Malta Culture & Language

Ninety-four per cent of Maltese declared themselves Catholic in the survey the encyclopaedia cites, and the parish is the unit of public life: its church is the largest building in town, its summer festa the largest event, its band club the social centre. Maltese is the national language and one of two official ones; it is Semitic in origin and written in the Latin script, the only such language to be, and English is used alongside it in law, business and daily speech.

The Knights of St John ruled from 1530 to 1798 and left the country its capital, its cathedral and its habit of stone; Valletta and St John's Co-Cathedral are theirs. The British held the islands from 1800 to 1964 and left English, the institutions and a naval town's character in the harbour. Between them they made a place that is Southern European in its faith and food and Anglophone in its paperwork.

The Second World War remains close. The George Cross of April 1942 is on the flag, the bombing is within living memory, and the reconstruction of the harbour towns is the city many Maltese grew up in.

The official languages are Maltese and English, and Maltese is the national language. It is a language of Semitic origin written in the Latin script -- the only Semitic language officially so written -- and it sounds unlike anything else in Europe, with Italian and English words carried on an Arabic grammar. English is spoken and written everywhere, in law, business and on the street, so a visitor needs no Maltese; a greeting in it is noticed all the same.

Place names are the visitor's first encounter with the spelling: Ċirkewwa, Mġarr, Buġibba, Għajnsielem, Xlendi. The dotted letters and the silent għ are why the ferry terminal on the timetable and the one the bus driver announces sound like different places.