A mixed orthography of the Maltese language : the Latin-Arabic alphabet

Abstract

The article outlines the history of the mixed Latin-Arabic alphabet which was utilised by a number of scholars to write the Maltese language between the seventeenth and the nineteenth centuries. The author argues that, while the 19th century writers (Azzopardi, Trapani, Casolani, Canolo) made use of a rather limited amount of Arabic characters (not more than six), during the eighteenth century this practice was extended to include up to twelve Arabic characters which could be combined with Latin letters (e.g. De Guignard, Regale per la lingua maltese, Thezan). This orthographic system found strong opposition during the nineteenth century (e.g. Cumbo, Badger, Vella) and eventually, it was the Latin alphabet which was to be adopted for the codification of the Maltese language. However, a closer study of the mixed alphabet could shed further light on the phonological evolution of the Maltese language as well as on certain linguistic traits which had disappeared earlier in time in spoken Arabic but might have still been maintained in spoken Maltese.