Joseph Aquilina

Joseph (Ġużè) Aquilina (7 April 1911 – 8 August 1997) was a Maltese author and linguist born in Munxar.

Education
Aquilina graduated first as Bachelor of Arts and later as a lawyer from the University of Malta. Between 1937 and 1940 he read comparative Semitic philology at the University of London, where he obtained a doctorate.

In 1937 Ġużè Aquilina was appointed as the first professor of Maltese and oriental languages at the University of Malta, where he contributed in a significant manner towards the study and strengthening of the Maltese language. It was only in 1934, three years before his appointment, that the Maltese language had been declared the official language of Malta.

Career
Among the prominent posts which Aquilina held as a full-time professor at the University of Malta, was that as Dean of the Faculty of Arts.

Aquilina's numerous works include novels, philosophical essays, critical studies, drama, linguistic papers and religious books, his magnum opus being a Maltese–English Dictionary.

Partial bibliography

 * Teach Yourself Maltese. Teach Yourself Books, Hodder & Stoughton, London 1965; 6th impression 1985
 * A Comparative Dictionary of Maltese Proverbs, 1972
 * Papers in Maltese Linguistics. University of Malta
 * A Survey of Contemporary Dialectal Maltese (jointly with B.S. Isserlin), Gozo/Leeds 1981 ISBN 978-0-907860-00-6.
 * Twemmin u Ħajja ["Faith and Life"], 1984
 * Maltese–English Dictionary, I-II, Midsea Books Ltd, Malta, 1987–1990, 1,673 pages