30+ Facts About The Maltese Language That You Need To Know

Have you ever asked yourself what   language   do they speak in   Malta     or what is the    language of Malta? Read this list to get your answers!

1. Maltese only became the official language of Malta in 1934.
2. According to the National Survey of 2021, 97% of people in Malta consider Maltese   their mother tongue.
3. Only two songs exclusively in Maltese have participated on the Eurovision Song Contest stage: Marija l-Maltija by Joe Grech and L-imħabba by Helen Micallef and Joe Cutajar.
4. Għ used to represent two sounds which have disappeared from contemporary Maltese   but still exist in Arabic: 'ayn (ع) and ghayn (غ).
5. The oldest known piece of literature in Maltese   is il-Kantilena, written by Pietro Kaxaro in the 15th century.
6. Maltese   became an official language of the European Union in 2004 and is still the only official Semitic language of the Union.
7. The official language regulator for Maltese   is il-Kunsill Nazzjonali tal-Ilsien Malti.
8. Maltese   belongs to the same linguistic family as Arabic   and Hebrew.
9. A significant minority of the population in Gibraltar during the late 1800s spoke Maltese.
10. The Maltese   version of Wikipedia has over 5,500 articles.
11. One of Italy's most famous singer-songwriters, Claudio Baglioni, released a cover of a well-known Maltese    song, L-Aħħar Bidwi F'Wied L-Għasel in 2008.
12. There is a Centre for the Maltese Language at the University of Bremen in Germany.
13. According to the Malta Skills Survey of 2022, 99.2% of Maltese   citizens know Maltese.
14. According to the 2021 United Kingdom Census, 1,490 people consider Maltese their main language.
15. According to the 2021 Australian Census, 26,555 people speak Maltese    at home.
16. There are 30 letters in the Maltese    alphabet.
17. There are around 500,000 people who speak Maltese .
18. The Maltese   surname Buttiġieġ means chicken owner.
19. There are different varieties of Maltese    in Malta with their own specific characteristics.
20. The BBC World Service had a Maltese -language service from 1940 to 1981.
21. Although Maltese    is a Semitic language, it has borrowed words from Romance languages (Sicilian, Italian & French) and from English.
22. Mikiel Anton Vassalli published the first Maltese    dictionary in 1796.
23. Giovanni Pietro Francesco Agius de Soldanis published the first grammar of the Maltese   language in 1750. He also wrote the first dictionary in the mid-1700s, but it was not published.
24. The Maltese    language is frequently code-switched with English.
25. Due to the rich linguistic history of Maltese , the language has many Romance / Semitic synonyms.
26. One of the ways to say good morning    in Maltese , bonġu, comes from French. The other is l-għodwa t-tajba, which derives from Arabic. 
27.  One of the ways to say good evening   in Maltese , bonswa, comes from French. The other is il-lejla t-tajba, which derives from Arabic. 
28. Malta's public broadcaster, TVM, mainly broadcasts in Maltese .
29. There are two daily newspapers in Maltese : L-Orizzont and In-Nazzjon. 
30. The   Maltese   surname   Micallef   means   judge.
31. According to the National Survey of 2021, 75% of people in Malta speak only Maltese    to their children.​

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