1. General

The affiliation of Maltese within other Arabic vernaculars is a controversial issue. It is likely that successive waves of impact reached the Maltese shores from different Arab stations and at different points in the island's history (for theories about a Phoenician origin of Maltese, Malta). Most linguists (see, for example, Aquilina 1961, 1979) agree that typologically Maltese fits well into the general characteristics of Maghrebi dialects, including the most distinctive isoglosses such as the n- pr…