Maltese English
Maltese English is a postcolonial variety of the English language spoken by the Maltese people. Maltese English is heavily influenced by its contact with the Maltese language. It is close to the prestigious dialects of British English, but diverges from them in phonology and morphosyntax.
Sociolinguistic information
Maltese English is an intermediate variety between ESL and EFL, undergoing nativisation. Overall, English in Malta can be divided into "foreign" varieties and the local dialect, which will be referred to as "Maltese English", but they exist as a continuum, with Received Pronunciation and the low-prestige local variety as its extrema. The mixed English-Maltese language is known as Maltenglish.Although more than 100,000 Maltese immigrant English speakers live outside Malta, they often move to English-speaking countries and use the local variety of the language instead of Maltese English. Due to the technological advancements, many Maltese people regularly talk to their relatives living abroad.
While there is no law specifying a language of instruction in the educational setting, the National Minimum Curriculum requires the schools to pay sufficient attention to Maltese and English, as well as add at least one other language to the curriculum. English gradually replaces Maltese in the classroom as students move further in their education, but the choice of the language of instruction is largely defined by the language of the textbooks. Private schools provide much more instruction in English, with some forgoing Maltese entirely.
The command of English correlates with the prevalence of tertiary education, so among older people, Maltese English is generally spoken by the wealthier class, but younger Maltese have a higher university attendance rate, and are thus more proficient in English. It is estimated that more than 300,000 people speak Maltese English, which constitutes 88% of the population of Malta; it is acquired by young people without interruptions, so it is not endangered, unlike many other varieties of English. For most Maltese, English is their second language, even though it is acquired early in life; only 9% of the population report that they use English as a main language at home.
The wealthier strata of the Maltese society are often mocked for their "snobbery", which is represented by their choice of English over Maltese for communication, but also by their RP-like accent and avoidance of features typical for Maltese English. English remains the prestige language while Maltese is still stigmatised.
English is very prominent in the media: all advertisements and most magazines that target women are in English; the most popular books are English-language bestsellers. Television has more Italian and Maltese than English, but it is still prominent.
History
Malta was conquered by Arabs during the Arab–Byzantine wars in 870 and remained under their control until 1091 when Normans conquered Sicily and Malta. Europeans controlled Malta from that time on, with the British Empire ruling from 1814 until the declaration of its independence in 1964. Italian was brought to Malta by the Knights of St. John, who ruled over Malta in 1530−1798. It remained popular among the higher strata of the Maltese society, and so English was spreading across the population rather slowly. It became one of the two official languages of Malta in 1934 together with Italian, and only after that the Maltese people started learning it in large numbers.Maltese English is not a settler variety: it formed because the native population needed to read English, but not to speak it, which is reflected in its features such as abundance of the spelling pronunciation. The main force affecting MaltE is Maltese, there is some Italian influence; it also acquired a lot from the "inner circle" dialects of English, mainly British and American English.
Maltese English is poorly documented. The first mention of "Maltese English" occurred in 1978. There is no grammar book, and while several bilingual MaltE-BrE dictionaries exist, there is no defining dictionary Speakers have historically believed that Maltese English is the same as the prestigious dialect of the UK, but as of 2018, the local variety starts getting recognition as an identity marker for the Maltese people.
Phonology
The phonology of Maltese English is usually described in relation to RP because it has always been the exonormative standard.Consonants
Like many ESL varieties, Maltese English has a strong tendency towards devoicing the syllable coda and word-final obstruents: "lobster" is and "mug" is . It can be attributed to language contact, as Maltese also has this feature. On the other hand, in some words the /s/ that occurs between two sonorants or vowels undergoes voicing by analogy with Maltese and Italian cognates: "basically" is pronounced . Another reason for this voicing is hypercorrection: "based" is often pronounced as .Dark L is rare even in positions where it is expected in BrE: "hill" is in BrE, but in MaltE.
The tendency to use spelling pronunciation is exemplified by the pronunciation of the "ng" digraph as /ŋɡ/, akin to the dialects of the North of Britain. Words like "ringing" might be pronounced as . This is most likely to happen at the end of a word if the next one starts with a vowel, or before a pause; it is rare before consonants while the word-final realisation of "ng" as /n/ occurs infrequently. This feature is more rare in words undergoing grammaticalisation, such as "going".
The common allophones of /r/ are a trill , an alveolar tap , a retroflex approximant and a postalveolar approximant ; they occur in near-free variation with a preference for approximants and a dispreference for trills, however, men have more trills while women strongly prefer approximants.
Maltese English can be characterised as a rhotic dialect, although /r/ is often omitted if it is not preceding a vowel. However, this is different in different social strata: in a study of L1 English speakers and Maltese-English bilinguals, the prevalence of omission of /r/ in a position before a vowel happens around 80% of the time, with an exception for contracted forms "you're", "we're" and "they're", where a rhotic form is used to avoid homonymy with non-rhotic "your", "were", "there" and "their". In contrast, a study of ESL English speakers had the exact opposite result with 80% of the /r/ being heard in non-prevocalic position.
The dental fricatives /θ/ and /ð/ usually appear as alveo-dental, but they are often perceived as alveolar and and sometimes realised as such with further tongue retraction. Th-stopping happens in the prestigious variety, but is rare; in the non-prestigious variety it is common, with a strongly aspirated .
Vowels
Due to the rich vocalic inventory of Maltese, full MaltE vowels are generally close to BrE ones.Maltese has no schwa, and in Maltese English, it is usually realised as in words like "comma" and as in words like "support"; this quality is emphasised because of the tendency to not shorten vowels in reduced syllables. There is, however, a schwa insertion at the end of words ending with stops and affricates: "stop" .
TRAP vowel /æ/ is also not a part of the Maltese English sound system; it is replaced with or .
Maltese /ɪ/ and /ʊ/ are more peripheral than the corresponding RP vowels, and their long counterparts are even more peripheral, tenser and less diphthongised than in RP.
Maltese English speakers usually insert an before /l/, /n/ and /m/ if these consonants often become syllabic in British English: BrE - MaltE ; the unstressed vowel that precedes these consonants often changes to : "bottom" .
BATH and PALM vowels are both /a/, typically realised as ; the /l/ is often pronounced, especially in lower-prestige varieties.
The FACE vowel /eɪ/ is realised as in Maltese and sometimes monophthongised to or .
The GOAT vowel is in MaltE and can get smoothed to or .
Most other non-r-coloured vowels are very similar to RP:
- THOUGHT ,
- PRICE , MOUTH and CHOICE ,
- HAPPY , never ,
- DRESS ,
- LOT ,
- STRUT , may be merged with TRAP, PALM, START or BATH.
[R-coloured vowel]s
The NORTH and FORCE vowels have merged.
The START vowel is for the speakers of the non-rhotic variant while the rhotic speakers add one of the allophones of /r/ at the end. The same is true for NORTH: for non-rhotic and the same vowel with an /r/ for the rest.
The NEAR , SQUARE and CURE vowels are the same for rhotic and non-rhotic speakers, but the NEAR and CURE are tenser at the beginning than their British equivalents.
RP triphthongs are realised as and for rhotic speakers, and for non-rhotic ones; they are almost never turning into diphthongs or monophthongs.
Suprasegmental features
In Maltese English, the tendency to use weak and reduced forms is less prominent than in RP or AmE: unstressed vowels are longer and less reduced; there are fewer weak forms of auxiliary verbs and fewer contractions. This is coupled with frequent insertion of a glottal stop at the beginning and end of words, which additionally prevents the liaison.Due to the aforementioned factors, Maltese English sounds more syllable-timed than RP, resembling the Italian accent in English, especially among the speakers of the low-prestige variety.
Stress is often moved to a later syllable if the RP stresses any syllable other than the last one: "centimetre" is cen.ti.'me.tre; words ending with -ism are pronounced with a Maltese stress on the final heavy syllable: cri.ti.'cism.
Common intonation patterns of Maltese English are a high rising terminal in polar questions and interrogatives, including questions disguised as statements, as opposed to the falling or rising-falling intonation in RP. The same pattern is observed in declarative statements and imperatives.