Maltese language

Maltese is the language of Malta. Maltese is most closely related to Arabic, but in the course of its history it adopted many loans and even phonetic and phonological features from (Southern) Italian and English. Maltese still has what is termed "Auslautverhärtung" in German, i.e. all voiced plosives are unvoiced word-finally. Due to English influence, however, there are minimal pairs like:

/lît/ 'the hand' (Semitic word) - /lîd/ (Anglo-Saxon word) '(electric) lead' /sajt/ 'fishing' - /sajd/ 'side, position' /plettS/ 'bail' - /pleddZ/ 'pledge, promise of payment (usually in a charity campaign)'

Here are the letters of the Maltese alphabet with their SAMPA equivalent(s)

p [p] b [b] f [f] t [t] d [d] s [s] v [v] z with dot [z] x [S] as in Portuguese x [Z] as in Sardinian c with dot [tS] g with dot [dZ] z [ts] z with stroke [z] k [k] g [g] q [?] glottal stop h with stroke l [l] r [r] n [n] m [m] w [w] j [j]

i [i] e [e] a [a] o [o] u [u]