Folklore from Malta and Gozo: Learning Some Maltese

Monday, April 12, 2010

Learning Some Maltese

You might be visiting Gozo soon, maybe this Summer. Wouldn't it be fun if you were able to speak some words in Maltese. Simple words like "bonġu" meaning good morning, "kif inti?" meaning how are you doing? "Bonswa" meaning good evening. You may have noticed that "bonġu and bonswa" have the ring of the french words to them "bonjour and bonsoir". In fact they are derived from French. Yes our language is very old, based on the language of the Phoenicians who inhabited our Islands many years before Christ, and it was enhanced with French, Italian and English words as people began using and adding new words over the years. "Arblu" meaning a mast was probably derived from "albero" the Italian/Sicilian word for tree and there are so many more.

Here at this address you can peruse written lessons and listen to Maltese pronounciation on video.

2 comments:

DinoJuly 22, 2010 at 11:01 PM
Hello,

I have go through your post and found some information, which is really very useful for me.
So, Please keep posting.

Thanks
Dinosaur World
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San Antonio HotelJuly 22, 2010 at 11:28 PM
Hi,

I really like the thought of your post, its very informative. And i hope that you have done very hard home work before making that post.

Thanks
San Antonio Hotel
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Hi Welcome to my Blog

I like writing and I like folklore. I like to think of the past sometimes and how people used to live. A much more simple way of life surely. Folklore is such a vast subject that it's hard to suffer from writers' block. I like to write Legends, short stories based on old-time children's games, like playing with marbles, with hazel nuts during Christmas time, with iron hoops, armoured as Roman soldiers and many more. There are so many games that we used to play in the streets in the evening and in the week-end when we had no school. There were few cars to disturb us but plenty of children to play with :-))

We did not know the words 'week-end' at the time, we just had Saturday and Sunday.

My other Blog is about Great Internet Tools that serious entrepreneurs shouldn't be without. I work with them too by the way.