The Maltese language, as the only Semitic language in the European Union, shares a lot in common with Arabic. In addition, there are even more similarities between Maltese and the Tunisian dialect of Arabic. The reason for this is very interesting and has a lot to do with the history of the region. Starting in the 9th century, following the Abbasid conquest of Sicily, for over two centuries, the islands of Sicily and Malta were under Muslim rule, known as the Emirate of Sicily. During this period a variety of Arabic, known as Sicilian Arabic (Siculo-Arabic), was formed. A series of battles eventually led to the fall of Muslim rule and the re-establishment of Christian control over Sicily and Malta. However, Sicilian Arabic continued to be spoken under the new state for a few ensuing centuries until it eventually went extinct. The Maltese language today is considered to be its sole surviving descendant. Tunisian Arabic is also related to Sicilian Arabic since they are both Maghrebi dialects with a lot of similarities. As a result, the degree of mutual intelligibility between Maltese and the Tunisian dialect of Arabic could be as high as 40% (or higher). In this video, we'll take a look at how well Maltese and Tunisians can understand each other with Ons (Arabic speaker from Tunisia) and David (Maltese speaker) challenging each other with a list of words and several sentences.

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Arabic is a Central Semitic language and has official/national status Algeria, Bahrain, Comoros, Chad, Djibouti, Egypt, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, SADR, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tanzania (Zanzibar), Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.

The Maltese language (Malti) is the Latinised variety of spoken historical Arabic through its descent from Siculo-Arabic, which developed as a Maghrebi Arabic dialect during the Emirate of Sicily. It is the national language of Malta and distinguished from Arabic and other Semitic languages due to the heavy influence from Romance languages on its morphology. In addition to that, Maltese is the only Semitic language written in the Latin script.