Podcasts · The Story of Malta: The Fortress Island of the Mediterranean — Fexingo History

The Maltese Language Forged in the Shadows of the Inquisition

14 Jul 2026 · 5:34 · S4 E155

In 1649, the Holy Inquisition on Malta arrested a priest named Gian Francesco Bonamico for writing in Maltese. His crime: translating the catechism into the common tongue, a move that threatened the Latin monopoly of the Church. But Bonamico was no lone rebel. He was part of a clandestine network of Maltese scholars who, for decades, had been secretly compiling dictionaries, grammar books, and religious texts in their native language. This episode uncovers the forgotten story of how the Maltese language survived and evolved under the watchful eye of the Inquisition. We explore the role of the Università, the local civic council, in protecting Maltese as a spoken language, and the tension between the Italian-speaking elite and the Maltese-speaking masses. We also reveal how the knights themselves sometimes used Maltese for practical communication—despite official bans. Drawing on Inquisition records and rare manuscripts, we follow the thread from Bonamico's arrest to the first printed Maltese book in 1752, and the eventual recognition of Maltese as a liturgical language in 1964. This is a story of linguistic resistance, cultural identity, and the quiet persistence of a people determined to keep their voice alive.

#MalteseLanguage #Inquisition #GianFrancescoBonamico #LingwaMaltija #1649 #Università #Malti #Catechism #KnightsOfStJohn #Valletta #Mdina #CounterReformation #Linguistics #Censorship #CulturalResistance #Malta #History #FexingoHistory

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