| Imgarri Dialect | |
|---|---|
| Mġarr Dialect | |
| Imġarri | |
| Region | Mġarr |
Native speakers | (About 3,000 cited 1994) |
| Maltese alphabet | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | – |
 Mġarr in Malta | |
the Imgarri dialect or Mġarr Maltese is a dialect spoken in the Northern District of Malta[1]
Features
Phonetic variants, common to both standard Maltese and Imģarri include:
- the lengthening of the adjacent vowel under or before the stressed syllable when /*'/, /*ģ/ or /*h/ are first or second root consonant: [āziʼ] < *cazīq "digging", [dérlu] < *deherluʼ "it seemed to him"
- nothing or [h] when it acts as last root consonant: [yaʼa] < *yaqac "he falls", [zuzah] < *zuģzaģ "young"
- diphthongisation when vowels [u], /0/, /i/ or /I/ follow /V: [báwla] <bģula "mules" [jéjdu] < *icīdu "they say"
- a glide [j] between [i] and another vowel: [sijó:t] "hours"
- no phonetic trace at all for certain forms with a former /*h/ as second root consonant: [fimtem] "you understood them", [no:r] "day".
These allophones will not be discussed further here. More specific to the Imģarri idiolects studied here, although possibly not exclusive to them, are the so-called "creaky voice"6 (laryngęalisation) on the adjacent vowel, the [q], [h], [h] or [ʼ] allophones, and the resulting quality of the vowel or the diphthong.[1]
References
- 1 2 Camilleri, Antoinette; Vanhove, Martine (1994). "A Phonetic and Phonological Description of the Maltese Dialect of Mġarr (Malta)". Zeitschrift für Arabische Linguistik (28): 87–110. JSTOR 43525647.
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