Maltese national costume and languages

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Malta's national costume is only seen today on some special occasion such as at Buskett on Mnarja Night, or the dancing of the "Maltija" national dance at Carnival, or again at Luqa Airport or Customs House when a welcoming party organised by the Government Tourist Board strum their guitars to the lapels of visitors.

The material used for such garments was generally cotton or wool normally homespun and hand-dyed. The folks used to imitate the design of the richer garments in manufacturing their Sunday best clothes. It was customary that on festive occasions throughout the year such as the village feast, a wedding or Easter Sunday people wore new garments. Typical peasants' costumes have been recorded as from the 18th century.

Women's clothes included the head covering known as ‘faldetta' or ‘ghonnella', or another head covering known as ‘cuqlana', a bodice and a skirt called ‘gezwira'. It is produced from multi-coloured warp threads in red, green, yellow, brown and black bound by undyed and black cotton. Another typical colour used in dying cotton fabric was the blue which was specifically dyed and sold by the Zabbar people.

Men's native dress: It is very unique in nature. The hat they adorn is a long bag made of wool, hanging down behind and dyed with various colours. The girdle round the loins is still in use among the Maltese of the lower order; that made of cotton is called "Terha", that of silk a bushakka. With this the pantaloons are confined round the waist, and are generally three or four yards in length. It is not common to see any in this dress with a jacket, its place being supplied by a sedria which, in many cases is ornamented down the front with several rows of round silver buttons.

Languages in Malta

The official languages of Malta are Maltese and English. Maltese, the national language, is a Semitic language, descended from Siculo-Arabic, from Sicily and surrounding Southern Italy, with substantial borrowing from Sicilian and Italian. The Maltese alphabet of 29 letters is based on the Latin alphabet, but uses the diacritically altered letter ż, also found in Polish, ċ, ġ, as well as the letters għ, ħ, and ie, which are unique to Maltese.

Italian was an official language of Malta until the 1930s, and is widely spoken as a second or third language. Italian television channels from Italy-based broadcasters, such as Mediaset and RAI, reach Malta and remain popular.

According to the EU, 100% of the population speaks Maltese, 88% speaks English, 66% speaks Italian, and 17% speaks French, making the country multi-linguistic with consummate fluency in the European Union. As a first language, 86% of the population prefer Maltese, 12% English, and 2% Italian.