I do not know why you say “Lebanese hamza”. As far as I know, the hamza is pronounced the same in all Arabic dialects. It is known as the “glottal stop” and is present in many languages though it is not written. In the emphatic exclamation “Is that so?”, many would actually start the phrase with the glottal stop. It also replaces the “t” in cockney English.

“Family
Muscat is the son of Saviour Muscat and Grace. Muscat is married to Michelle née Tanti, and they have twins: Etoile Ella and Soleil Sophie.”

There is confusion as to what is an Arab. Arabs are those who came from where there is the peninsula where Saudi Arabia is in the Arabian Gulf. Probably, only a minority of North africans are really Arabs. Many are of Berber and Moorish origin and the population is ethnically heterogenous just as we are and most Mediterraneans are. There is a not negligible element of European genes in countries like Tunisia too. By the time the “Arabs” took Malta, these blitzkrieg conquerors were already a mixture of Arab-speaking Muslims not necessarily all carrying Arab genes. Few people in Malta, who are not well-informed, understand this. Minds are confused and misinformation and old wives tales abound.

@Daphne: So far, you are the only one with a clear and informed view of things here (possibly me too). We differ in that I think that phonetic alphabets are the simplest. About Caruana surname, your theory could be right but needs support. If you’re right, Muscat could fall in the same category.

@europarl: in fact, the revisionists are those who believe (know, rather) that Maltese is a Maghrebin dialect – the two most important early scholars of Maltese, de Soldanis and Vassalli, both held Maltese to be Punic but Vassalli later realized it was Arabic and so does every professional linguist today. There is not even any indication of a Punic substratum in Maltese. Maltese is just the most romanized Arabic dialect just as the speech of Pantelleria is the most Arabicized Italian dialect. This pseudo-theory of Punic origins needs to be put to rest for ever – it is just false, period. At one time, it was thought the megalithic temples were Phoenician, the language was Punic and the Maltese are latter-day Phoenicians. All nonsense. Please, let’s stop thinking of Punic origins.

@Kev: Maltese is derived from the Maghreb dialects. One sure indication is the way the verb is conjugated and there is little more fundamental than verbs. It is more a question of morphology and semantics than vocabulary alone. You contribution (pardon me for saying it) has so many fallacies, it would take too long to tackle here. Gahan or his equivalent is found in the folklore of all Mediterranean countries. There is no such thing as “Arabicized Punic”.

That’s all for now.

And do you know that our word for Christmas – Milied – is the word used in Islam for the feast of the birth of Mohammed? And that Randan is a corruption of Ramadan? And that il-Gimgha il-Kbira is Il-Gemgha l-Kbira (the great gathering)? Or that our word for Easter is the Islamic feast of Eid that marks the end of Ramadan?