Maltese

The Maltese are the people of Malta, between Sicily and the North African coast. Maltese descends from the Siculo-Arabic brought by settlers after the Aghlabid conquest of 870. After the Norman conquest of 1091 it evolved in isolation, absorbing Sicilian and Italian words while keeping a Semitic core and becoming the only Semitic language written in Latin script.

In 1337 Malta belonged to the Aragonese-ruled Kingdom of Sicily and was governed by its nobility through the Università. The oldest Maltese text, Pietru Caxaro's poem Il-Kantilena, dates to the fifteenth century.

In 1530 Charles V granted the islands to the Knights Hospitaller expelled from Rhodes, who survived the four-month Great Siege of 1565 against Suleiman the Magnificent and built Valletta. Napoleon seized Malta in 1798, and after two years of local revolt the Congress of Vienna in 1815 confirmed British rule.