Series | SAIL
Edited book | Policies and Practices for Linguistic Education, Multilingualism and Intercultural Communication
Chapter | L’acquisizione imperfetta di una lingua adstrato

L’acquisizione imperfetta di una lingua adstrato

L’italiano degli analfabeti a Malta dal Settecento al Novecento

Abstract

The fact that Maltese has adopted over 20,000 Sicilian and Italian words, including 41% of its vocabulary at the Threshold Level, shows that this is not a case of borrowing at the higher social levels. To explain this unusual phenomenon the extraordinary growth in the island’s population and its rapid development under the Knights of St John and the British government are taken into account. Whereas works written in Italian from the 16th to the 20th century are abundant, and their quality is not inferior to those written in Italy, little is known about the efforts made by illiterate persons to speak the high language. The paper presents a few symptomatic comments and samples from the past, and from the present.


Open access

Submitted: Oct. 16, 2020 | Published May 24, 2021 | Language: it

Keywords Lexicon • Illiteracy • Dialogue • Immigration • Language contact

Copyright © 2021 Giuseppe Brincat. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

Permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/978-88-6969-501-8/001


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