# Localize Mt

> Use when translating or localizing UI strings, marketing copy, documentation, or any source text into Maltese (Malti). The only Semitic language in Latin script — NOT Arabic, NOT Italian. Enforces special letters Ċ Ġ Ħ Ż (never strip), digraphs GĦ and IE, definite article il- with sun-letter assimilation, root-and-pattern morphology with broken plurals, 2-gender agreement with post-nominal adject…

- **Type:** Skill
- **Install:** `agentstack add skill-i18n-agent-i18nstack-localize-mt`
- **Verified:** Yes — security-reviewed for prompt injection and unsafe behavior
- **Seller:** [i18n-agent](https://agentstack.voostack.com/s/i18n-agent)
- **Installs:** 0
- **Category:** [Agent Skills](https://agentstack.voostack.com/c/agent-skills)
- **Latest version:** 0.1.0
- **License:** MIT
- **Upstream author:** [i18n-agent](https://github.com/i18n-agent)
- **Source:** https://github.com/i18n-agent/i18nstack/tree/main/localize-mt
- **Website:** https://i18nagent.ai

## Install

```sh
agentstack add skill-i18n-agent-i18nstack-localize-mt
```

Requires the [AgentStack CLI](https://agentstack.voostack.com/docs/cli). Works with Claude Code, Cursor, and any MCP-compatible agent.

## About

# Localize: Maltese (mt → Malti)

Distilled from production translation prompts for Maltese. Follow these rules verbatim — they are model-agnostic and produce native-quality Maltese output for Malta (mt-MT).

## Mindset

> Int kittieb Malti nattiv eżiġenti ħafna li tobgħod espressjonijiet mhux naturali bil-Malti, bħat-traduzzjonijiet litterali mill-Ingliż jew frażi goffi. Issa trid tirrevedi dan it-test sakemm jilħaq livell ta' fluwenza u naturalezza li jissodisfak għal kollox, filwaqt li tippreżerva t-tifsira oriġinali.

Reject literal English calques and forced neologisms. Restructure fully into natural Maltese. Maltese tolerates English noun loanwords (file → fajl, settings, dashboard, link) and Italian-origin verbs (issejvja, ikkanċella, ikklikkja). Forced obscure pure-Maltese neologisms when the bilingual-tech term is universally understood are NOT desirable — Maltese is genuinely diglossic.

## Scope & Variants

This skill targets **Standard Maltese (Malti Standard, mt-MT)** as defined by the Kunsill Nazzjonali tal-Ilsien Malti (National Council for the Maltese Language) and used in:

- Government, parliament, courts (Maltese is co-official with English under Article 5 of the Constitution).
- Education and media (TVM, l-Orizzont, Times of Malta Maltese edition).
- L-Akkademja tal-Malti orthography (the official 1924 reformed system, with subsequent updates).
- Software UI, formal correspondence, and product copy.

There is **no significant regional variant inside Malta** for written purposes. Spoken dialects exist (Gozitan / Għawdxi has distinctive features; Cottonera/Three Cities Maltese, Żejtuni, etc.) but written Standard Maltese is unified. There are also Maltese diaspora communities in Australia, Canada, UK, and Tunisia — they use the same written standard.

**NOT in scope:**
- Vernacular spoken forms with heavy code-switching ("Maltenglish" / "Manglish") — fine in conversation, NOT in product UI.
- Archaic/literary forms (e.g., Dun Karm's poetic register).
- Italian or Sicilian (despite massive lexical overlap — Maltese is a separate language).
- Tunisian Arabic or any Arabic variety (despite shared Semitic root — Maltese is genuinely distinct and uses Latin script).

## Identity Guardrail (CRITICAL — read every translation start)

**Maltese is the ONLY Semitic language in the European Union AND the only Semitic language written in Latin script anywhere in the world.** It is a unique linguistic identity:

- **Family**: Afro-Asiatic > Semitic > Central Semitic > Arabic > Maghrebi > Siculo-Arabic (medieval Sicilian Arabic, c. 870–1249 CE) → Maltese. Then ~800 years of separation from the Arabic world plus heavy Italian/Sicilian/English contact.
- **Script**: Latin alphabet with diacritics (Ċ Ġ Ħ Ż), not Arabic abjad. Maltese speakers DO NOT read Arabic script and an Arabic-script presentation is alien and unwelcome.
- **Mutual intelligibility with Arabic**: ASYMMETRIC and limited. A Maltese speaker may catch some Tunisian/Libyan colloquial words; an Arabic speaker generally cannot read or understand spoken Maltese without learning it. The shared core vocabulary (~30% of high-frequency words) is heavily phonologically eroded and the rest is Romance/English.
- **Mutual intelligibility with Italian**: ZERO at the grammar level. Maltese verbs conjugate Semitically (root-and-pattern). Italian shares vocabulary (~52% Romance lexicon in Maltese) but the morphology is alien to an Italian speaker. Maltese is NOT a dialect of Italian.
- **EU status**: Official EU language since 2004. All EU documents are translated into Maltese. Malta is a full EU member, Eurozone member (since 2008), Schengen member.
- **Religion**: Overwhelmingly Roman Catholic (~95%). Cultural and idiomatic references are Catholic (festas, il-Madonna, San Pawl, il-Quddiesa). Islamic terminology is foreign in Maltese cultural context despite the Arabic linguistic root — DO NOT assume Islamic framing.
- **Population**: ~500,000 speakers in Malta + Maltese diaspora.

**Do NOT:**
- Render Maltese in Arabic script.
- Treat Maltese as "a kind of Arabic" — it is its own language with its own literary tradition since the 18th century.
- Treat Maltese as "Italian-ish" — the grammar core is Semitic.
- Strip the diacritics (Ċ → C, Ġ → G, Ħ → H, Ż → Z) — these are DIFFERENT letters, not "fancy versions" of plain ones.
- Confuse Maltese with Maltese English (the variety of English spoken in Malta — that's different content).
- Use Arabic religious terminology (Allah, salaam, inshallah) — culturally inappropriate. Maltese says Alla (also meaning God, but in Catholic context), bonġu (good morning, from Italian), jekk Alla jrid (God willing, Catholic register).

## Maltese Alphabet (30 letters)

The Maltese alphabet has **30 letters** in this official order:

```
A B Ċ D E F Ġ G GĦ H Ħ I IE J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Ż Z
```

Note: **GĦ** (digraph) and **IE** (digraph) are listed as single letters. **H** (plain h) and **Ħ** (h-bar) are separate letters. **G** (plain g) and **Ġ** (g-overdot) are separate letters. **Z** (plain z) and **Ż** (z-overdot) are separate letters.

### Special letters — exact Unicode and sound

| Letter | Unicode (uppercase / lowercase) | IPA | Origin | Example word | Translation |
|--------|---------------------------------|-----|--------|--------------|-------------|
| **Ċ ċ** | U+010A / U+010B | /tʃ/ | overdot — from Italian "c" + Semitic | ċans, ċavetta, biċċa, ġiċċ | chance, key, piece, edge |
| **Ġ ġ** | U+0120 / U+0121 | /dʒ/ | overdot | ġurnata, ġenna, ġid, oġġett | day, paradise, wealth, object |
| **GĦ għ** | digraph (G + Ħ) | silent / vowel lengthener | from Arabic ʿayn ع | għajn, għada, għajnuna, tagħlim | eye/spring, tomorrow, help, teaching |
| **Ħ ħ** | U+0126 / U+0127 | /ħ/ pharyngeal | from Arabic ḥ ح | ħaġa, ħobż, ħafna, ħelu | thing, bread, much, sweet |
| **IE ie** | digraph (I + E) | /iː/ or /ɪə/ | native | ktieb, kbir (no), tieni, fieres | book, big (no — kbir uses i, not ie), second, ill |
| **Ż ż** | U+017B / U+017C | /z/ | overdot | żmien, żball, żewġ, ħaża | time, error, two, harvest |
| **Q q** | standard | /ʔ/ glottal stop | from Arabic ق | qattus, qalb, qiegħda, sieq | cat, heart, sitting, foot/leg |
| **X x** | standard | /ʃ/ "sh" | from Arabic ش | xemx, xita, xahar, xebh | sun, rain, month, resemblance |
| **J j** | standard | /j/ "y" sound | native | jum, jien, jaf | day, I, knows |

### Critical: NEVER strip diacritics or substitute plain letters

These are NOT "decoration" — they distinguish meaning:

| With diacritic | Without (WRONG) | Meaning shift |
|----------------|-----------------|---------------|
| **żmien** (time) | zmien | Ż and Z are different letters; "zmien" is non-existent / typo |
| **ħobż** (bread) | hobz | Ħ ≠ H; the word becomes nonsensical |
| **ġurnata** (day) | gurnata | Ġ ≠ G; "gurnata" reads as if pronounced with hard g |
| **ċans** (chance) | cans | Ċ ≠ C; in Maltese plain C is not used at all (replaced by Ċ or K) |
| **għajn** (eye/spring) | ghajn | GĦ is one letter — losing the bar over ħ makes it unreadable |
| **żball** (error) | zball | Ż ≠ Z; "zball" doesn't exist |
| **ħafna** (many) | hafna | Ħ ≠ H |
| **ġid** (wealth) | gid | Ġ ≠ G |

**Severity 3.0 — stripping diacritics is a critical error.** Maltese plaintext without diacritics is the equivalent of writing French "etre presse" instead of "être pressé" — it identifies the writer as a foreigner who doesn't respect the language.

**Note on plain C:** Maltese alphabet has **no plain C**. The phoneme /k/ is written **K** (kelb = dog, ktieb = book) and /tʃ/ is written **Ċ**. So a word like "computer" borrowed from English becomes **kompjuter** (with K) in Maltese orthography. If you see plain "C" in supposedly-Maltese text, it is either a foreign brand name kept as-is, or an error.

## Register

Maltese has a **much less rigid formality system** than Italian, French, or German. There is no clear T-V (tu/Lei) distinction in modern usage.

### The three address forms

| Form | Use | Verb form | UI default? |
|------|-----|-----------|-------------|
| **int** (you, singular) | Standard for all UI, customer service, professional writing, friendly business | 2nd person singular | **YES — default for product UI** |
| **intom** (you, plural) | Genuinely addressing multiple people | 2nd person plural | Only when truly plural |
| **Sinjur / Sinjura + 3rd person** | Hyper-formal, rare, mostly legal/parliamentary | 3rd person singular | NO — sounds stuffy in UI |

**Bottom line**: Use **int** consistently for software UI. There is no "casual vs polite" choice to make at the pronoun level — Maltese product UI is uniformly direct without sounding rude.

### What changes register in Maltese (NOT pronouns)

Since pronouns don't shift, register is signalled by:

- **Vocabulary register**: prefer Romance loanwords (ikkanċella, irriserva, ikkonferma) for formal tone; prefer Semitic-core words (ħassar, agħlaq, iftaħ) for direct/neutral tone. Mixing is fine and natural.
- **Sentence length and complexity**: short imperatives = direct; longer subordinated clauses = formal.
- **English code-switching**: more English mixed in = casual; pure Maltese = formal. UI typically uses moderate code-switching (the term "fajl", "settings", "login" are acceptable).
- **Greetings**: "Bonġu" (good morning, Italian-origin) is universal polite; "Hi" / "Ħaj" is informal.

### Consistency rules

- Pick a register at the start of a file and hold it for the entire file.
- DON'T mix "int" and "intom" unless the text genuinely shifts between addressing one user and multiple.
- DON'T mix heavy English code-switching with otherwise formal Maltese — looks like a mistake.
- Buttons: imperative 2nd person singular form (Iffranka, Aħsar, Iftaħ, Agħżel) regardless of overall register.

## Critical Hard Rules

### 1. Definite article il- and sun-letter assimilation (CRITICAL, severity 2.5)

The definite article **il-** assimilates to **9 sun consonants** (ittri tax-xemx). This is **parallel to Arabic ال (al-)** sun-letter assimilation, inherited directly from Siculo-Arabic.

**Sun letters (xemxin):** Ċ, D, N, R, S, T, X, Ż, Z
**Moon letters (qamrin):** B, F, Ġ, G, GĦ, H, Ħ, J, K, L, M, P, Q, V, W
**Before vowels:** the i drops → l-

| Letter | Article form | Example | Translation |
|--------|--------------|---------|-------------|
| Ċ (sun) | **iċ-** | iċ-ċans, iċ-ċavetta | the chance, the key |
| D (sun) | **id-** | id-dar, id-dawl | the house, the light |
| N (sun) | **in-** | in-nar, in-nanna | the fire, the grandmother |
| R (sun) | **ir-** | ir-raġel, ir-rota | the man, the wheel |
| S (sun) | **is-** | is-sema, is-sodda | the sky, the bed |
| T (sun) | **it-** | it-tifel, it-tieqa | the boy, the window |
| X (sun) | **ix-** | ix-xemx, ix-xita | the sun, the rain |
| Ż (sun) | **iż-** | iż-żmien, iż-żewġ | the time, the two |
| Z (sun) | **iz-** | iz-zalza, iz-zokk | the sauce, the trunk |
| B (moon) | **il-** | il-bieb, il-baħar | the door, the sea |
| F (moon) | **il-** | il-fajl, il-fenek | the file, the rabbit |
| Ġ (moon) | **il-** | il-ġurnata, il-ġnien | the day, the garden |
| G (moon) | **il-** | il-gallarija, il-gass | the gallery, the gas |
| GĦ (moon) | **l-** (before għ) | l-għajn, l-għada | the spring/eye, tomorrow (note: għ acts vowel-like) |
| H (moon) | **il-** | il-hena, il-hobby | the joy, the hobby |
| Ħ (moon) | **il-** | il-ħobż, il-ħaġa | the bread, the thing |
| J (moon) | **il-** | il-jum, il-jott | the day, the yacht |
| K (moon) | **il-** | il-ktieb, il-kelb | the book, the dog |
| L (moon) | **il-** | il-lejl, il-lampa | the night, the lamp |
| M (moon) | **il-** | il-mara, il-mejda | the woman, the table |
| P (moon) | **il-** | il-passaport, il-poeżija | the passport, the poem |
| Q (moon) | **il-** | il-qattus, il-qalb | the cat, the heart |
| V (moon) | **il-** | il-vapur, il-vjaġġ | the ship, the journey |
| W (moon) | **il-** | il-wiċċ, il-warda | the face, the rose |
| Vowel start | **l-** | l-istudent, l-omm, l-iskola | the student, the mother, the school |

**Wrong → Correct examples:**

| Wrong | Correct | Why |
|-------|---------|-----|
| il-tifel | **it-tifel** | T is a sun letter |
| il-sodda | **is-sodda** | S is sun |
| il-raġel | **ir-raġel** | R is sun |
| il-żmien | **iż-żmien** | Ż is sun |
| il-ċans | **iċ-ċans** | Ċ is sun |
| il-xemx | **ix-xemx** | X is sun |
| in-ktieb | **il-ktieb** | K is moon — don't over-assimilate |
| ir-ġurnata | **il-ġurnata** | Ġ is moon — don't over-assimilate |
| il-iskola | **l-iskola** | Vowel start → drop i |
| il-omm | **l-omm** | Vowel start → drop i |
| iż-zalza | **iz-zalza** | Z and Ż are different letters; iz- for Z, iż- for Ż |

**Why severity 2.5**: native speakers will catch this immediately. It is the most visible "is this writer actually Maltese?" test.

### 2. Maltese days of the week — definite article in action

All day names start with the definite article + sun-letter assimilation (or moon). This is a great mini-quiz on whether you understand the system:

| Day | Maltese | Article + assimilation analysis |
|-----|---------|----------------------------------|
| Monday | **It-Tnejn** | il- + tnejn → it- (T is sun) |
| Tuesday | **It-Tlieta** | il- + tlieta → it- (T is sun) |
| Wednesday | **L-Erbgħa** | il- + erbgħa → l- (vowel start) |
| Thursday | **Il-Ħamis** | il- + ħamis → il- (Ħ is moon) |
| Friday | **Il-Ġimgħa** | il- + ġimgħa → il- (Ġ is moon) |
| Saturday | **Is-Sibt** | il- + sibt → is- (S is sun) |
| Sunday | **Il-Ħadd** | il- + ħadd → il- (Ħ is moon) |

Day names are **always capitalised**.

### 3. Maltese months (always capitalised)

| Month | Maltese | Notes |
|-------|---------|-------|
| January | **Jannar** | from Italian gennaio |
| February | **Frar** | native compressed form |
| March | **Marzu** | from Italian marzo |
| April | **April** (or Awwissu? — see below) | Italian aprile |
| May | **Mejju** | from Italian maggio |
| June | **Ġunju** | from Italian giugno — note Ġ |
| July | **Lulju** | from Italian luglio |
| August | **Awwissu** | from Italian agosto |
| September | **Settembru** | Italian settembre |
| October | **Ottubru** | Italian ottobre |
| November | **Novembru** | Italian novembre |
| December | **Diċembru** | Italian dicembre — note Ċ |

**Date construction with "ta'"** (= "of"):
- `15 ta' Jannar 2024` (long form, the most natural in prose)
- `15/01/2024` (numeric, in UI date pickers)

NOT `15 Jannar 2024` without `ta'` (sounds wrong) and NOT `Jannar 15, 2024` (American order, foreign).

### 4. Semitic root-and-pattern morphology (severity 1.5)

Native Maltese verbs use a **trilateral root** (three consonants) and conjugate by inserting vowels in patterns. Italian-origin verbs use a different system. Both coexist.

**Example root: k-t-b (writing)**

| Form | Maltese | Translation |
|------|---------|-------------|
| Perfect (he wrote) | **kiteb** (dictionary form) | wrote |
| Verbal noun (writing) | **kitba** | the act of writing |
| Agent noun (writer) | **kittieb** | a writer |
| Passive participle (written) | **miktub** | written |
| Imperfect 2nd person fem sg (you-fem write) | **tikteb** | you (fem) write |
| Plural noun (writings) | **kitbiet** | writings |

All from the same k-t-b skeleton, with different vowel patterns and prefixes/suffixes.

**Example root: f-t-ħ (opening)**

| Form | Maltese | Translation |
|------|---------|-------------|
| Perfect (he opened) | **fetaħ** | opened |
| Imperative (open!) | **iftaħ** | open! — standard UI button |
| Passive participle (open/opened) | **miftuħ** | open (adj) |
| Imperfect (he opens) | **jiftaħ** | he opens |

**Example: Italian-borrowed verb "iffranka" (to save money/file)**

- Perfect: iffranka (he saved)
- Imperative: iffranka (save!)
- Imperfect: jiffranka (he saves)
- This verb does NOT have a trilateral root — it conjugates Italian-style with the **i-** prefix and gemination of the first consonant of the borrowed stem.

**Implication for translato

…

## Source & license

This open-source skill is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

- **Author:** [i18n-agent](https://github.com/i18n-agent)
- **Source:** [i18n-agent/i18nstack](https://github.com/i18n-agent/i18nstack)
- **License:** MIT
- **Homepage:** https://i18nagent.ai

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.

## Pricing

- **Free** — Free

## Security capabilities

Automated source analysis of v0.1.0 — what this tool can access:

- **Network access:** no
- **Filesystem access:** yes
- **Shell / process execution:** no
- **Environment & secrets:** no
- **Dynamic code execution:** no

*"Yes" means the capability is present in the source — more access means more to trust, not that it is unsafe.*


## Versions

- **0.1.0** — security scan: passed — Imported from the upstream source.

## Links

- Listing page: https://agentstack.voostack.com/l/skill-i18n-agent-i18nstack-localize-mt
- Seller: https://agentstack.voostack.com/s/i18n-agent
- Browse the marketplace: https://agentstack.voostack.com/browse

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