“Alsatian” bil-Malti Alsazjan.

[Daphne – Bla sens.]

[Daphne – On the contrary, Italian come up with the right sort of words because these things are devised by literate, educated people, who know that cinders are cenere. It’s a safe bet that the people who came up with Sindirella don’t know that her name effectively means the ‘cinder-maid’ or ‘hearth-cleaner’. Equally, I imagine that those who are telling children at school that a ballpoint is a biro, and that it should be spelled bajro don’t know that it’s the name of the person who invented it. And if we want to use the English name for Cinderella, then we should use the correct spelling.]

The thing is that while most English people in the 19th century couldn’t speak any foreign language and needed the translations, most modern Maltese can at least understand some English so changing the names into Maltese might seem pointless.

[Daphne – That’s true, but there’s the other point to consider, which is that the English translations are grammatically correct, as in Puss-in-Boots (a person wearing boots is ‘in boots’, but in Maltese a person wearing boots is not in them but ‘with’ them, bl-istivali, not fl-istivali) and cinders, from which the fairy-tale girl’s name is derived, is the actual English word for what she spent her days cleaning up. Does anyone know what Snow-White has become in Maltese? The obvious would be Bajda Silg, but it doesn’t quite have that ring about it, like Bianca Neve, and I have a horrible feeling that it’s Zno (with a dot for the anally retentive) Wajt.]

Now don’t go confusing the people who insist on calling tennis shoes “slippeR” (in the singular). Which reminds me: maybe reporters should stop calling them bedroom slippers, because there is no other kind, unless they mean to distinguish them from defunct carpet slippers. Now, for nostalgia’s sake – and for Gerald’s too – here’s an example of what I mean: http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20080207/general-election-2008/labour-promises-to-cut-red-tape-for-small-businesses

“Dr Sant was given a warm welcome on his arrival by ardent fans who had cottoned on to the news of his arrival. Some showed up wearing red tops, and a couple even ventured out in their matching red bedroom slippers.“

[Daphne – And Cinderella is Sindirella, because the person doing the translating probably doesn’t know what cinders are.]

[Daphne – Oh dear god, a literal translation of Puss-in-Boots. ‘Il-qattus fl-istivali’ means that this must be a very small cat – and what’s more, a cat in two parts – or a very large pair of boots because the animal is inside them. And then we wonder why children are leaving school sub-literate. Imagine being in a classroom, noticing what’s wrong with that translation, and pointing it out to your teacher only to be reprimanded. I well remember how my respect for the authority of my Maltese-language textbook diminished when it occurred to me that the ‘l’ had taken the ‘n’s place in Id-Denfil, and that it probably had something to do with the same affliction that caused people who filled up my father’s car to ask him how much petlor he needed. And there it was, enshrined on a textbook cover.]

Il-kelb li bl-Ingliż jissejjaħ Dalmatian bil-Malti jissejjaħ Dalmata (ara d-Dizzjunarju ta’Aquilina)

HP,
Il-frażi tinkiteb 101 Dalmata u tinqara mitt Dalmata u wieħed, l-istess bħalma 63 ktieb tinqara tlieta u sittin ktieb.

[Daphne – Mela Aquilina ma tantx kien jifhem fil-klieb, ghax kien zbaljat. Dawk li jifmu fil-klieb ma jghidux Dalmata imma ‘kelb tar-razza Dalmatian’. Kif qal x’imkien iehor H. P. Baxxter, meta taqleb mill-Malti ghall-Ingliz u vice versa, trid taqleb il-hsieb ukoll. Allura skond Aquilina, kelb tar-razza Alsatian trid tghid li hu Alsata? U nispera li muhiex Elsejxin.]

P.S. I’d rather have skuneR for schooner than “dghajsa b’velocità qawwija” for speedboat.

[Daphne – They may have been ‘normal shoes’ but they were still called boots. I don’t expect there was an Arabic (what the anything-but-Arabic people like to call ‘Semitic’) term for leather footwear that protected one’s feet and calves from mud and freezing cold, for obvious reasons of climate and style of dress, but the Maltese language must have absorbed a word for boots from a language other than English, before the arrival of the British. That’s what I’d like to know. We’ve had knowledge of boots for centuries, but we’ve only been calling them ‘bwiez’ for a decade. From my childhood, I remember ‘zarbun tat-tromba’ and the Italian ‘stivali’.]

Interesting observation about boots in the military. Seeing as the officers were British, they’d probably have used the English term. Which is why there’s no Maltese word for “rifle” or “round” or “machine gun” or “magazine”, or for the rank of “Gunner”. Even in today’s AFM, parade orders are given in English.

I’m tempted to say “Akkademja/Kunsill eat your heart out”, but I won’t, because our language experts are precisely that – language experts who are unaware of the huge number of non-Maltese words in daily use. And it’s none of their fault.

(P.S., please, TVM and Net and Souper Wann, it’s “patrOl boat”, not “pEtrol boat”.)

[Daphne – Boots were worn in the military before the arrival of the British. Boots are standard army footwear and have been for centuries. Words acquired from the British in spoken form in the 19th century are pronounced differently to those acquired through exposure to written English – hence the word ‘skuna’ (from ‘schooner’). Nowadays it would have been ‘skuneRRRRRR’. Another example is ‘kitla’, which comes from an unsuccessful attempt to mimic the rapid syllables of ‘kettle’. Nowadays, the word is ‘ke-tiiiil’.]