Editing Maltese language (section)

==Dialects==
{{Main|Żejtun dialect|Qormi dialect|Cottonera dialect|Maltralian}}Urban varieties of Maltese are closer to Standard Maltese than rural varieties,<ref name="isser">Isserlin. Studies in Islamic History and Civilization. BRILL 1986, {{ISBN|965-264-014-X}}</ref> which have some characteristics that distinguish them from Standard Maltese.
They tend to show some archaic features<ref name="isser" /> such as the realisation of {{angle bracket|kh}} and {{angle bracket|gh}} and the [[imāla]] of Arabic ā into ē (or ī especially in Gozo), considered archaic because they are reminiscent of 15th-century transcriptions of this sound.<ref name="isser" /> Another archaic feature is the realisation of Standard Maltese ā as ō in rural dialects.<ref name="isser" />
There is also a tendency to diphthongise simple vowels, e.g., ū becomes eo or eu.<ref name="isser" />
Rural dialects also tend to employ more Semitic roots and [[broken plurals]] than Standard Maltese.<ref name="isser" /> In general, rural Maltese is less distant from its Siculo-Arabic ancestor than is Standard Maltese.<ref name="isser" />