Il-Kantilena

Il-Kantilena is the oldest known literary text in the Maltese language.^[1] It dates from the 15th century (no later than 1485, the death of its author, and probably from the 1470s), but was not found until 1966 by historians Godfrey Wettinger and Mikiel Fsadni. The poem is attributed to Pietru Caxaro, and was recorded by Caxaro's nephew, Brandano, in his notarial register (Dec. 1533 – May 1563). It is preserved at the Notarial Archives in Valletta.^[2]

Although written in Maltese, in Latin script, it was a very early form that had not yet been influenced much by Romance languages, and is thus an example of Old Maltese. This text contains many Arabic morphemes. The only Romance words are vintura 'luck', sometimes translated into English as 'fate', and et 'and'. In general, early Maltese texts contain very little non-Semitic vocabulary; even in later texts, poetry tends to use more Semitic vocabulary than general language use does, therefore while certainly of historical interest, Il-Kantilena most likely does not reflect the spoken language of the common Maltese of the time, but rather that of the elite who spoke a stilted form more pleasing to the ruling class.^[3]

However, literary evidence suggests that the spoken language in the 13th century was Arabic since ire was raised when the bishop of Malta resident in Sicily appointed Italian-speaking priests to the island. Both islands were occupied by the Arabs in the early medieval period, but Malta's relative isolation limited the diffusion of Italian cognates until much later.