The Basque language of the western Pyrenees is an isolate unrelated to any other group, while Maltese is the only Semitic language in Europe with national language status.

Maltese ( Malti ) is the national language of Malta, and a co-official language of the country alongside English,

The oldest reference to Maltese comes from the Benedictine monks of Catania, who were unable to open a monastery in Malta, in 1364, because they could not understand the native language.

In his Mundus Subterraneus he says of the Maltese, " they speak the purest form of Arabic, corrupted by neither Italian nor any other language.

" Other theories include those in Johann Friedrich Breithaupt's Christliche Helden Insel Malta (), published in 1632, where he calls Maltese a mixed ' barbaric ' language and John Dryden's description of the language as ' Berber ' on his visit to the islands ( the memoirs of those journeys appeared in 1776 ).

Maltese became an official language of Malta in 1934, alongside English, when Italian was dropped from official use.

Thousands of Maltese emigrants in Australia, Canada, Italy, United Kingdom, and the United States still speak the language, and in 2007 it was reported that Maltese is still spoken by descendants of Maltese immigrants in Tunisia.

Maltese is a Semitic language descended from Siculo-Arabic, that in the course of its history has been influenced by Sicilian and Italian, to a lesser extent French, and more recently English.

Due to the Sicilian influence on Siculo-Arabic, Maltese has many language contact features and is most commonly described as a language with a large number of loanwords.

The Maltese language has historically been classified in various ways, with some claiming that the ancient Punic language was the base of the language, instead of Siculo-Arabic, while others believed the language to be Berber, and under Fascist Italy, it was considered a dialect of Italian.

Malta has two official languages -- Maltese ( a Semitic language derived from Siculo-Arabic and heavily influenced by Sicilian and Italian ), and English.

* the word used for feces in Maltese language

Works in the Maltese language are also displayed.

Of his many works, the earliest, published in 1810, entitled Versuch über die maltesische Sprache, was a successful refutation of the current opinion that the modern Maltese language was of Punic origin.

cypher logo in the center of the flag, to distinguish them from Maltese ships, due to the similarity of the flag of the Order of St. John ( also known as the Knights Hospitaller ).

Raft turned down the lead in John Huston's directorial debut The Maltese Falcon ( 1941 ), due to its being a cleaned up version of the pre-Production Code The Maltese Falcon ( 1931 ), his contract stipulating that he did not have to appear in remakes.

These classic buses have become tourist attractions in their own right, due to their uniqueness, and are depicted on many Maltese advertisements to promote tourism as well as on gifts and merchandise for tourists.

Before leaving the colony three years earlier, White had left instructions that, if the colonists left the settlement, they were to carve the name of their destination, with a Maltese cross if they left due to danger.

Frequent national calamities – including loss of property, forced labour and enslavement – suffered by the Maltese from the 9th century through to the early 16th century due to piracy and raids of their islands, primarily at the hands of Muslims ( Hafsids of North Africa and Turkish corsairs ) had a profound effect on Maltese culture.

This was due in part to increasing levels of literacy among the Maltese, the increased availability of Italian newspapers, and an influx of Italian intelligentsia to Malta.

Prior to the establishment of Valletta as capital and main city of Malta, military powers that wanted to rule the Maltese islands would need to obtain control of Birgu due to its significant position in the Grand Harbour.

In recent years, due to an agreement made by the Maltese Government with Sovereign Military Order of Malta, this Catholic Order of Knighthood has returned to the Island.

He went into a gradual professional decline over the next decade, in part due to turning down some of the most-famous roles in movie history, notably Raoul Walsh's High Sierra and The Maltese Falcon ; both roles unexpectedly transformed Humphrey Bogart from supporting player to a major force in Hollywood in 1941.

The geneva drive is also commonly called a Maltese cross mechanism due to the visual resemblance.

The alterations continued over the years because the crown that is impaled upon the Maltese cross keeps in synchronisation with the monarch in England, due to the switching of crowns.

The complex is also used by foreign clubs during the winter months, due to the mild temperatures of the Maltese Islands.

The increase is due both to Maltese summer residents and tourists lodging in hotels, especially in Buġibba and Qawra.

* Pinto Philharmonic Society, St. Sebastian Band ( Is-Soċjetà Filarmonika Pinto, Banda San Sebastjan )— founded in 1862, apart from being the first band club in Qormi it is also one of the earliest Maltese band clubs, originally in the Saint George parish but later moved to the Saint Sebastian parish due to the parish limits

Celebrated Italian architect Renzo Piano, and local Maltese architect Richard England both submitted designs for a new City Gate, but the project stalled at the time due to poor public reaction.

Unfortunately due to the Second World War, the league had to break-off since many Maltese players were drafted in to the defence of the island during the early 1940s when the Maltese archipelago were heavily involved in the North Africa conflict due to its strategic position in the Mediterranean sea.

Finally, in The Maltese Falcon among others, the clash between detective and police is carried to its logical conclusion: Sam Spade becomes the chief murder suspect.

During the night of February 10, 2010, the Sichem Osprey, a Maltese chemical tanker, ran aground on Clipperton Island on its way from the Panama Canal to South Korea.

Bosio writes that when the cornerstone of Valletta was placed, a group of Maltese elders said " Iegi zimen en fel wardia col sceber raba iesue uquie " ( which in modern Maltese reads, " Jiġi żmien li fil-Wardija Sciberras kull xiber raba ’ jiswa uqija ," and in English, " There will come a time when every piece of land on Sciberras Hill will be worth its weight in gold ").

Following the Maltese constitutional referendum, 1964, approved by 54. 5 % of voters, on 21 September 1964, Malta became an independent state as a Constitutional Monarchy, with Queen Elizabeth II as its Head of State.

In Great Britain the first postmark employed for the cancellation of the then new postage stamps was the Maltese Cross, so named because of its shape and appearance.

In his book Dell ’ Istoria della Sacra Religione et Illustrissima Militia di San Giovanni Gierosolimitano (), written between 1594 and 1602, Giacomo Bosio writes that when the cornerstone of Valletta was placed, a group of Maltese elders said " Iegi zimen en fel wardia col sceber raba iesue uquie " ( Which in modern Maltese reads, " Jiġi żmien li fil-Wardija Sciberras kull xiber raba ’ jiswa uqija ," and in English, " There will come a time when every piece of land on Sciberras Hill will be worth its weight in gold ").

In 1998, the Modern Library ranked The Maltese Falcon 56th on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century.

) The novel is considered one of the seminal texts of the hard-boiled sub-genre of mystery novels, but the chief innovation distinguishing it from previous Hammett works such as The Maltese Falcon or The Glass Key was its relative lightness and humor.

Abela Coat of armsGiovanni Francesco Abela ( 1582 – 1655 ) was a Maltese of noble birth who in the early 17th century wrote an important work on Malta, Malta illustrata con le sue Antichità ed altre Notizie ( Malta illustrated, with its Antiquities, and other information ).

In February 1538, Pope Paul III succeeded in assembling a Holy League ( comprising the Papacy, Spain, the Holy Roman Empire, the Republic of Venice and the Maltese Knights ) against the Ottomans, but Hayreddin Barbarossa defeated its combined fleet, commanded by Andrea Doria, at the Battle of Preveza in September 1538.

At first the island state sent songs in its native language, Maltese, but it failed to rank highly, and withdrew after the 1975 contest.

It has the same proportions as the National Flag and consists of a blue field with the Emblem of Malta at its centre ; and a Maltese Cross in gold in each corner.

The culture of Malta is the culture of the Maltese islanders and reflects various societies that have come into contact with the Maltese Islands throughout the centuries, including neighbouring Mediterranean cultures, and the cultures of the nations that ruled Malta for long periods of time prior to its independence in 1964.

This culture disappeared from the Maltese Islands around 2500 BC and was replaced by a new influx of Bronze Age immigrants, a culture that is known to have cremated its dead and introduced smaller megalithic structures called dolmens to Malta.

The Latin European element is the major source of Maltese culture because of the virtually continuous cultural impact on Malta over the past eight centuries and the fact that Malta shares the religious beliefs, traditions and ceremonies of its Sicilian and Southern European neighbors.

The parish church ( Maltese: " il-parroċċa ", or " il-knisja parrokjali ") is the architectural and geographic focal point of every Maltese town and village, and its main source of civic pride.

It is worth noting that the Maltese Inquisition ( more properly called the Roman Inquisition ) had a very long tenure in Malta following its establishment by the Pope in 1530 ; the last Inquisitor departed from the Islands in 1798, after the Knights capitulated to the forces of Napoleon Bonaparte.