II-Pater Noster bl-lisien Malti : storja lingwistika

Abstract

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 Il-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.