Language

The national language of Malta is Maltese, a Semitic language with many borrowings from Italian. The Maltese alphabet is based on the Latin alphabet, but uses the diacritically altered letters ż, also found in Polish, as well as the letters ċ, ġ, għ, ħ and ie, which are unique to Maltese.

The official languages are Maltese and English. Italian, an official language of Malta until the '30s, is widely spoken as a second language. French and German are taught in secondary schools.