Ebook: Variation and Change: The Dynamics of Maltese in Space, Time and Society

In this volume we present the second collection of articles documenting the contribu-
tions to the 2nd International Conference on Maltese Linguistics held in Bremen, Ger-
many from the 19th to the 21st September 2009. This conference was organised by the
Għaqda Internazzjonali tal-Lingwistika Maltija (International Association of Maltese
Linguistics) and scholars from France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Malta and
the USA shared ideas and research initiatives on topics related to various aspects of
Maltese Linguistics.
The theme of the conference was ―Variation and Change: The Dynamics of Maltese
in Space, Time and Society‖. The program included 19 talks which covered a broad
range of issues pertaining to this topic. As in the case of the first conference organised
by the Għaqda, the papers presented in this second conference are innovative for the
study of Maltese and represent a valid contribution to General Linguistics.
In this volume we collect 12 articles which once again reflect the thematic richness
of Maltese Linguistics. Furthermore these papers also clearly indicate that Maltese
Linguistics, on which research up to the recent past was somewhat disaggregated, is
finding not too small a niche of its own and that, as augured during the Għaqda‘s first
conference, it is going far beyond studies devoted mainly to language contact and to
Arabic dialectology. This volume is therefore yet another step towards rendering more
widespread research pertaining to the Maltese Language and Linguistics. The various
areas of study included in these 12 papers are also an indication of the growing interest
in Maltese as well as of the expansion of the field under study.