Before Maltese : languages in Malta from prehistory to the byzantine age

Abstract

Due to its position exactly at the centre of the Mediterranean Sea, Malta鈥檚 contacts have not been limited to its immediate neighbours, Sicily and North Africa. Throughout its history it has been at the mercy of the naval powers that sailed the Sicilian channel and the Maltese language has been shaped by its inhabitants鈥� contacts with the peoples who governed the islands or established colonies there. For thousands of years, when the inhabitants had to live off the islands鈥� resources, the population was small, around 5,000, and this factor may have allowed language substitution 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 it was prized mostly for its efficiency. The population multiplied in the past one thousand years, thanks to waves of settlers from abroad who forged strong contacts with the locals and introduced bilingual interaction in various domains. For this reason a history of the Maltese language must be seen in the wider linguistic history of the Maltese islands and offers linguists in both the historical and typological fields an intriguing case study of a 鈥渕inor鈥� language that survived alongside a series of 鈥渕ajor鈥� languages like Arabic, Latin, Sicilian, Italian and English. These enjoyed a lot of prestige in Malta but their use was restricted to the literate minority.