Arabic in the Maltese Education System: The Trajectory of Educational Policies and Their Current Implications
Key information
- Date
- Time
-
4:00 pm to 5:00 pm
- Venue
- SOAS, Paul Webley Wing
- Room
- S209
- Event type
- Seminar
About this event
Part of the SOAS Linguistics Research Seminar Series 2025-26
Speaker: Merve Özsüllü
Abstract
Maltese, as the only Semitic language written in the Latin alphabet, maintains a close structural relationship with Arabic, particularly with Maghrebi varieties. From a linguistic perspective, Maltese shares significant similarities with Arabic in its lexicon, morphology, and core syntactic patterns, including the root-and-pattern system.
This talk explores how such linguistic proximity contrasts with the complex positioning of Arabic within the Maltese educational context. Situating Arabic teaching in Malta within its historical and institutional background, the presentation examines how linguistic relatedness interacts with broader sociolinguistic and ideological frameworks, foregrounding the tension between structural affinity and educational practice.
Speaker
Merve Özsüllü is a Lecturer of Arabic in Türkiye’s Necmettin Erbakan University and a PhD candidate in Arabic Language and Linguistics at Ankara Social Sciences University. Her research focuses on Maltese–Arabic linguistic relations from a typological perspective.
Image: Mikhail Mokrushin, Unsplash
