Source:

03-11-2009 08:46

The Maltese people are a Southern European nation and ethnic group native to Malta, an island nation consisting of an archipelago of seven islands in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea.

The Maltese people are a Southern European nation and ethnic group native to Malta.

The Maltese are a welcoming nation, and with their prior occupations have a grasp for accepting and adapting to different languages and cultures.

They are greatly interested in global news and are often knowledgeable about their Islands as well as global politics and beliefs. This makes it an ideal location for people from a variety of nations, as the Maltese can cater for almost anyone’s tastes and beliefs.

Culture of Malta

The culture of Malta is a reflection of various cultures that have come into contact with the Maltese Islands throughout the centuries, including neighbouring Mediterranean cultures, and the cultures of the nations that ruled Malta for long periods of time prior to its independence in 1964.

The earliest inhabitants of the Maltese Islands are believed to have crossed over from nearby Sicily sometime before 5000 BCE. The culture of modern Malta has been described as a "rich pattern of traditions, beliefs and practices," which is the result of "a long process of adaptation, assimilation and cross fertilization of beliefs and usages drawn from various conflicting sources." It has been subjected to the same complex, historic processes that gave rise to the linguistic and ethnic admixture that defines who the people of Malta and Gozo are today.

Maltese culture has both Semitic and Latin European origins; however, the Latin European element is more readily apparent in modern Malta for two key reasons: the fact that Latin European cultures have had more recent, and virtually continuous impact on Malta over the past eight centuries through political control; and the fact that Malta shares the religious beliefs, traditions and ceremonies of its Sicilian neighbor.