Re: Maltese Phonology

Isaac Penzev wrote:

> http://www.aboutmalta.com/LANGUAGE_and_LITERATURE/
>
> I would strongly recommend this site. It's precious!
Thanks for the link!  It's great!

Thomas Leigh wrote:

> "Teach Yourself Maltese" (in the well-known "Teach Yourself" series of
> language textbooks) is still being reprinted and should be fairly easy to
> get a hold of. The author's name is Joseph Aquilina. Amazon has it new for
> $10.47. It starts off with a detailed chapter on phonology and orthography.
> And being the Maltese fanatic that I am, I think the book belongs on
> everybody's bookshelf. ;-)
I'm definitely going to look for it, and the price is right.  Thanks
for the suggestion!

> Wow, sounds like a cool project! Hope you'll post some when you've gotten
> far enough.
I certainly will, and I'm sure I'll be bugging Yitzik's workshop
with plenty of questions.  I am a bit of a novice when it comes to
Semitic languages.  I've been fascinated by them for years, but only
in the past two years have I begun to really educate myself about
them.

> I would be happy to look something up for you if you have any
> specific further questions.
Thank you for the offer!

> Probably the most striking thing about the phonology is that it's lost > all the
> "harsh" sounds of Arabic: <snip>
These are all features that drew me to it as well.  The sound is
unmistakably Arabic, but it's so smooth and has that slight Romance
sound to it.  For my "Creole Arabic" (which is actually more of a
non-p/c mixed langauge with creole features) I wanted to dispense
with the emphatics, pharyngeals, etc.  Although I have no
con-culture or con-history imagined for my langauge, I always
pictured a Mediterranean and thus Romance influence on it (and
perhaps Greek as well); Maltese provides me with the perfect model
of what to do for a phonology.

> There used to be a web site for a Maltese radio stastion (Radju Malta 2)
> which had live streaming all day so you could just sit and listen to all the
> Maltese you wanted, but alas the site has disappeared and I have found no
> replacement as yet. :-(
Thomas, my friend, despair no more: as I'm always looking for a way
to listen to Maltese, I googled around and I found this.  Check out
this link.  Radju Malta 2 is listed under Radio Malta.

http://www.di-ve.com/dive/portal/portal.jhtml?pid=8150&id=8158

I first heard Maltese on the Voice of the Mediterranean, and fell in
love with it.  I could listen to Maltese all day long.

Cheers,
Eamon
____________________________________________________
Robert Eamon Graham              robertg@knology.net

Anugraha banana shundarata dengan bisri bastu-bastu.

                                -- U2, "Grace"

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