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50-522: Wignacourt Tower was the second tower to be built in the Maltese islands, after Garzes Tower on Gozo . It was the first tower to be built on the main island . As Garzes Tower was demolished in 1848, Wignacourt Tower is now the oldest surviving watchtower in Malta. By the end of the 16th century, Malta's harbour area was extensively fortified. However, the rest of the islands was virtually undefended, and

100-537: A coastal towers, built by Grandmaster Wignacourt, are traditionally attributed to Cassar and based on the Garzes tower. However this is probably based on speculations; It is likely that Cassar's design of Garzes Tower was used, and adequately modified, to build the other towers due to the similarity in their military architecture. In the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries, Gozo was prone to attacks by Barbary corsairs , along with most of Malta and other coastal areas in

150-416: A large number of borrowings from Romance sources ( Sicilian , Italian , and French ) and, more recently, Germanic ones (from English ). The historical source of modern Maltese vocabulary is 52% Italian/Sicilian, 32% Arabic/Siculo-Arabic, and 6% English, with some of the remainder being French. Today, most function words are Arabic, so despite only making up about a third of the vocabulary, they are

200-470: A monk, some 40 elderly Gozitans and about 300 who managed to escape and hide). The slaves were taken aboard Ottoman ships from Mġarr Harbour itself. Before this attack, there had already been proposals to build a tower to guard Mġarr Harbour and the Gozo Channel . In 1418, the people made a petition to build such a tower but nothing materialized. In 1599, a report was made about the defence of Gozo, and

250-469: A ḡ fir lanā ḏ unūbanā , kamā na ḡ firu na ḥ nu ʔ ay ḍ an lil-muḏnibīn ʔ ilaynā. wa lā tud ḵ ilna fī tajāriba , lākin najjinā min a š-š irrīr. ʔā mīn hab lan lahmo d-sunqonan yowmono washbuq lan hawbayn wahtohayn aykano doph hnan shbaqan l-hayobayn lo ta`lan l-nesyuno elo paso lan men bisho Amin Although the original vocabulary of Maltese was Siculo-Arabic , it has incorporated

300-587: Is descended from Siculo-Arabic, a Semitic language within the Afroasiatic family . In the course of its history , Maltese has been influenced by Sicilian, Italian, to a lesser extent by French , and more recently by English. Today, the core vocabulary (including both the most commonly used vocabulary and function words ) is Semitic, with a large number of loanwords . Due to the Sicilian influence on Siculo-Arabic, Maltese has many language contact features and

350-849: Is distinctive word-medially and word-finally in Maltese. The distinction is most rigid intervocalically after a stressed vowel. Stressed, word-final closed syllables with short vowels end in a long consonant, and those with a long vowel in a single consonant; the only exception is where historic *ʕ and *ɣ meant the compensatory lengthening of the succeeding vowel. Some speakers have lost length distinction in clusters. The two nasals /m/ and /n/ assimilate for place of articulation in clusters. /t/ and /d/ are usually dental , whereas /t͡s d͡z s z n r l/ are all alveolar. /t͡s d͡z/ are found mostly in words of Italian origin, retaining length (if not word-initial). /d͡z/ and /ʒ/ are only found in loanwords, e.g. /ɡad͡zd͡zɛtta/ "newspaper" and /tɛlɛˈviʒin/ "television". The pharyngeal fricative /ħ/

400-654: Is less distant from its Siculo-Arabic ancestor than is Standard Maltese. Voiceless stops are only lightly aspirated and voiced stops are fully voiced. Voicing is carried over from the last segment in obstruent clusters ; thus, two- and three-obstruent clusters are either voiceless or voiced throughout, e.g. /niktbu/ is realised [ˈniɡdbu] "we write" (similar assimilation phenomena occur in languages like French or Czech). Maltese has final-obstruent devoicing of voiced obstruents and word-final voiceless stops have no audible release , making voiceless–voiced pairs phonetically indistinguishable in word-final position. Gemination

450-747: Is most commonly described as a language with a large number of loanwords. Maltese has historically been classified in various ways, with some claiming that it was derived from ancient Punic (another Semitic language) instead of Siculo-Arabic, and others claiming it is one of the Berber languages (another language family within Afroasiatic). Less plausibly, Fascist Italy classified it as regional Italian . Urban varieties of Maltese are closer to Standard Maltese than rural varieties, which have some characteristics that distinguish them from Standard Maltese. They tend to show some archaic features such as

500-404: 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. At that time Malta was thoroughly Arabized. The conquerors brought to the island the vulgar (colloquial) variation of Arabic, not the classical one (Classical Arabic), Therefore

550-510: Is said to them in Maltese. This reported level of asymmetric intelligibility is considerably lower than the mutual intelligibility found between other varieties of Arabic. Maltese has always been written in the Latin script , the earliest surviving example dating from the late Middle Ages . It is the only standardised Semitic language written exclusively in the Latin script. The origins of

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600-860: 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. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen Ħobżna ta' kuljum agħtina llum . Aħfrilna dnubietna , bħal ma naħfru lil min hu ħati għalina . U la ddaħħalniex fit-tiġrib , iżda eħlisna mid-deni. Ammen ʔabāna , alla ḏ i fī as-samāwāt , li- yataqaddas ismuka , li- yaʔti malakūtuka, li-takun ma šī ʔatuka, kamā fī as-samāʔi ka ḏ ālika ʕa lā al-ar ḍ . ḵ ubzana kafāfanā ʔaʕṭi nā alyawm , wa

650-558: Is the national language of Malta , and the only official Semitic and Afroasiatic language of the European Union . Maltese is considered a North African dialect of Colloquial Arabic that was brought to Malta by Arab and Berber ( Aghlabids ), who in 869/870 CE seized control of the island from the Byzantine Empire. It is also said that it descents from Siculo-Arabic, which developed as a Maghrebi Arabic dialect in

700-425: Is velar ( [ x ] ), uvular ( [ χ ] ), or glottal ( [ h ] ) for some speakers. 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

750-536: The Emirate of Sicily between 831 and 1091. 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. It is therefore exceptional as a variety of historical Arabic that has no diglossic relationship with Classical or Modern Standard Arabic . Maltese is thus classified separately from

800-666: The Italo-Normans ended Arab rule of the islands, a written form of the language was not developed for a long time after the Arabs' expulsion in the middle of the thirteenth century. Under the rule of the Knights Hospitaller , both French and Italian were used for official documents and correspondence. During the British colonial period , the use of English was encouraged through education, with Italian being regarded as

850-640: The Order of Saint John in 1605. It was named after Martin Garzez , the Grand Master who financed its construction, even though it was eventually built after his death during the Magistry of Alof de Wignacourt . The tower was demolished in the 19th century; some remains were reused for the building of a bridge, and the site was developed with a hotel. It was built to the design of Vittorio Cassar . A number

900-554: The Wignacourt towers . The first tower was built to protect St. Paul's Bay , and was called Wignacourt Tower after the Grand Master. On 7 November 1609, plans and a model of the tower were presented to the Order's council. The first stone of was blessed and laid on 10 February 1610, and the accompanying ceremony was attended by Wignacourt himself. The tower cost 6748 scudi, 7 tari and 10 grani to build. Although there are claims that

950-527: The diaspora . Most speakers also use English. The largest diaspora community of Maltese speakers is in Australia , with 36,000 speakers reported in 2006 (down from 45,000 in 1996, and expected to decline further). The Maltese linguistic community in Tunisia originated in the 18th century. Numbering several thousand in the 19th century, it was reported to be only 100 to 200 people as of 2017. Maltese

1000-450: The 1980s, together with a grammar, the Regole per la Lingua Maltese , attributed to a French knight named Thezan. The first systematic lexicon is that of Giovanni Pietro Francesco Agius de Soldanis , who also wrote the first systematic grammar of the language and proposed a standard orthography . Ethnologue reports a total of 530,000 Maltese speakers: 450,000 in Malta and 79,000 in

1050-409: The 30 varieties constituting the modern Arabic macrolanguage . Maltese is also distinguished from Arabic and other Semitic languages since its morphology has been deeply influenced by Romance languages , namely Italian and Sicilian . The original Arabic base comprises around one-third of the Maltese vocabulary, especially words that denote basic ideas and the function words , but about half of

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1100-604: The Levant. 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. In contrast to Sicily, where Siculo-Arabic became extinct and was replaced by Sicilian , the vernacular in Malta continued to develop alongside Italian, eventually replacing it as official language in 1934, alongside English. The first written reference to

1150-508: The Maltese language are attributed to the arrival, early in the 11th century, of settlers from neighbouring Sicily, where Siculo-Arabic was spoken, reversing the Fatimid Caliphate 's conquest of the island at the end of the 9th century. This claim has been corroborated by genetic studies, which show that contemporary Maltese people share common ancestry with Sicilians and Calabrians , with little genetic input from North Africa and

1200-508: The Maltese language differs from Classical Arabic in the same way as the Arabic dialects differ from Classical Arabic. the Maltese language also comprises a considerable number of Maghrebi features, in other ways it can be closer to other Arabic dialects, or closer to Classical Arabic than to the other dialects as in the word ra ('to see'). Arabic supplies between 32% and 40% of the language's vocabulary. Żammit (2000) found that 40% of

1250-485: The Maltese language is in a will of 1436, where it is called lingua maltensi . The oldest known document in Maltese, Il-Kantilena ( Xidew il-Qada ) by Pietru Caxaro , dates from the 15th century. The earliest known Maltese dictionary was a 16th-century manuscript entitled "Maltese-Italiano"; it was included in the Biblioteca Maltese of Mifsud in 1764, but is now lost. A list of Maltese words

1300-626: The Mediterranean and Europe. The harbour of Mġarr was commonly used by pirates to replenish with water and plunder the surrounding area. The worst attack occurred in July 1551, when Ottoman forces aided by corsairs tried to take over Malta but failed so they landed in Gozo, besieged the Cittadela and took almost the entire population of about 5,000 to 6,000 people as slaves (with the exception of

1350-660: 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

1400-400: The coastline was open to attacks by Ottomans or Barbary corsairs. This began to change in the early 17th century, when Martin Garzez , Grand Master of the Order of Saint John , allocated funds for the building of Garzes Tower on Gozo. Garzes' successor, Alof de Wignacourt , set out to build a series of towers around the coastline, which were personally funded by him and came to be known as

1450-541: The government issued a call for tenders for the lease of the tower, and it was leased to Din l-Art Ħelwa in 1970. It was restored between 1973 and 1976. During restoration, the tower's turrets were completely rebuilt. A marble plaque with the following inscription was installed above the ground floor entrance: DAN IT-TORRI MIBNI MILL-GRAN MASTRU ALOF DE WIGNACOURT FIS-SENA 1610 ĠIE RESTAWRAT MILL-GĦAQDA NAZZJONALI DIN L-ART ĦELWA FIS-SENA 1975 BIEX TIĠI MFAKKRA IS-SENA TAL-WIRT ARKITETTONIKU FL-EWROPA Since 1998,

1500-527: 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. The National Council for the Maltese Language (KNM) is the main regulator of the Maltese language (see Maltese Language Act, below). However, the academy's orthography rules are still valid and official. Since Maltese evolved after

1550-431: The military engineer Giovanni Rinaldini made it clear that a tower was necessary in that area to prevent future attacks. The Grand Master at that time, Martin Garzez , realized this so he decided to finance the building of a tower himself. He allocated 12,000 scudi for the building of the tower, but he died in 1601 before construction began. Construction of the tower began four years after the Grand Master died, in 1605. It

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1600-466: The most used when speaking the language. In this way, Maltese is similar to English , a Germanic language that has been strongly influenced by Norman French and Latin (58% of English vocabulary). 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

1650-405: The next-most important language. In the late 18th century and throughout the 19th century, philologists and academics such as Mikiel Anton Vassalli made a concerted effort to standardise written Maltese. Many examples of written Maltese exist from before this period, always in the Latin alphabet, Il-Kantilena from the 15th century being the earliest example of written Maltese. In 1934, Maltese

1700-546: 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

1750-486: 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 original Arabic consonant system has undergone partial collapse under European influence, with many Classical Arabic consonants having undergone mergers and modifications in Maltese: The modern system of Maltese orthography

1800-570: The realisation of ⟨kh⟩ and ⟨gh⟩ and the imāla of Arabic ā into ē (or ī especially in Gozo), considered archaic because they are reminiscent of 15th-century transcriptions of this sound. Another archaic feature is the realisation of Standard Maltese ā as ō in rural dialects. There is also a tendency to diphthongise simple vowels, e.g., ū becomes eo or eu. Rural dialects also tend to employ more Semitic roots and broken plurals than Standard Maltese. In general, rural Maltese

1850-479: The structure of the Maltese language are recorded in the official guidebook Tagħrif fuq il-Kitba Maltija (English: Knowledge on Writing in Maltese ) issued by the Akkademja tal-Malti (Academy of the Maltese language). The first edition of this book was printed in 1924 by the Maltese government's printing press. The rules were further expanded in the 1984 book, iż-Żieda mat-Tagħrif , which focused mainly on

1900-600: The tower has been a museum, and its exhibits include models of various fortifications found in the Maltese islands , reproductions of items used by the tower's occupants in the 17th and 18th centuries, old photos and a restored cannon. In 2010, the 400th anniversary of the tower was celebrated by the St. Paul's Bay Local Council, the Festa Committee and Din l-Art Ħelwa in a series of events including re-enactments, tours, discussions and traditional Maltese folklore. The tower

1950-517: The tower was designed by Vittorio Cassar , he disappears from the Order's military records around 1603. Cassar died in around June 1609, before work on the tower began. The architect of Wignacourt Tower was probably an unknown Maltese capomastro . The tower was the only major fortification in the north of Malta until the construction of Saint Agatha's Tower in 1649. It had Qawra Tower (built 1638), Buġibba Battery (built 1715) and Mistra Battery (built 1761) in its line of sight. A coastal battery

2000-469: The tower was occupied by the Post and Telephone Department. The tower's original entrance was on the first floor, and it was approached by a drawbridge from a flight of stone steps. The steps were removed in the 1950s when the road in front of the tower was widened. An entrance was added on the ground floor. The wheel of the drawbridge still exists, as well as the door and its key of the main entrance. In 1967

2050-535: The vocabulary is derived from standard Italian and Sicilian; and English words make up between 6% and 20% of the vocabulary. A 2016 study shows that, in terms of basic everyday language, speakers of Maltese are able to understand around a third of what is said to them in Tunisian Arabic and Libyan Arabic , which are Maghrebi Arabic dialects related to Siculo-Arabic, whereas speakers of Tunisian Arabic and Libyan Arabic are able to understand about 40% of what

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2100-427: Was added to the tower in 1715 to house two 18-pounder guns. Buttressing was added to the lower half of the structure in around 1761. After Malta fell under British rule , the tower began to be used as a police station. A postal agency was located within the police station between 1891 and 1921, and during this period a postmark reading "St. Paul's Bay" was used. The police station closed in 1931, and from 1937 to 1963

2150-596: Was built in 1610. The oldest tower on Gozo is the Xlendi Tower that was built in 1650 ( a tower in Marsalforn had also been built in 1616 but it collapsed around 1715). Maltese language Maltese (Maltese: Malti , also L-Ilsien Malti or Lingwa Maltija ) is a Semitic language derived from late medieval Sicilian Arabic with Romance superstrata . It is spoken by the Maltese people and

2200-606: Was included in both the Thesaurus Polyglottus (1603) and Propugnaculum Europae (1606) of Hieronymus Megiser , who had visited Malta in 1588–1589; Domenico Magri gave the etymologies of some Maltese words in his Hierolexicon, sive sacrum dictionarium (1677). An early manuscript dictionary, Dizionario Italiano e Maltese , was discovered in the Biblioteca Vallicelliana in Rome in

2250-473: Was intended for use by the four militia members in the tower but was also open to the public. It became an unofficial parish church for the people of the nearby villages. After 243 years, the tower was demolished in 1848. Its masonry was used to build the bridge linking Mġarr to Nadur . The Mġarr Hotel was built over the site of the tower, but it has since closed down. Although the tower no longer exists, it still has an important place in Malta's history. This

2300-404: Was introduced in 1924. Below is the Maltese alphabet, with IPA symbols and approximate English pronunciation: Final vowels with grave accents (à, è, ì, ò, ù) are also found in some Maltese words of Italian origin, such as libertà ' freedom ' , sigurtà (old Italian: sicurtà ' security ' ), or soċjetà (Italian: società ' society ' ). The official rules governing

2350-500: Was recognised as an official language. Maltese has both Semitic vocabulary and words derived from Romance languages , primarily Italian . Words such as tweġiba (Arabic origin) and risposta (Italian origin) have the same meaning ('answer') but are both used in Maltese (rather like 'answer' and 'response' in English. Below are two versions of the same translations, one with vocabulary mostly derived from Semitic root words and

2400-524: Was restored and cleaned once again in 2015. 11. Farrugia Randon Stanley, Wignacourt Tower and Walks in St Paul's Bay 12. Farrugia Randon Stanley, Wignacourt Tower 400 Years Garzes Tower Garzes Tower ( Maltese : Torri Garzes , Italian : Torre Garzes or Torre della Garza ), also known as Saint Martin's Tower ( Maltese : Torri ta' San Martin ), was a watchtower built in Mġarr , Gozo by

2450-476: Was still under construction in 1607. It was built on a promontory, between Wied il-Kbir and Wied Biljun. The tower had a number of guns mounted on its roof which had equidistant embrasures along each of its sides. In the mid-18th century, a bastioned enceinte around the tower was proposed but never built. Eventually, Fort Chambray was built on the opposite side of Mġarr. The tower had a small chapel dedicated to St. Catherine of Siena and later St. Martin that

2500-589: Was the first coastal watchtower built by the Order. Garzes' successor, Alof de Wignacourt , later built a series of large watchtowers or small forts that are known as the Wignacourt towers . Other Grand Masters built smaller watchtowers such as the Lascaris and De Redin towers . Since Garzes Tower has been demolished, the oldest tower still standing in Malta is the Wignacourt Tower in St. Paul's Bay , which

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