Ondina Tayar

Ondina Tayar (May 9, 1912 – November 19, 2004) was a Maltese writer and pharmacist. As a student at the University of Malta in the early 1930s, she became both one of the first female university graduates in the country and one of the first Maltese women authors. She also worked to develop a written form of the Maltese language during the Language Question controversy.

Biography Ondina Tayar was born into a Jewish family in Valletta, Malta, in 1912. She was a descendant of Jacob Israel, a rabbi who had come to Malta from Corfu in 1869. Tayar grew up in Valletta and later in St. Julian's. She had studied in the pharmacy program alongside Ċensu Tabone, who would go on to become president of Malta.

Tayar was interested in the Maltese language, and she joined the Committee for the Standardisation of Maltese Orthography. then later kept her father's tailoring business going after his death.

She died in Florence in 2004, at age 92.