Maltese
Malti
Native to	Malta
Native speakers	(400,000 cited 1975)
Language family	Afro-Asiatic Semitic Central Semitic Arabic Maghrebi Arabic Siculo-Arabic Maltese
Writing system	Latin (Maltese alphabet) Maltese Braille
Official status
Official language in	Malta  European Union
Regulated by	National Council for the Maltese Language Il-Kunsill Nazzjonali tal-Ilsien Malti
Language codes
ISO 639-1	mt
ISO 639-2	mlt
ISO 639-3	mlt
Linguasphere	12-AAC-c

Maltese is the language of Malta, and a language of the European Union. Maltese sounds similar to the Phoenician language that was spoken in areas around the ancient Mediterranean. It is written in the Latin alphabet like English. Maltese descends from a dialect of Arabic called Siculo-Arabic. The language has borrowed many words from Sicilian, Italian, and English. Around 393,000 people speak Maltese. Most of them live in Malta.