Cottonera dialect

One of the dialects of the Maltese language is the Cottonera dialect, known to locals as Kottoneran. Many inhabitants of the Three Cities speak the local dialect, and thus roughly amount to 10,000 speakers.
The most distinctive feature of this dialect is its treatment of vowels i and u after the silent consonant għ. In Standard Maltese, and other dialects, these vowels are realized as diphthongs after għ. However, in most situations, they remain monophthongs in the Cottonera dialect.

The vowel I after Għ

The vowel i after għ remains an as in the English, instead of diphthongizing to as in the English.

English	Standard Maltese	Cottonera dialect
my/mine	tiegħi	tiegħi
he curses	jidgħi	jidgħi
with me	miegħi	miegħi

This dialectal change does not occur with the words għid, erbgħin, sebgħin, and disgħin.
The local poet from Senglea, Dwardu Cachia, formed part of the Xirka Xemija in 1882, an organization which formulated one of the first standardized versions of written Maltese. Moreover, Cachia wrote a poem about this very alphabet, in which he made use of the 4-line rhyme. Coincidentally, the ABCB rhyme of the second stanza only works if read in his Cottonera dialect.

The vowel U after Għ

The vowel u after għ remains an as in the English, instead of diphthongizing to as in the English.

English	Standard Maltese	Cottonera dialect
his	tiegħu	tiegħu
sent	mibgħut	mibgħut
a piece of wood	għuda	għuda
we can/could	nistgħu	nistgħu
we sell	nbigħu	nbigħu
with him	miegħu	miegħu

The vowel E after Għ

Although in contemporary Maltese, the combination għe sometimes produces an vowel, the Cottonera dialect has widely kept the realization comparable to Standard Maltese.

English	Standard Maltese	Cottonera dialect	Contemporary Maltese
she remained	baqgħet	baqgħet /	baqgħet
she fell	waqgħet	waqgħet /	waqgħet
he tired them	għejjiehom	għejjiehom	għejjiehom

The consonant Q

In Cottonera, most notably among the eldest demographic of Senglea, the consonant q is still pronounced as a voiceless uvular plosive, as its counterpart in Classical Arabic. This sound survived in Modern Maltese only through the Cottonera dialect, instead of being replaced with the Standard glottal stop. However, it is important to note that it is severely in decline.

English	Standard Maltese	Cottonera dialect
never	qatt	qatt
he told me	qalli	qalli
we reside	noqogħdu	noqogħdu
artichokes	qaqoċċ	qaqoċċ
poverty	faqar	faqar
he reached	laħaq	laħaq