| Maltese English | |
|---|---|
| Native to | Malta |
| Ethnicity | Maltese |
Native speakers | 320,000[1] (2005) |
| Latin (English alphabet) Unified English Braille | |
| Official status | |
Official language in |  Malta |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | – |
| Glottolog | malt1247 |
| IETF | en-MT |
| This article containsIPA phonetic symbols. Without properrendering support, you may seequestion marks, boxes, or other symbols instead ofUnicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, seeHelp:IPA. | |
Maltese English (MaltE) is a postcolonialvariety of the English language spoken by theMaltese people. Maltese English is heavily influenced by its contact with theMaltese language.[1] It is close to the prestigious dialects of British English, but diverges from them in phonology and morphosyntax.
Maltese English is an intermediate variety betweenESL and EFL, undergoingnativisation.[2][3] Overall, English in Malta can be divided into "foreign" varieties (e. g.Australian English) and the local dialect, which will be referred to as "Maltese English", but they exist as acontinuum, withReceived Pronunciation and the low-prestige local variety as itsextrema.[4] The mixed English-Maltese language is known asMaltenglish.
Although more than 100,000 Maltese immigrant English speakers live outside Malta, they often move to English-speaking countries and use the local variety of the language instead of Maltese English.[5] Due to the technological advancements, many Maltese people regularly talk to their relatives living abroad.[6]
While there is no law specifying alanguage of instruction in the educational setting, the National Minimum Curriculum requires the schools to pay sufficient attention to Maltese and English, as well as add at least one other language to the curriculum.[7] English gradually replaces Maltese in the classroom as students move further in their education, but the choice of the language of instruction is largely defined by the language of the textbooks (most of them are in British English, but Maltese is used to teach Maltese language and History).[8][1]Private schools providing much more instruction in English, with some forgoing Maltese entirely.[9]
The command of English correlates with the prevalence oftertiary education, so among older people, Maltese English is generally spoken by the wealthier class, but younger Maltese have a higher university attendance rate, and are thus more proficient in English.[4] It is estimated that more than 300,000 people speak Maltese English, which constitutes 88% of the population of Malta; it is acquired by young people without interruptions, so it is not endangered, unlike many othervarieties of English.[10] For most Maltese, English is theirsecond language, even though it is acquired early in life; only 9% of the population report that they use English as a main language at home.[10][1]
The wealthier strata of the Maltese society are often mocked for their "snobbery", which is represented by their choice of English over Maltese for communication, but also by their RP-like accent and avoidance of features typical for Maltese English.[6][11] English remains the prestige language while Maltese is still stigmatised.[12]
English is very prominent in the media: all advertisements and most magazines that target women are in English; the most popular books are English-language bestsellers.[13] Television has more Italian and Maltese than English, but it is still prominent.[13]
Malta was conquered by Arabs during theArab–Byzantine wars in 870 and remained under their control until 1091 whenNormans conquered Sicily and Malta. Europeans controlled Malta from that time on, with the British Empire ruling from 1814 until the declaration of its independence in 1964.[14] Italian was brought to Malta by theKnights of St. John, who ruled over Malta in 1530−1798.[15] It remained popular among the higher strata of the Maltese society, and so English was spreading across the population rather slowly.[15] It became one of the two official languages of Malta in 1934 together with Italian, and only after that the Maltese people started learning it in large numbers.[15]
Maltese English is not a settler variety: it formed because the native population needed to read English, but not to speak it, which is reflected in its features such as abundance of thespelling pronunciation.[14] The main force affecting MaltE is Maltese, there is some Italian influence; it also acquired a lot from the"inner circle" dialects of English, mainly British and American English.[6]
Maltese English is poorly documented.[10] The first mention of "Maltese English" occurred in 1978.[16] There is no grammar book, and while several bilingual MaltE-BrE dictionaries exist, there is nodefining dictionary[17] Speakers have historically believed that Maltese English is the same as the prestigious dialect of the UK, but as of 2018, the local variety starts getting recognition as an identity marker for the Maltese people.[10]
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The phonology of Maltese English is usually described in relation to RP because it has always been theexonormative standard.[18]
Like manyESL varieties, Maltese English has a strong tendency towards devoicing thesyllable coda and word-finalobstruents: "lobster" is [lɒpstə] and "mug" is [mʌk].[19] It can be attributed tolanguage contact, as Maltese also has this feature.[20] On the other hand, in some words the /s/ that occurs between twosonorants or vowels undergoes voicing by analogy with Maltese and Italiancognates: "basically" is pronounced [ˈbeɪzɪkəli].[20] Another reason for this voicing ishypercorrection: "based" is often pronounced as [beɪzd].[20]
Dark L (velarised /l/) is rare even in positions where it is expected in BrE: "hill" is [hɪɫ] in BrE, but [hɪl] in MaltE.[18]
The tendency to usespelling pronunciation is exemplified by the pronunciation of the "ng" digraph as /ŋɡ/, akin to the dialects of the North of Britain.[21] Words like "ringing" might be pronounced as [rɪŋgɪŋg].[21] This is most likely to happen at the end of a word if the next one starts with a vowel, or before a pause; it is rare before consonants while the word-final realisation of "ng" as /n/ occurs infrequently.[21] This feature is more rare in words undergoing grammaticalisation, such as "going".[21]
The commonallophones of /r/ are a trill [r], an alveolar tap [ɾ], a retroflex approximant [ɻ] and a postalveolar approximant [ɹ]; they occur in near-free variation with a preference forapproximants and a dispreference for trills, however, men have more trills while women strongly prefer approximants.[22]
Maltese English can be characterised as arhotic dialect, although /r/ is often omitted if it is not preceding a vowel.[21] However, this is different in different social strata: in a study of L1 English speakers and Maltese-Englishbilinguals, the prevalence of omission of /r/ in a position before a vowel happens around 80% of the time, with an exception for contracted forms "you're", "we're" and "they're", where a rhotic form is used to avoidhomonymy with non-rhotic "your", "were", "there" and "their".[23] In contrast, a study of ESL English speakers had the exact opposite result with 80% of the /r/ being heard in non-prevocalic position.[22]
The dental fricatives /θ/ and /ð/ usually appear as alveo-dental, but they are often perceived as alveolar [s] and [z] and sometimes realised as such with further tongue retraction.[24]Th-stopping happens in the prestigious variety, but is rare; in the non-prestigious variety it is common, with a strongly aspirated [t].[24]
Due to the rich vocalic inventory of Maltese, full MaltE vowels are generally close to BrE ones.[24]
Maltese has noschwa, and in Maltese English, it is usually realised as [ə~ɐ] in words like "comma" and as [ə~ɔ] in words like "support"; this quality is emphasised because of the tendency to not shorten vowels in reduced syllables.[25] There is, however, a schwa insertion at the end of words ending with stops and affricates: "stop" [ˈstɔpʰə].[26]
TRAP vowel[a] /æ/ is also not a part of the Maltese English sound system; it is replaced with [ɐ] or [ɛ].[27][28]
Maltese /ɪ/ and /ʊ/ are more peripheral (less centralised) than the corresponding RP vowels, and their long counterparts are even more peripheral, tenser and less diphthongised than in RP.[27]
Maltese English speakers usually insert an [ɪ] before /l/, /n/ and /m/ if these consonants often become syllabic in British English: BrE [ˈbɒtᵊɫ] - MaltE [ˈbɒtɪl]; the unstressed vowel that precedes these consonants often changes to [ɪ]: "bottom" [ˈbɒtɪm].[29]
BATH and PALM vowels are both /a(ː)/, typically realised as [ɐ(ː)]; the /l/ is often pronounced, especially in lower-prestige varieties.[30]
The FACE vowel /eɪ/ is realised as [ɛi] in Maltese and sometimesmonophthongised to [ɛ(ː)] or [e(ː)].[27]
The GOAT vowel is [ɔʊ] in MaltE ([əʊ] in RP) and can get smoothed to [o(ː)] or [ɔ(ː)].[27]
Most other non-r-coloured vowels are very similar to RP:[30]
The BIRD, NURSE and FATHER vowels are realised as [ɛr] for rhotic speakers and as [ɜː] in the prestige variety.[29] Rhotic prestige varieties have either an r-coloured schwa, or a short schwa and a /r/.[29]
The NORTH and FORCE vowels havemerged.[29]
The START vowel is [ɐ~ɐː] for the speakers of the non-rhotic variant while the rhotic speakers add one of the allophones of /r/ at the end.[29] The same is true for NORTH: [ɔ~ɔː] for non-rhotic and the same vowel with an /r/ for the rest.[29]
The NEAR [ɪ(ə~ɐ)r], SQUARE [ɛ(ə~ɐ)r] and CURE [ʊ(ə~ɐ)r] vowels are the same for rhotic and non-rhotic speakers, but the NEAR and CURE aretenser at the beginning than their British equivalents.[31]
RP triphthongs (e. g. in words like "tower" and "tire") are realised as [ɐʊɛr] and [ɐɪɛr] for rhotic speakers, [ɐʊɐ] and [ɐɪɐ] for non-rhotic ones; they are almost neverturning into diphthongs or monophthongs.[32]
In Maltese English, the tendency to use weak and reduced forms is less prominent than in RP orAmE: unstressed vowels are longer and less reduced; there are fewerweak forms of auxiliary verbs and fewer contractions ("we're").[33][28] This is coupled with frequent insertion of aglottal stop at the beginning and end of words, which additionally prevents theliaison (addition of a /j/ or /w/ in sequences like "he is" or "go around").[33]
Due to the aforementioned factors, Maltese English sounds moresyllable-timed than RP, resembling the Italian accent in English, especially among the speakers of the low-prestige variety.[33][28]
Stress is often moved to a later syllable if the RP stresses any syllable other than the last one: "centimetre" is cen.ti.'me.tre; words ending with -ism are pronounced with a Maltese stress on the finalheavy syllable: cri.ti.'cism.[26]
Common intonation patterns of Maltese English are ahigh rising terminal inpolar questions andinterrogatives, including questions disguised as statements, as opposed to the falling or rising-falling intonation in RP.[34] The same pattern is observed in declarative statements and imperatives.[35]
Morphosyntactically, Maltese English has four prominent features: a special "want" construction, a sentence-final "but", omission of "the" and special use of progressive aspect.[35]
Maltese English uses a specialvolitional construction with the verb "to want": the dependent clause starts with a subjective pronoun, and both verbs are finite; it mainly happens in questions in offers and is much more frequent in spoken language.[35][36] This syntactical pattern is likely borrowed from Maltese language, although in Maltese, the matrix clause[b] can be marked fortense, and the subjects of the two clauses can refer to the same noun.[35][37]
Another borrowed construction is the sentence-final "but" to mean "though"; it occurs in both Maltese and Italian.[38][37] It also is less common in writing.[38]
Questions without "do"-support are common in general, including with the special "want" construction: "You want I buy a drink for you?"[35]
"The" can occur in quasi-locatives like "learn at the school", but it is often omitted when preceding job titles ("dean"), language-denoting adjectives ("Albanian language") and government institutions ("cabinet"), especially when the person or the organisation is inherently definite or recognisable.[39] Increased definite article omission is typical for all English dialects, but in theInternational Corpus of English, the use of "cabinet" without an article is only found in Maltese.[40][41]
The use of progressives in Maltese English is mostly similar to British English, but the former uses the progressive aspect withmodal and somestative verbs more often.[42][41][43]
Progressive aspect can also occur inhabitual constructions: "every month we are gathering all this data..."[42][44]
Maltese English has an iterative/progressive construction similar to Maltese: "stay" + verb +-ing: "we don't want to stay changing currency."[45][44]
On the other hand, using progressive aspect with verbs denoting preference and dispreference for emphasis is common in BrE and AmE, but rare in MaltE.[45]
Bonnici et al. (2012) found that thequotative construction "be like" is spreading in MaltE, although it is limited to speakers younger than 35.[46] Another markedly Maltese quotative is "tell".[46]
Maltese English exhibits many features typical for ESL varieties: inconsistent marking of the third person singular verb forms ("she go", "Maltese people who tries to show off"), simple present replacing perfective ("I live here since 1999"), double marking on comparatives ("more better") etc.[47][48]
Maltese English is moretopic-prominent than the "inner circle" varieties.[43]
Thediscourse marker "eh" (/ɛɪ/ in higher-prestige varieties an /ɛ~ɛː/ in others) is used much more often than in any national varieties of English, potentially due to the existence of a similar tag in Italian and Maltese.[49] "No" is another common tag that can be attributed to language contact withRomance languages.[50]
The word "alright?" /ɔ(ː)ˈraɪt/ is a common MaltE and Maltese greeting.[50]
Maltese English speakers often repeat the word "yes" three or even four times, just like the Italian "si, si, si".[50]
The construction "even I" lost its emphatic character and simply means "me too".[51]
The phrase "first of all" became a discourse marker; it is often used in the beginning of the turn to speak.[52]
Overall, Maltese English uses more British forms than American ones (e. g. preferring "nappies" to "diapers") and British spelling conventions, but younger speakers use more Americanised spelling and more American words in general.[53]
Italian loanwords and Maltesecalques affect Maltese English too, for example, by changing the meaning of the word "pretend" to also mean "demand" and changing the meaning of the word "scope" to mean "goal" or "aim".[43]
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