Learning Maltese

[pne]

The Maltese language tickled my fancy a little while ago, and my interest was renewed when floating_crumb came back to life.

The other day, I borrowed an "introduction to the Maltese language" from the public library; its title is Bonġornu, kif int?, which the author says symbolises in one phrase the Semitic/Romance mixture found in the language.

I was amused when I read the preface, part of which reads (my translation from the German):

This book had to take into account, first of all, that there cannot be much reason to learn Maltese for practical purposes and with the goal of mastering it actively in both oral and written forms, since English—the second official and most wide-spread educational and literary language of Malta—completely suffices, in general, for communication in all professional, touristic, or private contacts.

Which I take to be something like "Only weird crazy people learn Maltese voluntarily if they don't live there". Yay! I'm weird and crazy! :)

The preface goes on to say that, in the author's experience, the three main groups of people interested in Maltese are (a) Arabists, (b) students of the Romance languages (Romanists?), and (c) people who were fascinated by a visit to these "magical islands". He also says that, rather than aiming to lead to oral fluency (being able to speak the language), the book wants to present the language's grammar in such a way that written texts can be understood. (Yay grammar! says the German in me. Kle will know why.) Because of the special interest Arabists have, there are also numerous notes about sound changes or etymology for people who know Arabic, which are specially marked so that people without that background knowledge can ignore them as they are not necessary for the rest of the text. (I read them anyway, 'cos they're fun.)

While reading through the book, I find that the hardest parts are pronunciation, since stress and vowel length are not marked in Maltese orthography, and only occasionally in the book, so I'm sure I'm pronouncing many words wrong in my head. The book does give rules for determining stress and vowel length, which is usually possible just by looking at the shape of a word, but I haven't internalised them. (Vowel length and stress is also important for knowing how words change shape e.g. when you add certain suffixes, since a change of stress caused by the change can cause unstressed short vowels to disappear, e.g. kíteb "he wrote" -> kítbu "they wrote" without the e, not *kítebu.)

Comments

[elgrande.livejournal.com]

Before reading your entry, I wasn't really aware that there's another country in the EU where English is official (or predominantly spoken) other than the UK and Ireland.

[liv]

The last paragraph made me squee because that is exactly like Hebrew (probably not a coincidence, since both are related to Arabic, but the root k-t-v means 'write' in Hebrew and conjugates very similarly). Though Hebrew doesn't even mark the bloody vowels, let alone the the stresses or vowel lengths, you have to guess from your knowledge of grammar. Maltese sounds very cool.

[wingflutter.livejournal.com]

it is ;)

[pne.livejournal.com]

How does Hebrew conjugate?

For example, k-t-b in Maltese is like this (let's see whether I can do it without referring to the book):

Imperfect tense ("present"):

sg. Jien nikteb, Inti tikteb, Huwa jikteb / Hija tikteb
pl. Aħna niktbu, Intom tiktbu, Huma jiktbu

Perfect tense ("past"):

sg. Jien ktibt, Inti ktibt, Huwa kiteb / Hija kitbet
pl. Aħna ktibna, Intom ktibtu, Huma kitbu

Imperative: ikteb! iktbu!

*checks* Nearly. Only got 2pl and 3pl wrong in the perfect tense. Fixed now.

[liv]

I can't do the whole conjugation from memory so, checking my grammar book...

Root k-t-b, to write. (Classical) Hebrew also has imperfect (which kind of works as a future) and perfect (which kind of works as a past), rather than standard tenses; another similarity!

Guessing the order from cognates:
Imperfect s: ekhtov, tikhtov / tikht@vi, yikhtov / tikhtov
Imperfect pl: nikhtov, tikht@vu / tikhtovna, yikht@vu / tikhtovna
Perfect s: katavti, katavta / katavt, katav / katva
Perfect pl: katavnu, k@tavtem / k@tavten, katvu
Imperative: ktov / kitvi, kitvu / ktovna

You don't normally put pronouns in conjugations, but they are: ani, ata / at, hu / hi, anu or anakhnu, atem / aten, hem / hen

So yes, changes in aspiration (there are other bits of conjugation where the v is pronounced b as well, just not the basic patterns) and vowels and stress. But the kinship of the languages is pretty visible too. Fun!

[pne.livejournal.com]

Oh, and

Maltese sounds very cool.

I think so, too.

[wingflutter.livejournal.com]

lolol at the sidenote that only i'll understand :P :P

i just wanted to let you know that i have NEVER - not ONCE - heard 'Bonġornu' being said... I imagine that's how the original version of the word that was derived from 'Bonjour' was said, but nowadays, it's been shortened to 'Bonġu' ;)

Bonġornu

[pne.livejournal.com]

i just wanted to let you know that i have NEVER - not ONCE - heard 'Bonġornu' being said... I imagine that's how the original version of the word that was derived from 'Bonjour' was said

I imagine it's from the Italian "buon giorno", not the French "bonjour"... since Italian was also an influence on Maltese.

Which reminds me of the other day when I was briefly listen to Maltese radio over the Internet, and a lady phoned into the studio and the lady in the studio greeted her with "Bwonasera", received a pause, and then said "Bonswa" instead, which garnered a response of "Bonswa" from the person phoning in. Which sounded to me as if both a version of the Italian "Buona sera" and a version of the French "Bonsoir" are used by at least some people on Malta, and I figured the same might be true for "Buon giorno" vs "Bonjour". But I have no idea.

Re: Bonġornu

[wingflutter.livejournal.com]

oh yeah i forgot about that one... THAT is the one that is taken from the French. Bongu is Italian. My bad.

Buona sera, I imagine, is taken directly out of italian. As in, the dj used it as Italian, and not Maltese-Italian. It's quite common too that people switch half way through a sentence from Maltese to English or Italian. that may have been such a case.

Some weird info for you: Bonswa is also used as an adjective to describe someone who's gone crazy [usually in the non-clinical way].

eg. Dak bonswa! [he's crazy!]

Re: Bonġornu

[pne.livejournal.com]

THAT is the one that is taken from the French. Bongu is Italian.

I don't think so...

As in, the dj used it as Italian, and not Maltese-Italian.

Ah, OK, could well be.

Vowel sounds

[maltagirl.livejournal.com]

Don't worry too much about the vowel sounds - different villages in Malta have their own dialects, which mostly boils down to how they treat vowel sounds. So if you're not saying it exactly right, you'll still be understandable.

My suggestion is, if you don't have anyone who speaks Maltese around, to listen to Maltese as much as possible. You can find webcasts on sites like http://www.di-ve.com (look for the "streaming events" box) and http://www.maltamedia.com/webcasts/ and there's a Maltese Christian radio station that makes its local programming available online: http://www.christianlightradio.com/listenThisYear.html

Even though it will all sound like gibberish at first, it really helps to get a feel for the language, and pretty soon you will start recognising words here and there. I learned Maltese as a second language (although I live in Malta, I was in an English-speaking environment until I was a teenager) and being immersed in Maltese when I went to a Maltese-speaking school was what finally turned the tide.

Good luck :-D

want to learn maltese, help!

[(Anonymous)]

I want to learn Maltese, and feel that I would benefit from audio cd's or tapes, but cannot find any at all. Can anyone help at all???
regards, caroline

Re: want to learn maltese, help!

[pne.livejournal.com]

I'd suggest you post in floating_crumb.

I have no experience with CDs or tapes beyond the tape that comes with a little guide book I have -- the book's in German, though, and the tape merely speaks the Maltese phrases found in the guide book.