A NINETEENTH CENTURY MALTESE DOCUMENT IN ARABIC SCRIPT: LINGUISTIC OBSERVATIONS
A NINETEENTH CENTURY MALTESE DOCUMENT IN ARABIC SCRIPT: LINGUISTIC OBSERVATIONS

Summary/Abstract: In the year 1838, the arabist and linguist Reverend Christoph F. Schlienz, head of the Malta branch of the Anglican Church Missionary Society, published, in Malta, his Views on the Improvement of the Maltese Language and its Use for the purposes of Education and Literature. This consists of three long letters, dated October 26, 1837, which he wrote to C.H. Bracebridge, ―… a gentleman, well known for the interest he has lately taken in the cause of education in the Mediterranean countries …‖ To Bracebridge‘s query about the Arabic schools in Malta, Schlienz expressed his conviction that Arabic, ―the parent of Maltese,‖ should be made the basis of all instruction in Malta. The three letters are followed by an appendix covering certain peculiarities of Maltese, as well as a dialogue in Maltese between two traders, printed in Arabic script, with translations in Egyptian Arabic and English. Apart from highlighting a number of linguistic features characterizing the dialogue, the paper also discusses the attempts, during the nineteenth century, to write the Maltese language in the Arabic alphabet. These attempts stemmed from the belief, held by some, that the Arabic script is the natural choice, given that Maltese is a dialect of Arabic, and that it was relatively easy for the Maltese to learn literary Arabic.

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