Malta comprises both Romance and Semitic origins. However, the 800-year-old Romance element is more evident in modern Malta, due to the cultural and political affinities between the people of Malta and their northern Mediterranean neighbour, Sicily, which also shares its religious beliefs, ceremonies and traditions.

While today the language of Malta is influenced by the Romance languages and English, the development of a native Maltese literature has been hindered throughout the history of the country. For many centuries, the background of the Maltese language included workshop and kitchen settings, while the Italian language was one of literature, the arts, commerce and law. Until the early 20th Century, the majority of literary works in Malta used the Italian language. Pietru Caxaro’s poem Cantilena is the oldest literary text in the Maltese language, followed by a sonnet to Grand Master Nicolo Cotoner by Gian Francesco Bonamico in 1672. Francois de Vion Thezan Court wrote the earliest known Maltese dictionary in 1640. The earliest known Maltese prose is in the form of religious sermons by Dun Ignazio Saverio Mifsud. The uprising of slaves in 1749 is depicted in the poem Fuqek Nithaddet Malta. Carnival in 1760 saw the publication of burlesque verses under the title Zwieg la Maltija (Marriage, in the Maltese style) by Dun Felic Demarco. Under the rule of Napoleonic France between 1798 and 1800, a Maltese translation of the Ode to the Triumph of Liberty was published for Bastille Day.