Maltilliku (кириллгыл)

Maltilliku (Maltese Cyrillic) is a way to use the Cyrillic script to write the Maltese language. It was created by Michael Lai, a student from Hong Kong with great interest in the culture of many different parts of the world, especially those of relatively obscure European and MENA countries and regions which people barely care about in the daily life of the SAR.

Lai was intrigued by the relationship between Maltese and Arabic, as well as how Maltese is the only Semitic language officially written in the Latin script. Hence the idea of rewriting Maltese in another widely used script — Cyrillic, was born.

The letters are based upon how the same or similar sounds are represented in the official Cyrillic scripts of various languages instead of their appearance in Maltese orthography, making the language less alien-looking and easier to read for those who already knew the Cyrillic script. It also makes the alphabet more phonetic by replacing the digraphs and with single letters.

Notable features

Type of writing system: alphabet
Direction of writing: left to right in horizontal lines
Used to write: Maltese (Malti)
Џ/џ is used for Ġ/ġ instead of Ж/ж as it represents the sound better.
The decision of using Ғ/ғ and Й/й for Għ/għ and Ie/ie are inspired from their position in dictionary sorting as well as their functions in the alphabet.
Unlike other Latin-based languages that use the letter, Q/q marks a glottal stop in Maltese, so the Palochka, a letter that's used in various languages to represent glottal sounds, is used.
Originally it was intended for Ү/ү to be U/u and У/у to be W/w in order to match an old proposal of the Kazakh alphabet, however they were swapped in the end as W/w appears way less often than U/u in Maltese.
As there are no official names for C/c and Y/y in the Maltese alphabet, their names here are borrowed from English.
The letters Ҹ ҹ and Ы ы are only used in unincorporated loanwords.

Maltilliku alphabet

Download an alphabet chart for Maltilliku (Excel)

Sample text

Ил-бнедмин колльа јитүйлду хйлса у угүали фид-динјита̄ у д-дриттијйт. Ьума моғнија бир-раџүни у бил-кушјенца у ғандьом иџибу рухьом ма' шулшин би срирту та' ахүа.

Transliteration

Il-bnedmin kollha jitwieldu ħielsa u ugwali fid-dinjità u d-drittijiet. Huma mogħnija bir-raġuni u bil-kuxjenza u għandhom inġibu ruħhom ma' xulxin bi spirtu ta' aħwa.

Translation

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
(Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights)

Sample text

Ид-динја тбазүир: дак ли јидьер сабих филғоду јидьер икраь филғашија.

Transliteration

Id-dinja tbażwir: dak li jidher sabiħ filgħodu jidher ikrah filgħaxija.

Translation

The world is nonsense: what looks beautiful in the morning looks ugly in the evening.

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