Maltese people

Maltese

File:Maltespeople.JPG Gerald Strickland • Enrico Mizzi • Edward de Bono • Rużar Briffa
Regions with significant populations
Malta:    400,000 (2006) Australia:    180,000 (1995) United States:    70,000 (1995) Brazil:    58,000< Canada:    33,000 (2001)
Languages
Maltese, English, Italian
Religion
Roman Catholic.
Related ethnic groups
Italians, Spaniards, Portuguese, Greeks,Arabs..

The Maltese people or Maltese are a nation and ethnic group native to Malta, an island nation consisting of an archipelago of seven islands in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea.

Historical background

Main article: History of Malta

Malta has been inhabited since around 5200 BC with the first inhabitants of Malta probably reaching the island from Sicily. A significant prehistoric Neolithic culture marked by Megalithic structures existed on the islands, predating the Pyramids of Giza by a millennium. The Phoenicians colonized Malta from about 1000 BC, using the islands as an outpost from which they expanded sea explorations and trade in the Mediterranean until their successors, the Carthaginians, were ousted by the Romans in 216 BC.

After a period of Byzantine rule (4th to 9th century) and a probable sack by the Vandals, the islands were conquered by the Arabs in AD 870. The Arabs, who generally tolerated the population's Christianity, introduced the cultivation of citrus fruits and cotton, and irrigation systems. Arab influence can be seen most prominently in the modern Maltese language, which is the only Semitic language written in the Latin alphabet in its standard form.

From the advent of the Normans in 1090 to 1530, Malta was part of the Kingdom of Sicily; thus from 1091 to 1530 when the Order of St. John came to Malta, the original Italic, Phoenician and Byzantine population from the Roman period was further reinforced by other European elements - a period of 440 years.

The French under Napoleon took hold of the Maltese islands in 1798, although with the aid of the British, the Maltese were able to oust French control two years later. The inhabitants subsequently desired Britain to accept the sovereignty of the islands, and as part of the Treaty of Paris (1814), Malta became a colony within the British Empire.

Malta was granted independence on September 21, 1964 (Independence Day). Under its 1964 constitution, Malta initially retained Queen Elizabeth II as Queen of Malta, with a Governor-General exercising executive authority on her behalf. On December 13, 1974 (Republic Day), however, it became a republic within the Commonwealth, with the President as head of state. Malta joined the European Union on May 1, 2004 and intends to join the Eurozone in 2008.

Culture

Main article: Culture of Malta

Language

Main article: Maltese language

Maltese people speak the Maltese language, a Semitic language written in the Latin alphabet in its standard form. Apart from its phonology, Maltese bears considerable similarity to urban varieties of Tunisian Arabic, however in the course of Malta's recent history, the language has adopted many loanwords, phonetic and phonological features, and even some grammatical patterns, from Italian, Sicilian, and English. The official languages of Malta are English and Maltese, with Italian also widely spoken.

Maltese became an official language of Malta in 1936, prior to which the official language was Italian. Today, there are an estimated 371,900 Maltese speakers. There are a significant number of Maltese expatriates in Australia, the United States and Canada who can still speak the language.

Bilingualism

Bilingualism and even multilingualism is quite common in Malta. According to the 1995 census, 76% of the population is conversant in English, and 36% is conversant in Italian. For 29% of the population, English is the language of the workplace. Studies indicate that somewhere between 86% and 90% of the population speak Maltese within their families, while among friends, that figure drops to about 83.6%. For several decades there has been a growing trend among young Maltese families to speak to their children in English at home. Secondary and tertiary education is exclusively in English.

Religion

Main article: Roman Catholicism in Malta

The Constitution of Malta provides for freedom of religion but establishes Roman Catholicism as the state religion. Freedom House and the World Factbook report that 98 percent of the Maltese religion is Roman Catholic, making the nation one of the most Catholic countries in the world.

Possible genetic links

Some recent studies carried out by geneticists Spencer Wells and Pierre Zalloua of the American University of Beirut collected samples of Y-chromosomes from men living in the Middle East, North Africa, southern Spain, and Malta, places the Phoenicians are known to have settled and traded. According to the study, more than half (50 %) of the Y chromosome lineages that are seen in today's Maltese population could have come in with the Phoenicians. As to why there is such a significant genetic impact, Wells could only speculate, "but the results are consistent with a settlement of people from the Levant within the past 2,000 years, and that points to the Phoenicians."

The Phoenician background of the Maltese suggests possible tenuous cultural, religious, and linguistic links to Lebanese Maronites, who are also descended from Phoenicians, speak a variety of Arabic, and are Christian. [2]

See also

• Malta
• List of Maltese people
• Demographics of Malta

External links

• Godfrey Wettinger, "The Origin of the 'Maltese' Surnames", in Melita Historica New Series, 12 (1999) 4, pp. 333-44. Online at Melita Historica website, last visited January 7, 2007.