Phonemic change and the growth of homophones in Maltese

Abstract

A determination of the causes of the linguistic changes that created homophones in the languages derived from Classical Arabic can provide valuable data for comparative Arabic dialect studies. Maltese is outstanding among the descendants of Arabic in that it has undergone more extensive phonetic modifications than any other dialect, and as a result has developed a great number of homophones where none existed in the parent language. Many of these modifications took place early in the development of Maltese as a language distinct from the Arabic that gave it birth; that is, in the period beginning with the Arabic conquest in 870 and extending to the time when the influences of Medieval Sicilian and Italian made themselves felt. Still other modifications have occurred more recently. Such modifications shall be examined in this article.