Maltese: an Arabic language written in a Latin script (episode 1) with special guest Noel

[@letsmapdialects5248]

Thank you Mel for inviting me. Making this series has been a journey of discovery for me. I hope the audience will enjoy listening to it and find the series useful :)

[@mysotiras21]

Cool! Leaning more about Maltese has long been on my to-do list. Will have to watch this lengthy video later.

[@jma7600]

The soup analogy of the Maltese language reminds me of Odon’s description of the Qur’anic text.

[@julietabraham476]

Well said😅😅😅

[@samuelengle7873]

I knew more than one Tunisian person who said they could understand most of Maltese.

[@hussaindaud1260]

Mel you may remember me from years ago I used to leave detailed linguistic comments on your older videos. I have always been fascinated by the Maltese language, a semitic language written in the Latin script, so I am particularly looking forward to this video.

[@letsmapdialects5248]

I too hope you like it too :)

[@IslamicOrigins]

Yes, indeed I do. You were frequently a great help. Thank you!

[@deratatouille4924]

Thank you for the video.

[@letsmapdialects5248]

Thank you for the comments :)

[@matthiaswille8641]

Living in Malta for 30 years, knowing Malta since 1987, I can say that Maltese was at least since my first visit considered a 'kitchen' language. From my own research into the language I believe this is deep routed going backwards to the Knights of Malta when the elites spoke Italian and Latin (Church Mass), both languages where later replaced by English when Malta became a British Protectorate and later a Crown Colony.

[@Lightclaw]

Putting this video on in the background while I work! I am grateful for the slowly building-up of content based on Malti / Maltese, especially as someone from a Maltese family - and as someone who has noticed a bit of a reject by some on Malta in recent years. But i never expected a proper dive into the history and culture of the language itself. I'm looking forward to how it is discussed about Norman Sicily. I saw a comment on an instagram post with some wild misinformed understanding about Siculo-Arabic in Sicily and Malta

[@letsmapdialects5248]

Glad you liked it :) I hope you will like the rest of the series too :)

[@Lightclaw]

@@letsmapdialects5248 looking forward to more!

[@midimusicforever]

Interesting!

[@heidarmuller6942]

48:37 "ghayra" is purposely mistranslated as "self-respect" in the Hadith. It means "jealousy" in Arabic, too.

[@karenthompson1337]

Mel. What an interesting series this will be! Thank you 🙏

[@noodleitout5424]

1:24:36 I can't remember where I read it, but I thought I remember something about "south" or the "southerly direction" being a "favorable" direction, but the "northerly" direction being an "unfavorable" direction... Some sort of association with "south" being indicative of the "right hand" and the "north" being indicative of the "left" hand. Which, if one is facing the east in the northern hemisphere, the left hand would be on the north side of the person and the left hand side would be on the south side of the person.

[@philos521]

Just like the Qrn got Azar wrong they could have gotten Zom Zom wrong too. But this does get me closer to the secretive past of the Sicilian Clan. Thanks Mel and Noel.

[@deratatouille4924]

Ba’li is still used in arabic for non irrigated land

[@deratatouille4924]

We still swear in tunisia, w haqq rabbi rit el-ma. So to translate: by the truth of my Lord, I saw the water. Not a curse.

[@ASHORSHEMAYA]

The word ZomZom in Maltese is probably derived from the word dhamdham, which is a repetition of the verb dham but in to order someone you say dhom, which may have the meaning of plural. Here it may mean to close the lips, meaning be quiet or shut up and do not speak. dh= ض / dh ; but some other arabs pronounce it as Z/ I can't say for sure anything here, but it's just a guess.

[@letsmapdialects5248]

dhamdham is attested in Maltese too. My question was whether Arab speakers today still say dham to mean stop, like Hagar did (in the SIN) and the Maltese still do to this day.

[@shdwbnndbyyt]

In Maltese "Zomm Zomm Zomm" to stop quickly... but in US English (maybe more dialects).. "Zoom Zoom Zoom" implies moving VERY VERY quickly...

[@deratatouille4924]

Zammit/zummit is a dish from tunisia and libya

[@letsmapdialects5248]

are people named after this dish though? The book that Cassar wrote is an etymological study of the surnames themselves. On another note, do you say żomm to mean stop in Tunisia like we do in Malta?

[@deratatouille4924]

@@letsmapdialects5248 zomm is not used as to stop in Tunisia. Frequently in Tunisia and elsewhere I suppose people can be named after dishes like kosksi from couscous, kammoun from cumin, besbes from fennel, lefti from beet and even zommit … I didn’t access the Cassar study, but I wanted to share this perspective as well.

[@Mady-lo6qb]

Quran 41:44 [...] Is it a foreign language written in Arabian?" ... I wonder how Murad translates this?

[@deratatouille4924]

Sallam is greeted in arabic

[@deratatouille4924]

Firdaws has persian origin

[@samuelengle7873]

If Aramaic was used that late, most of the Quran that can’t be understood from Arabic and I’d say maybe more of it than that is in Aramaic.

[@letsmapdialects5248]

Arab speakers: do you still say /zomm/ to mean "stop"?

[@myhome9300]

The word may mean “tie something” so if you want to say tie the bag you say zomm elkeese زم الكيس I heard it used as “shut up” amongst Palestinians , not common in Syria

[@myhome9300]

Do you think Maltese acquired Arabic part very early on or may have been influenced by potentially Christian Arabs that left the levant at the end of the crusades?

[@letsmapdialects5248]

@@myhome9300 stay tuned for episode 3b and episode 4 :)

[@stevenbennett9455]

Malta was a colony of Carthage so how much influence did neocanaanite have?

[@letsmapdialects5248]

Will see in episode 3 ;)

[@TheLinguist601]

The Charthagian Empire at its hight, held most of coastal line northern Morocco, Algeria, most of modern day Tunisia, practically the entire coastal line of Libya. All the Balearic Islands, Malta, Corsica, Sardinia, most of Sicily, and a significant portion of the southeast of Spain. There are some Punic loan words in Latin and Greek, but mostly names. And somewhat more in Amazigh (Berber) languages. It is also likely that Iberian Celtic contained some Punic loans. And Gaulish may have had a few Punic loans. The Punic traces found in Maghrebi Arabic, are almost all through Amazigh. I'd suspect that the overwhelming majority of Punic loans found in Maltese can be accounted for via the intermediate languages. There is some debate on the fringes over a few Judeo-Aramaic and Judeo-Arabic words that seem geographically linked to the Iberian Peninsula that could possibly be directly from Punic, but the evidence is limited at best, and confounded by Hebrew. The reason for an obvious lack of Punic loans in Northern Mediterranean languages, is that these people were never converted culturally into Charthagians, nor to the religion. Most mentiones about their religion in Greek and Latin are downright negative. Furthermore the Romans had a policy of actively seeking out and destroying Punic writing, especially after the third Punic war. The only exception are agricultural manuals, which survived in fragments of Greek and Latin translations.

[@letsmapdialects5248]

@@TheLinguist601 What do you think of Ġużi Gatt’s suggestion that the “bgħali” (or as he suggests is preferable “baali”) in “raba’ bgħali” may hark back to Baal or echoes of Baal? N.B. raba’ baali = rainfed agricultural land raba’ saqwi = irrigated agricultural land

[@TheLinguist601]

​@@letsmapdialects5248 It is possible...but since it seems limited to an agricultural compound term, the word would have lost any meaning by itself. So an echo, seems the best explanation. It also appears to fit in with the claim that the Punic agricultural manuals were preserved by the Romans, at least to a certain extent. So yeah, as far as I can tell, it would fit. But note I'm not a Maltese specialist.

[@stevenbennett9455]

@@TheLinguist601 St Augustine was neocanaanite (punic) but his writings that survived are in Latin, which fits in with your answer. I understand Zeno was Punic, but since he moved to Athens that's probably the only reason we know about him. There is no evidence of Punic literature of any sort, even in Lebanon, only mentions of stories about their explorers. The Greeks invented, history, philosophy in writing, and fiction as simply entertainment, the plays. The Punic society was strictly commercial from what we know, so not likely much literature for Rome to destroy. Considering what Rome did to Jerusalem they likely did not think it possible to eliminate the Septuagint because it existed east of their zone of control.

[@RoyalKnightVIII]

If you wanna save Maltese translate some pop culture into it! ;) imagine a Maltese dub of anime or a videogame? Despite being a huge language, even taken as just MSA, Pokemon has never gotten an official Arabic translation. So why not Pokemon in Maltese? Some fans have translated the game into Arabic which requires more programming to get the Arabic script in, Maltese just needs a few special letters Edit: anyways its interesting to see the relgious stuff since I'm coming from an atheist pov. It's fascinating to see how words can mean completely different things in a muslim vs christian context. Makes me wonder what an Arabic or Maltese speaking buddhisg might invent

[@BaldiReycaster]

Maltese is not an Arabic language. It is an _Afroasiatic_ language.

[@SyedAhmedJaved]

The imbeciles won't understand this.

[@Lightclaw]

no, it is not when you describe Maltese.

[@Lightclaw]

if you want to describe a language generally, it is more common to say its immediate linguistic family. In this case, for Malti, you would describe it as a Siculo-Maghrebi (or Siculo-Arabic) language Which, more often than not due to the nature of *describing* Arabic dialects/languages, just means that you commonly just get people saying "Malti is an Arabic language"

[@RoyalKnightVIII]

Yeah an Arabic dialect that is evolving without regard to Fusha. So it's allowed to evolve as its own language.