Water turned into wine : comparing and contrasting classical Arabic, Lebanese, Moroccan and Maltese versions

Abstract

Typologically, the modem Maltese language is poised between the Arabic dialectal bundle, on the one hand, and Romance languages, particularly Sicilian and Italian, on the other. Moreover, Maltese is unevenly poised between eastern and western dialectal varieties of Arabic, with a considerable inclination towards the Maghribi dialects. One way of observing the varying degrees of correspondence between Maltese and Arabic is to compare and contrast Arabic (Classical, Lebanese, and Moroccan) and Maltese translations of a literary text, in this case, an excerpt from the Gospel of St. John. Lebanese and Moroccan represent eastern and western Arabic typologies respectively. The arbitrary choice of a relatively short excerpt - John 2: 1-12 - precludes any accurate pronouncements about the areal affiliationls of the Arabic element in Maltese. The aim of this study is limited to the consideration of issues of fonnal correspondence and translation equivalence via the textual segmentation of the four versions under consideration.