Maltese Language

It-traduzzjoni mill-Malti lejn lingwi oħrajn li tikkonċerna l-letteratura lokali għadha relativament fil-bidu tagħha billi ftit kienu dawk il-kittieba jew tradutturi Maltin li fl-imgħoddi kienu jħarsu lil hinn minn xtutna biex joffru lill-barranin dak li jinħoloq lokalment.

In a global world, speaking foreign languages is an important skill. This book explores the acquisition of Maltese by adult non-native learners, which could easily be applied to any other foreign language acquisition.
What is happening in our mind when it is learning a foreign language? How could an adult learner deal with problems related to memory, personality, and culture shock? I try to answer these questions and solve cognitive and sociocultural challenges through the lens of Chaos/Complexity Theory to improve the competence and performance of the adult learner. Each chapter in this book starts with a funny comic-strip and a quotation. Happy Reading! My book/ebook can be found at the German National Library (Deutsche National Bibliothek): https://portal.dnb.de/opac.htm;jsessionid=b... and it can be bought from many international bookshops such as the German publishers, GRIN:  https://www.grin.com/document/1020349 or Amazon: https://www.amazon.de/-/en/dp/3346403491/ref=sr_1_1... or Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/.../a-verbal.../1139514627... or Google Books: https://www.google.de/.../A_Verbal.../Vl8tEAAAQBAJ... or Thalia:  https://www.thalia.de/.../artikeldetails/ID151617601.html or Lehmanns media: https://www.lehmanns.de/.../56816446-9783346403483-a... or Weltbild: https://www.weltbild.ch/.../a-verbal-odyssey-learning... or Suchergebnisse - ImCoSys eBook-Shop: https://imcosys.e-bookshelf.ch/a-verbal-odyssey-learning... or book-ebooks.com: https://www.book-ebooks.com/products/search...... and this book will soon be available in Maltese bookshops.

Tradizzjonalment l-avverbju hu magħruf bħala l-parti tad-diskors li tispeċifika jew timmodifika t-tip ta’ azzjoni tal-verb. Madankollu l-avverbji jistgħu wkoll jimmodifikaw elementi li ma jaqgħux taħt il-verb, pereżempju l-aġġettivi, It-tifla ħelwa immens, ilprepożizzjonijiet,
Tela’ ’l fuq iżżejjed, u saħansitra avverbji oħra, Kiber wisq malajr
(Brother Henry 190). Bħalma jispjega Crystal (8), dan il-grupp ta’ kliem sar eteroġenju billi żdied miegħu għadd ta’ tipi ta’ kliem differenti, ngħidu aħna, intensifikaturi bħal tassew. Fi kliem ieħor, l-avverbju hu dak li jimmodifika kull element tas-sentenza, inkluż is-sentenza sħiħa, għall-kuntrarju tal-aġġettiv li jimmodifika biss in-nom. L-avverbju jista’ jimmodifika wkoll frażijiet jew anki sentenzi sħaħ, skont jekk jiġix integrat bejn l-elementi differenti tas-sentenza u jimmodifika wieħed jew tnejn minnhom biss, jew jekk jiħux ilforma ta’ sentenza subordinata avverbjali u b’hekk jimmodifika s-sentenza prinċipali kollha.

Fil-każ tal-Malti ma sarx ħafna studju fuq l-avverbji. Fil-fatt ħafna grammatiċi (Cachia 125-29; Cremona 229-300; Sutcliffe 193-199; Brother Henry 190-91) kemm isemmuhom fuq fuq u jinnutaw li jinqasmu, fost l-oħrajn, f’avverbji taż-żmien, bħal għada, f’tal-post, bħal hemm, f’tal-mod, bħal bil-mod, f’tal-kwantità/grad, bħal immens, f’tan-negazzjoni, bħal ma ... xejn, jew f’tal-mistoqsija, bħal kif. Ħafna grammatiċi bikrin (Cremona 228-30; Brother Henry 190; Zarb 294) iqisu l-avverbju fil-Malti bħala kategorija grammatikali li taqa’ taħt il-partiċella. L-iskop ta’ din it-teżi hija li nfittex ilkunċett tal-avverbju fiex jissarraf fil-Malti u kif iġibu ruħhom il-kliem u l-frażijiet kollha lijaqgħu taħt din il-kategorija. Biex nagħmel dan, l-ewwel se nibda billi niċċara l-kunċett tal-avverbiju billi nesplora kif jiġi użat fid-deskrizzjoni grammatikali ta’ lingwi differenti.
Għażilt li niffoka fuq tliet lingwi, l-Ingliż, it-Taljan u l-Għarbi, u nara kif l-avverbju jidher f’dawn il-lingwi biex b’hekk inkun nista’ nqabbel id-differenzi u s-similaritajiet interlingwistiċi. Għażilt dawn it-tliet lingwi l-għaliex minħabba li għandhom tradizzjoni
twila u estensiva ta’ riċerka grammatikali u minħabba li fl-istorja lingwistika ta’ pajjiżna, dawn it-tliet ilsna kellhom l-aktar kuntatt ma’ tagħna u allura setgħu jaffettwawh b’xi mod jew ieħor.
Fejn jidħlu t-transliterazzjonijiet bl-Għarbi ma stajtx nagħti l-gloss bħalma hu mistenni minħabba li l-kotba li kont qed nikkonsulta ma taw l-ebda ħjiel tal-elementi individwali
tas-sentenza, anzi ħafna drabi l-eżempji li kienu jagħtu kienu bl-Għarbi biss, allura kienet sfida għalija, li ma naqrax bl-Għarbi biex neqleb l-eżempji bl-alfabett Latin u biex nipprova nsib it-tifsira ta’ kull kelma individwali li kienet użata. Fejn kien hemm bżonn
biex il-punt li nkun qed niddiskuti joħroġ akar ċar, niżżilt ukoll il-kategorija grammatikali tat-transliterazzjoni.

Fejn jidħlu l-eżempji, fejn ħassejt li kelli niġbed l-attenzjoni lejn xi parti partikolari ta’ sentenza jew frażi li kont qed inġib bħala eżempju, għamilt dan billi qtajt linja taħtha.

Abbozz kważi finali tal-ewwel appendiċi tat-traduzzjoni tiegħi tar-rumanz ‘La Nausée’ ta’ Jean-Paul Sartre. Dan l-appendiċi jiġbor fih traduzzjonijiet minni ta’ bosta siltiet minn ittri, intervisti, saġġi u noti personali ta’ Sartre dwar ir-rumanz. Il-materjal jagħti xhieda awtentika tal-iżvilupp intellettwali ta’ Sartre billi juri l-qagħda mentali u l-fehmiet filosofiċi tiegħu fi żmien il-kitba ta’ ‘La Nausée’ u kif tul is-snin dawn inbidlu, dejjem b’referenzi għar-rumanz. Is-siltiet miġbura jinkludu noti bikrin, it-takkwini filosofiċi li kiteb waqt is-servizz militari, sommarju tar-rumanz miktub minnu għal Gallimard, ittri bejnu u l-pubblikatur rigward kwistjonijiet editorjali, diversi intervisti, l-awtobijografija ‘Il-Kliem’, id-djalogi mill-bijodokumentarju ‘Sartre par lui-même’ u d-djalogi li kellu f’nofs sebgħinijiet dwar ‘La Nausée’ mas-sieħba Simone de Beauvoir. Is-siltiet jinkludu wkoll ittri relevanti li ntbagħtu bejn din il-koppja fis-snin tletin, li jixhdu kemm il-preżenza ta’ de Beauvoir kienet tassew importanti fil-ħajja ta’ Sartre. Magħhom ser jidhru wkoll reċensjonijiet minn Albert Camus u Maurice Blanchot. L-Appendiċi II imbagħad ser iġib – għall-ewwel darba f’ilsen barrani – bosta siltiet minn madwar ħamsin paġna kitba li Sartre kellu jneħħi mill-verżjoni finali minħabba ċ-ċensura tal-pubblikatur.

This paper is divided in two sections. The first (and preliminary) part includes (a) a brief account of the Semitic strain in the Maltese language, and (b) a brief account of Arabic naming practices, particulalry the use of ism, kunyah, nisba, and laqab.
The second (and main) part analyzes the etymology of several extant Maltese surnames, such as Saliba, Cassar, Abdilla, Farrugia, Micallef, Sammut, Fenech, and Zammit (all dating back to medieval times) which, in some way or another, reflect such Arabic nomenclature. It will be observed that most of these surnames also prevail in present-day Sicily, which was similarly under Arab rule.

This chapter presents an overview of the most prominent contact-induced developments in the history of Maltese, a language which is genetically a variety of Arabic, but which has undergone significant changes, largely as a result of lengthy contact with Sicilian, Italian, and English. We first address the precise affiliation of Maltese and the nature of the historical and ongoing contact situations, before detailing relevant developments in the realms of phonology, inflectional and derivational morphology, syntax, and lexicon.

Astratt: Din l-analiżi turi kif is-Semitiku, ir-Rumanz u l-Ingliż li minnhom magħmul il-Malti jippermettu dinamiżmu u flessibilità kbira fil-qasam tat-traduzzjoni kemm letterarja kif ukoll nonletterarja. Il-forma ortografika u t-tifsira semantika tal-kliem Malti-Rumanz huma ħafna drabi l-istess bħal dawk tal-kliem Malti-Ingliż u dan għax kemm l-Ingliż kif ukoll it-Taljan għandhom fil-lessiku għadd ta' għeruq komuni li etimoloġikament imorru lura għal-Latin Medjevali. Ir-rwol tat-traduzzjoni hu li jwassal it-test sors b'mod awtentiku lill-qarrej tat-test mira u mhux li jippreserva l-element Semitiku fil-Malti. Għalhekk għandha ssir distinzjoni bejn lingwa u traduzzjoni sabiex jiġi osservat id-determiniżmu lingwisitku stabbilit mill-awtur tal-lingwa sors fl-għażla tal-lessiku li twassal għar-replika vera tat-test oriġinali fil-lingwa mira tat-traduttur.

This paper examines the developments of the Proto-Arabic short vowel
system as it develops up to its reflexes in modern Maltese. The analysis focuses
on establishing regular correspondence from underived primary nouns. From
there it is shown that several developments in the verbal system cannot be the
result of regular sound change, and instead have undergone analogical developments.
Finally, through these regular sound correspondences, it becomes
clear that the alternation of jeHCeC and jahCeC verbs in Maltese must reflect a
continuation of the ancient alternation in the verbal prefix of Proto-Arabic
which was lost in Classical Arabic.

Dan l-artiklu jitratta l-possibbiltà ta' annotazzjoni kompluta ta' Ulied in-Nanna Venut fl-Amerika ta' Juann Mamo, fid-dawl tal-edizzjonijiet differenti tiegħu mill-1930-31 sal-2010 li jistgħu jolqtu r-riċezzjoni tal-qarrej ta' żminijiet differenti minħabba l-volum ta' referenzi kulturali li, bħal ma jissuġġerixxi Bernard MIcallef, kienu saru bħala kumment, anki satiriku, li jirfed il-ġrajja ġurnalistika magħruf mill-ewwel qarreja tar-rumanz.

This paper describes the CoreGram project, a multilingual grammar engineering project that develops HPSG grammars for several typologically diverse languages that share a common core. The paper provides a general motivation for doing theoretical linguistics the way it is done in the CoreGram
project and therefore is not targeted to computational linguists exclusively. I argue for a constraint-based approach to language rather than a generative-enumerative one and discuss issues of formalization. Recent advantages in the language acquisition research are mentioned and conclusions
on how theories should be constructed are drawn. The paper discusses some of the highlights in the implemented grammars, gives a brief overview of central theoretical concepts and their implementation in TRALE and compares the CoreGram project with other multilingual grammar engineering projects.

Maltese is a peripheral dialect of Arabic heavily inflenced by Sicilian and Italian (see e.g. Krier 1976). Maltese is believed by some to be an offshoot of Sicilian Arabic, but this is subject to debate in the literature (see Isserlin 1977; Brincat 1995; Agius 1996; La Rosa 2014; Avram forthcoming). A characteristic of Maltese phonology is the devoicing of obstruents in word-final position (Cohen 1966; Borg 1975, 1997b). The present paper looks into the possible origins of this phonological rule, i.e. whether it may have been inherited from Sicilian Arabic, whether
it is the outcome of an internal development or whether it is a change triggered by contact with Sicilian and Italian. The evidence examined includes transcriptions of personal names and place-names in Greek and Latin documents (see e.g. Cusa 1868; Caracausi 1983; Avram 2012, 2016, forthcoming), the earliest texts in Maltese, and early Arabic
loanwords in Sicilian (De Gregorio & Seybold 1903). Also discussed are insights provided by research on language contacts (see e.g. Thomason & Kaufman 1988) and on second language phonology (see e.g. Flege & Davidian 1984; Fullana & Mora 2009). It is suggested that, as in other peripheral dialects of Arabic, word-final obstruent devoicing in Maltese is a contact-induced change.

Qabel Ġann Piet Franġisk Agius de Soldanis kien hemm Franciscu Wzzinu. Dan hu ttraduttur tat-Taġhlim Nisrani, l-ewwel ktieb bil-Malti li ħareġ stampat f’Ruma fl-1752. Dan hu l-qlib għall-Malti tal-Katekiżmu Kattoliku l-qasir tal-Kardinal Bellarmino.

Traduzzjoni tiegħi tat-test “L-Anus Solari” ta’ Georges Bataille. Fil-bidu dan it-test kellu jkun l-iskritt ċentrali ta’ ġabra qasira ta’ traduzzjonijiet ta’ Bataille li kellha tidher bl-isem “L-Anus Solari u Skritti Oħra.” Kellu jkun ukoll is-suġġett ta’ koreografija tiegħi li kellha tittella’ fit-Teatru Nazzjonali tal-Lussemburgu kif ukoll hawn Malta f’Ħaġar Qim. Il-proġett kien sfaxxa, iżda l-ġabra maż-żmien kompliet tikber u l-pjanijiet huma li toħroġ bl-isem “Eċċessi Veġġenti.”
Georges Bataille kiteb dan it-test fl-1927 u ppubblikah fl-1931, voldieri fiż-żmien meta “l-virulenzi u l-ossessjonijiet” tiegħu wassluh biex jisfa’ taħt l-iskrutinju tal-psikanaliżi. Kien kiteb dan it-test simboliku b’għanijiet konfrontattivi, ġieli wkoll distruttivi, li jiżvelaw bosta mit-tendenzi intellettwali ewlenin tiegħu. Fil-qalba tal-mira hemm l-edifiċji kunċettwali ta’ Descartes u ta’ Hegel. (Ilaqqtuha wkoll ir-Romantiċi u s-Surrealisti.) Fid-diskorsi filosofiċi ta’ dawn kollha, minkejja d-differenzi, insibu t-tentattiv komuni li jwettqu l-istess bravura impossibbli: l-“identifikazzjoni totali” tas-suġġett li tasal tħaddan lis-“sħiħ traxxendentali.”
Bataille jwaqqa’ dan kollu għan-nelħ billi joħloq kosmogonija “għalkollox parodika” li mit-tifrik tad-dijalettika taċ-ċrieki magħluqa ta’ Hegel u mill-istħarriġ filosofiku benfondat fuq veritajiet ċertissimi ta’ Descartes tibni viżjoni t’univers instabbli b’ċentru dejjem mobbli. Fid-diskors kollu ma tonqosx il-vjolenza tas-simboloġija oxxena, ġaladarba, ma ninsewx, f’Bataille l-univers huwa fenomenu intrinsikament vjolenti u oxxen – tumakka taħt iċ-ċinturin tas-Surrealisti u tar-Romantiċi.
“L-Anus Solari“ huwa parodija daqskemm mhux. Fil-kollija tal-iskema parodika ta’ Bataille kull bersall tal-parodija jkun dejjem ukoll huwa nnifsu parodija ta’ bersall ieħor, u sejrin. Għaldaqstant kull tentattiv ta’ parodija jisfa’ inutli b’tali mod li jxejjen il-possibbiltà li l-parodija jseħħilha tiżgiċċa minnha nfisha u ssir diskors jew valur ġdid u traxxendentali.

That many Arabic dialects negate with an enclitic –š has attracted much comment, very often drawing analogies between the French and Arabic systems. Constructs negated with a post-positioned negative –š alone without the characteristically Arabic preposed negator mā are said to bear similarities to stage III of the Jespersen’s cycle as it operates in Indo-European languages. Nevertheless, comparisons between the copular interrogatives anīš or anāš and huwāš in medieval Andalusi Arabic, their 19th century Maltese counterparts jeniex and hujex, their survivals in modern Maltese huwa and hux, and their relics in the modern spoken Moroccan Arabic interrogative waš, and its equivalents huwwa/hiyya/humma in spoken Egyptian Arabic call such assumptions into question. From those, it appears that the enclitic –š began as an interrogative, having lost much—but not all—of its interrogative quality as it was reanalysed as a negator. As such, Arabic negation never went through a Jespersen’s cycle.

Keywords
Andalusi Arabic interrogatives, Arabic negation, Arabic copular interrogatives, Jespersen’s cycle, Maltese interrogatives, Negative polarity""""

Fl-20 ta' Ottubru tal-1836 waslet Malta Kummissjoni Rjali magħmula minn George Cornewall Lewis u John Austin biex jistħarrġu l-liġijiet u l-kostituzzjoni ta' Malta, jiflu s-sitwazzjoni ta' diversi setturi fil-gżira, jiktbu rapport u jagħtu suġġerimenti. Magħhom ġiet mart John Austin, Sarah Austin (1793-1867, ritratt lemin), editriċi Ingliża li kienet taf il-Latin, il-Franċiż, il-Ġermaniż u t-Taljan u traduttriċi ta' xogħlijiet mill-Ġermaniż u l-Franċiż għall-Ingliż. Hi l-aktar magħrufa għat-traduzzjoni tagħha mill-Ġermaniż Characteristics of Goethe from the German of Falk ta' Von Müller u oħrajn li ppubblikat fl-1833. Sena wara ttraduċiet The Story without an End ta' Friedrich Wilhelm Carové, ktieb li ġie stampat ħafna drabi. Mill-ewwel ġranet li waslet Malta u matul is-sena u disa' xhur li damet hawn, Sarah Austin ħadet interess fl-affarijiet tal-Maltin u bis-saħħa tat-Taljan li kienet taf indiehset man-nobbli Maltin li l-Ingliżi kienu qed iwarrbu u ma jagħtux kas. Minkejja li hi ma kinitx waħda mill-Kummissarji hi għamlet ħafna suġġerimenti dwar kif tista' tittejjeb il-ħajja tal-Maltin. Barra minn hekk hi ħadet interess fl-arti Maltija u fl-industrija tal-bizzilla. Mhux ta' b'xejn li f'Malta kienet magħrufa bħala "La Signora Commissionaria". Sarah Austin tatna kronaka estensiva talkolera f'Malta tal-1837 fl-artiklu 'The cholera in Malta' li deher fl-edizzjoni ta' Jannar 1866 tal-Fraser's Magazine.

It is well known that Modern Maltese no longer has interdental fricatives, which have been replaced with stops. The loss of the interdental fricatives is believed by some (e.g. Cohen 1964, 1967, Vanhoeve 1991, 1994, 2000) to have taken place in the so-called “pre-Maltese” stage, i.e. before the separation of Maltese from the Arab world. Instances of interdental fricatives in Caxaro’s Cantilena (c. 1450) or in Megiser’s wordlist (collected in 1588) have been dismissed as archaic, irrelevant or debatable (given the possibility of faulty transcriptions). The present paper re-examines the currently available textual evidence, including Thezan          (c. 1640), Abela (1647) and de Soldanis (1750, 1750-1767). It is shown that varieties of Maltese appear to have preserved the interdental fricatives until the second half of the 18th century (cf. Avram 1999, 2012 and 2013, Vella 2013). Therefore, the loss of the fricative interdentals is a much more recent phenomenon than has hitherto been assumed. Also discussed are some of the implications of these findings.

"This book contests a commonly held supposition about the development of the interrogative and negator –š, that it derives from the Arabic word for ‘thing’ šayʾ-un, maintaining that seeking the origin of a grammatical –š in the Arabic of writing has led inquiry down a garden path and that evidence for the source of interrogation and negation with –š must be sough in the dialects of Arabic, where remnants of the process of its development are to be found.
A supposed progression from pre-positioned mā as the sole negator, to a discontinuous negator mā…š, ending in a purely post-positive –š is often—almost always—compared to the French ne … pas, with the colloquial French tendency to rely upon the pas alone and the Arabic tendency to negate with a post-positive –š alone both seen as exhibiting a terminal stage of what is called the Jespersen’s cycle. Contrary to assumptions, oftentimes overtly stated, there is no evidence other than superficial similarity to support the proposition that the Arabic is like the French in this respect. Instead, the functions of ši as an existential particle, an indefinite quantifier, an interrogative, and a negator in the Arabic dialects in which it appears, suggest that the origins of the negator probably did not arise as a direct reanalysis of the substantive šayʾ but as an extension of an existential particle ši after its reanalysis as an interrogative.
The earliest unambiguous documentation of ši as an indefinite quantifier and negator in historical Arabic writings come in a few instances of it in the colloquial Arabic poetry and proverbs of 13th century Andalusia. A link between the processes is discovered in two copular interrogatives in a proverb and a line of poetry as anāš (or anīš) ‘am I?’ and huwāš ‘does he?’ in forms analogous to copular interrogatives in Maltese (a language derived from the colloquial Arabic of 9th century North Africa) in jeniex and huwiex, correspondences of which persist in modern Tunisian Arabic and remnants of such interrogation survive in other dialects such as the Libyan, Egyptian, Levantine, and Yemeni. The conclusion is that negation with –š began with the reanalysis of interrogatives formed with it, and it eventually came to be associated more with negation than with interrogation. The operation of grammatical ši in Arabic is a clear example of Croft's 'negative existential cycle' and not that of Jespersen.
A grammatical ši may have arisen in the pre-Islamic dialects of the southern and western Arabian Peninsula, those labelled “Yemeni” by early Arab grammarians and historians. An existential particle śi, cognate with the Arabic ši, exists in the Modern South Arabian languages, classified as West Semitic, from which group the Central Semitic languages, including Arabic, are said to have derived, leading to the conclusion that an existential indefinite qualifier ši is an ancient Western Semitic feature, inherited by those Arabic dialects in which it now appears from a common Semitic ancestor.
Arabic speakers from the southern Peninsula have enjoyed a historical presence in the lands of the Fertile Crescent and the Syrian steppe since the 1st century BC, meaning that Arabic has been spoken in that area for a full six or seven hundred years before the coming of Muslim Arabs in the 7th century AD, ample time for a southern Arabic feature to take root in the dialects of the region. Those contemporary Arabic dialects in the area negating without –š have adopted the central Arabian feature of a purely pre-positioned negator mā influenced by later waves of “bedouinization”.
The indefinite qualifier ši likely derived from a sequence beginning with a Proto-Semitic presentative/demonstrative ša, through a relative pronoun šu/ši and the 3rd person pronoun šu, ši, šunu. Herein lies evidence for the ancient pedigree of the Arabic dialects negating with –š. The substantive šay ‘thing’ arose out of the indefinite determiner not the other way round. Although this appears to be an instance of “degrammaticalization”, it happens that recent work has shown that of the few genuine cases of degrammaticalization, one is the movement from indefinite determiners to content words meaning 'thing'.
Implicit throughout the book is a critique of heroic attempts to prize facts into the straightjacket of theory rather than adjusting theory to fit the facts. Coming in for especial criticism are minimalist attempts to explain Arabic negation with mā…š from a synchronic perspective without considering the diachronic sequence by which negation with –š came about. Even when they are able to recognize the indefinite determiner, interrogative, and negating functions of –š, they are unable to explain it adequately."

Verbs in Maltese can occasionally be negated with the nominal negator mhux. Analogous negation with reflexes of muš has been observed in Egyptian Arabic, with those researching it speculating that it is a recent phenomenon. Yet its earliest attestation is in the Egyptian Arabic of the 15th century. Drawing data from observations of Levantine usage and corpora of Egyptian and Tunisian Arabics and the Korpus Malti, we document the same type of construction in eastern Mediterranean Arabics and Maltese. This suggests that the phenomenon arrived in Malta with the first Arabic speakers to inhabit the islands, and it adds to Mifsud's (2008) " curious similarities with the Eastern dialects " and another " striking parallel " to Borg's (1997) occurring " in the realm of syntax " giving cause to revisit Stumme's (1904) contention that the antecedents to Maltese are Levantine.

Dan il-ktieb jiġbor fih traduzzjoni mill-Franċiż, mill-Ingliż u mit-Taljan ta’ diversi poeżiji tal-poetessa Sirjana Maram al-Masri. Il-proġett nibet wara laqgħa bla ħsieb waqt festival tal-letteratura Għarbija f’Belt il-Lussemburgu fis-sajf tal-2009.

Il-prassi li nżomm bħala traduttur is-soltu tesiġi li fejn jista’ jkun it-traduzzjoni għandha ssir dejjem mill-ilsien oriġinali. B’danakollu, ġaladarba l-ilsien oriġinali tal-poeżija ta’ al-Masri huwa l-Għarbi, din id-darba ftit li xejn kien possibbli nżommha. Għaldaqstant ħafna mill-ħidma kienet saret bl-għajnuna talawtriċi.

L-ewwel parti, “Il-Libsa ta’ Għerti”, tiġbor fiha diversi poeżiji mill-ġabra “A Red Cherry on a White-tiled Floor” (Ċirasa Ħamra fuq Madum Abjad, 2007), li kienet l-ewwel ġabra tagħha li qatt ġiet ippubblikata fl-Istati Uniti. It-tieni taqsima tinkludi l-ġabra “Residenta tal-Art” filwaqt li t-tielet waħda tinkludi ħdax-il poeżija mhux riveduti li kienu deheru bit-titlu “L-Iżjed Waqt l-Għabex.” Dawn iż-żewġ ġabriet ġew ippubblikati flimkien għallewwel darba bil-Franċiż fil-ġabra “Je te menace d’une colombe blanche” (Qed Nheddek b’Ħamiema Bajda, 1984).

It-titlu ġenerali ta’ din il-ġabra jirreferi bix-xieraq għallpoeżija “Nisa Bħali” – stqarrija skjetta minn poetessa ribelli li dejjem fittxet – kemm fil-politika u kemm fl-imħabba – li tkun il-personifikazzjoni poetika tal-ħajja ħielsa. aktarx fi żmienna, meta art twelidha tinsab imtertqa mill-madmad ta’ forzi brutali, din l-għajta tagħha saret ferm iżjed relevanti.

Nixtieq niżżi ħajr lil sħabi l-poeti Antoine Cassar u Walid Nabhan, lill-poeta Lussemburgiż Lambert Schlechter, u b’mod partikulari lil Mark Camilleri, lil Maria Muscat u lill-bqija tal-membri tal-Kunsill Nazzjonali tal-Ktieb talli għoġobhom jipprovdu l-appoġġ u l-fondi meħtieġa għat-tbiegħ ta’ din il-ġabra u għat-tnedija tagħha waqt il-Festival Nazzjonali tal-Ktieb 2015.

The Pater Noster ('The Lord's Prayer) is undoubtedly the most widely-known prayer in the Christian canon. Beyond its theological import, many comparative linguists and travel writers in the past often used this formulaic prayer as a sample of the various languages under discussion, including Maltese. The vernacular version of the Lord's Prayer (known as I/-Missierna) is. here discussed from a historical linguistic and orthographic point of view. The various transcriptions documented since 1725 constitute an indirect reflex of the complex trajectory which written Maltese underwent until it achieved its present codified form.

Within the framework of Arabic dialectology, this paper examines the different features that allow for the historical and typological classification of the Maltese language as a member of the most ancient group of Arabic varieties of the western branch.

The notion of calquing refers to the transfer of semantic and syntactic patterns deprived of morphophonological matter. By providing examples of lexical and grammatical calques in a number of Arabic dialects and Arabic-based contact languages, this chapter identifies ways to relate the process of calquing to Van Coetsem's psy-cholinguistic principle of language dominance.

Maltese is usually classified as a North African Arabic variety. Yet some researchers have remarked “some curious similarities with the Eastern dialects”. Investigations of these tend to concentrate upon the phonology and lexicon, with slight attention paid to morphology and syntax. We report on a long-term project in documenting some of those, including polar interrogation with a reflex of /š/; the prohibitive/dehortative system, also exhibiting reflexes of /š/; double object marking with reflexes of /l-/; and pronominal circumstantial clauses. None of these is excusive to Maltese and the Levant alone. Polar interrogation with /š/ is found in the Levantine, and North African, and Andalusi Arabic. The Maltese prohibitive is largely southern Levantine in form, but its dehortative is common to eastern Mediterranean dialects of Arabic. Double object marking with reflexes of /l-/ appears in Andalusi, Levantine, and Mesopotamian varieties. The Maltese pronominal circumstantial clause is similar to Syro-Lebanese Arabic, the Beʿēri Arabic of Upper Egypt, and some dialects of the United Arabic Emirates.

Maltese is a morphologically rich language with a hybrid morphological system which features both concatenative and non-concatenative processes. This paper analyses the impact of this hy-bridity on the performance of machine learning techniques for morphological labelling and clustering. In particular, we analyse a dataset of morphologically related word clusters to evaluate the difference in results for concatenative and non-concatenative clusters. We also describe research carried out in morphological labelling , with a particular focus on the verb category. Two evaluations were carried out, one using an unseen dataset, and another one using a gold standard dataset which was manually labelled. The gold standard dataset was split into concatena-tive and non-concatenative to analyse the difference in results between the two morphological systems.

Din it-taħdita kienet ingħatat mill-kantawtur Awstraljan Nick Cave fl-Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien ta’ Vjenna fil-25 ta’ Settembru, 1999. Verżjoni estensiva ta' din it-taħdita moqrija minn Nick Cave innifsu tista’ tinstema’ fir-reġistrazzjoni "The Secret Life of the Love Song / The World Made Flesh".

L-allat kienu kkundannaw lil Sisifu jimbotta ’l fuq ġebla daqsiex bla hedu sal-quċċata ta’ muntanja minn fejn il-ġebla kienet terġa’ taqa’ għal isfel bil-għabar tagħha. Kienu ħasbuha, u b’ċerta raġuni, li m’hemmx kastig iżjed waħxi mill-ħidma bla fejda u bla tama...

This paper focuses on the usefulness of the label 'mixed languages' as an analytical tool. Section 1 sketches the emergence of the biological paradigm in linguistics and its effect on the contemporary debate about mixed languages. Sections 2 and 3 discuss two processes that have been held responsible for the emergence of mixed languages, code switching and extreme borrowing. Section 4 compares these two mechanisms with the categories of change in Thomason & Kaufman (1988), while Section 5 offers some conclusions about the status of mixed languages as a special category.

Kummentarju minni dwar silta (tradotta minni) mit-test ‘L-Eżistenzjaliżmu Huwa Umaniżmu’  ta’ Jean-Paul Sartre.

Dan il-kummentarju deher fir-raba’ ħarġa tar-rivista filosofika ‘SHARE’ li tintebagħ kull tliet xhur mill-Fondazzjoni Philosophy Sharing (Malta).

Din ir-raba’ ħarġa issa tinsab għall-bejgħ mill-ħwienet tal-kotba ewlenin f’Malta u f’Għawdex.

It is commonly assumed that basic cardinal numerals such as English three are simplex expressions whose primary function is to quantify over entities denoted by the modified NP (e.g., Kennedy 2015; Rothstein 2017; Ionin & Matushansky 2018). In this paper, we explore cross-linguistic marking patterns suggesting that cardinals in fact lexicalize complex syntactic and semantic structures derived from the primitive notion of the number scale. The evidence we will investigate comes from various morphological shapes of cardinal numerals when used to count objects and when used for abstract arithmetical counting.