Maltese alphabet

The Maltese alphabet is based on the Latin alphabet with the addition of some letters with diacritic marks and digraphs. It is used to write the Maltese language, which evolved from the otherwise extinct Siculo-Arabic dialect, as a result of 800 years of independent development.[1][2][3] It contains 30 letters: 24 consonants and 6 vowels (a, e, i, o, u, ie).

Majuscule forms (uppercase) A B Ċ D E F Ġ G H Ħ I Ie J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Ż Z
Minuscule forms (lowercase) a b ċ d e f ġ g h ħ i ie j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x ż z

There are two types of Maltese consonants:

  1. ^ Borg, Albert; Azzopardi-Alexander, Marie (1997). Maltese. Routledge. p. xiii. ISBN 0-415-02243-6. In fact, Maltese displays some areal traits typical of Maghrebine Arabic, although over the past 800 years of independent evolution it has drifted apart from Tunisian Arabic
  2. ^ Brincat, Joseph M. Maltese - an unusual formula. Originally Maltese was an Arabic dialect but it was immediately exposed to Latinisation because the Normans conquered the islands in 1090, while Christianisation, which was complete by 1250, cut off the dialect from contact with Classical Arabic. Consequently Maltese developed on its own, slowly but steadily absorbing new words from Sicilian and Italian according to the needs of the developing community.
  3. ^ So who are the 'real' Maltese. 14 September 2014. The kind of Arabic used in the Maltese language is most likely derived from the language spoken by those that repopulated the island from Sicily in the early second millennium; it is known as Siculo-Arab. The Maltese are mostly descendants of these people.

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