The lost language of Sicily still thrives today through the island of Malta

Cultures · Published 3 October 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: Siculo-Arabic was once the vibrant, administrative tongue of medieval Sicily, bridging Muslim and Christian worlds under Norman rule. While the language vanished from Sicily by the 14th century, it survived through a unique evolution in Malta. Today, it remains the only living descendant of a lost Mediterranean linguistic bridge.

Siculo-Arabic emerged following the 9th-century Abbasid conquest of Sicily. Far from being a monolithic language of a single faith, it served as a lingua franca across a complex frontier. While the majority of its speakers were Sicilian Muslims, historical evidence—such as the foundation charter of the Church of Santa Maria dell'Ammiraglio—suggests that it was also the primary language for many Orthodox Christians in cities like Palermo.

The Norman conquest in the 11th century did not immediately displace the language. Instead, the Normans adopted existing Arab governing customs, and the royal chancery operated in a trilingual environment of Arabic, Greek, and Latin. This period fostered significant cultural output, most notably the Tabula Rogeriana, a world map and geographical description commissioned by King Roger II and completed by the geographer Muhammad al-Idrisi in 1154. Even after the Norman era, Arabic remained a vital tool for fiscal administration until the Hohenstaufen rulers dropped it in 1198.

The decline of Siculo-Arabic was accelerated by political shifts. The Hohenstaufen expelled the remaining Muslim population to Lucera and North Africa in the 13th century, leaving only Christian speakers. By 1282, the Aragonese introduced Catalan nobility and established Latin as the sole official language, effectively ending the use of Arabic in official records by the 14th century. While the language went extinct in Sicily by the early 19th century, it had already taken root in Malta. Through a gradual process of Latinisation, the Siculo-Arabic spoken there evolved into modern Maltese, the only surviving branch of this once-widespread linguistic family.

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