Maltese language

Maltese is the national language of Malta. It is derived from and most closely related to Arabic, but in the course of its history it has adopted many loans and even phonetic and phonological features from (Southern) Italian and English. Maltese is the only Semitic language written in the Latin alphabet. There are a significant number of Maltese expatriates in Australia who still use the language.

Below is the Maltese alphabet, with the SAMPA equivalents and approximate English pronunciation:

letter	SAMPA	pronunciation
A	a	are
B	b	bar, but at the end of a word it is pronounced as "P"
Ċ	tS	church
D	d	day, but at the end of a word it is pronounced as "T"
E	E	end
F	f	far
G	g	game, but at the end of a word it is pronounced as "K"
Ġ	dZ	jump
GĦ		has the effect of lengthening associated vowels, except when immediately followed by a "H", in which case it has the sound of a double "Ħ".
H		Not pronounced unless it is at the end of a word, in which case it has the sound of "Ħ".
Ħ	h	hard
I	I	inside
IE	i	eerie
J	j	yard
K	k	cave
L	l	line
M	m	march
N	n	next
O	Q	ore
P	p	part
Q	q	guttural sound, occasionally found in the Cockney pronunciation of "that"
R	r	roar
S	s	sand
T	t	tired
U	u	put
V	v	vast, but at the end of a word it is pronounced as "F"
W	w	wire
X	S	shade
Z		let's
Ż	z	maze, but at the end of a word it is pronounced as "S"

External Links

• Open source spellchecker (aspell/ispell) (http://linux.org.mt/article/spellcheck)
• Online version of above (http://linux.org.mt/lingwa/spellcheck.jsp)