source, creating the conditions for its evolution into a distinct language.

The oldest known document in Maltese, Il-Kantilena (Xidew il-Qada) by Pietru Caxaro, dates from the 15th century.

[27] In the course of its history, Maltese has been influenced by Sicilian, Italian, to a lesser extent by Norman, and, more recently, English.

[32] Rural dialects also tend to employ more Semitic roots and broken plurals than Standard Maltese.

[40] Maltese has five short vowels, /ɐ ɛ ɪ ɔ ʊ/, written a e i o u; six long vowels, /ɐː ɛː ɪː iː ɔː ʊː/, written a, e, ie, i, o, u, all of which (with the exception of ie /ɪː/) can be known to represent long vowels in writing only if they are followed by an orthographic għ or h (otherwise, one needs to know the pronunciation; e.g. nar (fire) is pronounced /nɐːr/); and seven diphthongs, /ɐɪ ɐʊ ɛɪ ɛʊ ɪʊ ɔɪ ɔʊ/, written aj or għi, aw or għu, ej or għi, ew, iw, oj, and ow or għu.

The rules were further expanded in the 1984 book, iż-Żieda mat-Tagħrif, which focused mainly on the increasing influence of Romance and English words.

In 1992 the academy issued the Aġġornament tat-Tagħrif fuq il-Kitba Maltija, which updated the previous works.

During the British colonial period, the use of English was encouraged through education, with Italian being regarded as the next-most important language.

Below are two versions of the same translations, one with vocabulary mostly derived from Semitic root words and the other using Romance loanwords (from the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe Archived 2015-12-29 at the Wayback Machine, see p. 17 Archived 2020-08-04 at the Wayback Machine): The Union is founded on the values of respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities.

These values are common to the Member States in a society in which pluralism, non-discrimination, tolerance, justice, solidarity and equality between women and men prevail.

L-Unjoni hija bbażata fuq il-valuri tar-rispett għad-dinjità tal-bniedem, il-libertà, id-demokrazija, l-ugwaljanza, l-istat tad-dritt u r-rispett għad-drittijiet tal-bniedem, inklużi d-drittijiet ta' persuni li jagħmlu parti minn minoranzi.

Dawn il-valuri huma komuni għall-Istati Membri f'soċjetà fejn jipprevalu l-pluraliżmu, in-non-diskriminazzjoni, it-tolleranza, il-ġustizzja, is-solidarjetà u l-ugwaljanza bejn in-nisa u l-irġiel.

Below is the Lord's Prayer in Maltese compared to other Semitic languages (Arabic and Syriac) with cognates highlighted: Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.

ḵubzana kafāfanā ʔaʕṭinā alyawm, wa aḡfir lanā ḏunūbanā, kamā naḡfiru naḥnu ʔayḍan lil-muḏnibīn ʔilaynā.

As a result of this, Romance language-speakers (and to a lesser extent English speakers) can often easily understand more technical ideas expressed in Maltese, such as Ġeografikament, l-Ewropa hi parti tas-superkontinent ta' l-Ewrasja ('Geographically, Europe is part of the supercontinent of Eurasia'), while not understanding a single word of a basic sentence such as Ir-raġel qiegħed fid-dar ('The man is in the house'), which would be easily understood by any Arabic speaker.

[50] An analysis of the etymology of the 41,000 words in Aquilina's Maltese–English Dictionary shows that 32% of the Maltese vocabulary is of Arabic origin,[11] although another source claims 40%.

[12][51] Usually, words expressing basic concepts and ideas, such as raġel (man), mara (woman), tifel (boy), dar (house), xemx (sun), and sajf (summer), are of Arabic origin.

Also, as with Old Sicilian, /ʃ/ (English sh) is written x and this produces spellings such as: ambaxxata /ambaʃːaːta/ ('embassy'), xena /ʃeːna/ ('scene'; compare Italian ambasciata, scena).

For instance, the words evaluation, industrial action, and chemical armaments become evalwazzjoni, azzjoni industrjali, and armamenti kimiċi in Maltese, while the Italian terms are valutazione, vertenza sindacale, and armi chimiche respectively.

(The origin of the terms may be narrowed even further to British English; the phrase industrial action is meaningless in the United States.)

Some influences of African Romance on the Arabic and Berber spoken in the Maghreb are theorised; these may then have passed into Maltese.

[11] This percentage discrepancy is due to the fact that a number of new English loanwords are sometimes not considered part of the official Maltese vocabulary, hence they are not included in certain dictionaries.

Maltese grammar is fundamentally derived from Arabic, although Latin and English noun pluralisation patterns are also used on borrowed words.

Both nouns and adjectives of Semitic origin take the definite article (for example, It-tifel il-kbir, lit.

Semitic plurals are complex; if they are regular, they are marked by -iet/-ijiet, e.g., art, artijiet "lands (territorial possessions or property)" (cf.

These are some of the patterns used for mimated nouns: The proclitic il- is the definite article, equivalent to "the" in English and "al-" in Arabic.

The Maltese article assimilates to a following non-ġ coronal consonant (called konsonanti xemxin "sun consonants"), namely: Verbs show the Semitic triliteral pattern, in which a verb is conjugated with prefixes, suffixes, and infixes (for example ktibna, Arabic katabna, Hebrew kathabhnu (Modern Hebrew: katavnu) "we wrote").

As Malta is a multilingual country, the use of Maltese in the mass media is shared with other European languages, namely English and Italian.