Stole this from wikipedia
The current Maltese people, characterised by the use of the
Maltese language and by
Roman Catholicism, are the descendants – through much mixing and hybridisation – of colonists from Sicily and Calabria who repopulated the
Maltese islands in the beginning of the second millennium after a two-century lapse of depopulation that followed the Arab
conquest by the
Aghlabids in AD 870.
[7][8] A genetic study by Capelli et al. indicates that Malta was barely inhabited at the turn of the tenth century and was likely to have been repopulated by settlers from Sicily and Calabria who spoke
Siculo-Arabic.
[9][8] Previous inhabitants of the islands – Phoenicians, Romans, Byzantines – did not leave many traces, as most nameplaces were lost and replaced. The
Normans conquered the island in 1091 and completely re-Christianised them by 1249.
[10] This re-Christianisation created the conditions for the evolution of the
Maltese language from the now extinct
Siculo-Arabic dialect.
[11]
The influences on the population after this have been fiercely debated among historians and geneticists. The origins question is complicated by numerous factors, including Malta's turbulent history of invasions and conquests, with long periods of depopulation followed by periods of immigration to Malta and intermarriage with the Maltese by foreigners from the
Mediterranean,
Western and
Southern European countries that ruled Malta