premise: The Maltese language is a language that is Semitic.
hypothesis: Maltese ( links = no ) is the national language of Malta and a co-official language of the country alongside English , while also serving as an official language of the European Union , the only Semitic language so distinguished . The original Semitic base ( Siculo-Arabic ) comprises around one-third of the Maltese vocabulary , especially words that denote basic ideas and the function words , but about half of the vocabulary is derived from standard Italian and Sicilian ; and English words make up between 6 % and 20 % of the vocabulary . The term Semitic most commonly refers to the Semitic languages , a name used since the 1770s to refer to the language family currently present in West Asia , North and East Africa , and Malta .