The 8th Conference of the Għaqda Internazzjonali tal-Lingwistika Maltija (GĦILM) took place between the 18th and 21st of September at the University of Bremen, Germany. Over 30 researchers attended this conference entitled “The Next Century of Maltese Linguistics”. The GĦILM conference is held every 2 years and is attended by both Maltese and foreign researchers working on Maltese linguistics. Academic staff members and researchers from the University of Malta, mainly from the Department of Maltese and the Institute of Linguistics and Language Technology, contributed to this conference.

The conference consisted of 27 talks, including 2 plenary talks by Prof. Andrei Avram (University of Bucharest) and Prof. Dominique Caubet (INALCO, Paris). Presentations covered a range of topics including theoretical linguistics, sociolinguistics, stylistics and computational linguistics. An edited volume of linguistic papers will be published in line with previous publications compiled following GĦILM conferences.

GĦILM was founded during the first conference held in Bremen in 2007, and has since been chaired by Prof. Thomas Stolz (University of Bremen, Germany). GĦILM has attracted scholars hailing from diverse countries, including France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Malta, New Zealand, Poland, Slovakia, Spain and the United States. Previous conferences were held in Bremen, Malta, Lyon, Turin, Bratislava and Kraków. The 9th conference is planned for 2025. The two branches of the Malta Centre in Bremen and Malta were responsible for the organisation and coordination of this event and provided financial support to set up and run the conference. The organising committee consisted of Prof. Thomas Stolz and Maike Vorholt (University of Bremen) and Prof. Ray Fabri, Dr Michael Spagnol, Raffaello Bezzina and Michela Vella (University of Malta). The conference was a great success and both branches of the Malta Centre look forward to organising future events promoting Maltese linguistics on an international level.