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Hello everyone,
welcome to the Lange Focus Channel and 

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my name is Bob.
Today I'm going to talk about the multis

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language.
Maltese is a unique and interesting 

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language because it is a Semitic 
language with a twist.

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It is the only Semitic language that is 
an official language of the European 

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Union.
It is spoken by around 520,000

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people,
mostly on the island nation of Malta,

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which is an island in the Mediterranean 
Sea,

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not far from Sicily and not far from 
Tunisia and Libya in North Africa.

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Some people claim that Maltese is a 
descendant of the ancient Phoenician 

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language,
but actually there is no linguistic 

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evidence for this Maltese as a 
descendant of a dialect of Arabic called

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low Arabic or Sicilian Arabic,
but it has diverged quite a lot from 

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Arabic over the last thousand years or 
so and has now become its own language.

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The syntax and grammar of Maltese 
remains Arabic and about a third of the 

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vocabulary is still Arabic and that 
includes most of the grammatical 

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function words as well as a lot of the 
most basic vocabulary.

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About half of the vocabulary is from 
Italian or Sicilian,

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and the remaining vocabulary is mostly 
from English and French.

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It's still considered a Semitic language
because of its Arabic origin and because

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of its structure,
but if you take into account all of the 

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foreign loan words,
especially the Romance Sloan words,

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then it's essentially a hybrid language.
Kind of like a Semitic romance hybrid.

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So how did this interesting mix of 
influences come together to create 

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Maltese?
Well,

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it's because of its history,
of course,

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the fatigue,
mid caliphate,

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which covered much of North Africa,
conquered Sicily at the end of the ninth

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century and brought their grubby or 
north African dialect of Arabic with 

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them.
Then in 10,

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49 ce,
Arabic speaking Muslim settlers from 

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Sicily arrived in Malta,
which is only about 200 kilometers away 

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and began to establish communities.
They're in the year 10 91 ce.

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The normans who were Christians from 
Normandy and present a France,

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had defeated the Arabs and taken hold of
Sicily,

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and then began taking hold of multitude 
under Norman rule.

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More settlers from Sicily began arriving
in Malta and bringing their language 

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with them.
Even though the normans were Christian,

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the population of Sicily was still a 
mixture of Christians and Muslims who 

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spoke Arabic alongside the Sicilian 
language.

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After the decline of Norman rule,
the new regime in Sicily expelled all of

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the Muslims from Sicily and from Malta 
as well.

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This was a very significant event 
because it essentially cut off the low 

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Arabic dialect from the Muslim Arabic 
speaking world,

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and it also cut it off from the 
classical Arabic language and other 

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Arabic speaking lands.
The Qur'an remains a conservative force 

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that prevented the dialects from 
changing too much overtime,

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but in Multa,
that conservative force was no longer 

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connected to the dialect,
so the dialect was free to drift off in 

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its own direction and become a new 
language.

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Seek low Arabic diet out in Sicily,
but it continued to be used and evolve.

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In Malta,
Malta remained part of the Kingdom of 

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Sicily for several hundred years,
which brought lots of Sicilian 

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vocabulary into the language.
The island was controlled by a string of

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rulers who influenced the developing 
multis language.

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One of the most significant regimes to 
rule Malta was the knights hospitaller 

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of St John.
A powerful order of nights that assisted

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in protected Christian pilgrims on their
way to the holy land.

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They were given the island of Malta in 
15 slash 30 as an outpost to help 

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prevent an automated invasion of Rome 
from the south.

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They made Italian the official language 
of the island and it remained the 

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official language until 1934.
This resulted in a large amount of 

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Italian vocabulary entering the 
language.

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There was also a period of two years 
when Melissa was under French rule and 

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just from those two years quite a bit of
French vocabulary entered the language 

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too and the island was a British 
protectorate from 1800 to 1956.

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And of course that led to the adoption 
of lots of English words into Maltese.

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So multis is essentially an Arabic 
dialect that has become latinized and to

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some extent anglicised.
So how similar is it to Arabic today?

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Well,
if you know Arabic and you try to read 

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some Maltese,
you will quickly realize that it's 

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basically Arabic instructor,
but you will also see a lot of foreign 

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vocabulary.
Mostly romance vocabulary in it's most 

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similar to the mug.
Grab dialects of Arabic,

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meaning the dialects of Morocco,
Algeria and Tunisia,

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especially the Tunisian dialect.
A lot of Tunisians claim that they can 

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quite easily understand multis.
That could be because Tunisian Arabic 

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itself has quite a few Italian loan 
words and I also understand that a lot 

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of Tunisians can understand standard 
Italian,

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so if they speak and Arabic and Italian 
than they can quite easily understand 

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multis.

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Lots of people say that if you know an 
Arabic dialect quite well,

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and if you also know Italian,
then reading Maltese won't be much of a 

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problem and with some adjustment you can
also learn to understand it fairly 

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easily.
That doesn't mean you could speak proper

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Maltese,
but maybe you could use your Arabic,

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endure Italian and sort of pack a 
conversation in a new pigeon language.

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So let's look at a couple examples.
Sentences of multis.

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So this sentence here is an example of 
one that's mostly Arabic.

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By the way,
I've never learned to speak Maltese,

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so forgive my pronunciation.
It'll Japa Nandua last populates.

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That buck dot mia situ ushered in 
million petta sooner.

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Now I understood this sentence almost 
perfectly,

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and it's basically all Arabic.
Uh,

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the first word,
illegit boone.

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That's Japan on blue.
That's has a last shot.

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That's the 10th.
That's the biggest pool.

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That's the one that's not Arabic,
but that's,

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that looks like an Italian lone word to 
me type thing.

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Yeah.
So that's in the world.

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The appetite mean that means with more 
of them.

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And then there's the Arabic number,
mia said to ocean and then there's 

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mulloon which is million and Arabic too.
And then pepper summa,

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which is not Arabic,
but I guess that's from Italian 

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Sicilian.
But sometimes you see sentences with a 

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lot more loan words,
particularly Italian.

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Here's another sentence you form a field
of [inaudible] on that includes the 

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other printer.
Pewter Solid Arrietta.

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So this sentence means migration reform 
must include the principle of 

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solidarity.
This one has a lot of loan words.

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The Pharma,
that's not an Arabic word,

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that's alone word feeling bigger.
That sione field,

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that part is Arabic,
but make it.

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That's the one that is a long word under
that part is interesting because this is

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an Arabic word that means has,
but in this case it's being used to mean

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has to or must and it's not used that 
way in Arabic,

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so the function of this word has become 
somewhat adapted in the multis language.

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The next word included.
That's include but that the t links back

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to the previous vowel and that's an 
element of Arabic syntax.

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The next word friendship you.
So that's obviously principal,

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but that's not an Arabic word.
That's a long word.

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And tests.
Solar Data Yetta.

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Again,
that's the Arabic definite article and 

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the t is linking back to the previous 
vowel and solid data yetta.

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That's solidarity and that's not an 
Arabic word either,

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so you can see a lot of sentences like 
this and Maltese.

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Often if you have no Arabic you'll 
recognize the structure,

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but then a lot of the words are not 
Arabic.

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For me personally,
I know that with my past study of Arabic

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and with my fluency in English and my 
recent basic knowledge of Italian,

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I can take a stab at reading multis and 
I can understand a fair bit of it,

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but not all of it.

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When I hear spoken Maltese,
I don't really understand it,

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but I can pick out some individual 
Arabic and Italian and English words,

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but I imagined that as my Italian 
improves,

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I'll be able to understand a bit more of
it and if I decided to review my Arabic 

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in depth and start to learn on my grubby
dialect,

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then I think I would be able to 
understand a lot more Maltese as well.

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Maltese is not a very widely spoken 
language,

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so not that many people learn it and 
there aren't that many materials out 

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there for learners,
but for someone who's learning Arabic or

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learning Italian than it might be fun to
dabble in some multis and see what you 

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can make of it.
Thank you for watching the length focus 

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channel.
If you have any comments about the 

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multis language,
then of course leave them in the 

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comments down below.

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If you're an Arabic speaker and you've 
had a chance to listen to multis a 

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little bit,
let us know what you think.

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Can you understand it?
Does it sound like a kind of Arabic?

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And the same goes for Italian speakers.
If you listen to [inaudible],

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can you catch parts of what they're 
saying?

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Let us know in the comments down below,
we're getting close to 50,000

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subscribers on Lang Focus.
That's quite cool.

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I'm quite excited about that,
but if I look at my social media 

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channels,
if I look at facebook,

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twitter,
and Instagram,

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I noticed that I still don't have that 
many followers,

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so be sure to have a look at those.
The link is in the description down 

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below and if you find them interesting,
then be sure to follow me there.

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Thank you for watching and have a nice.