At last, somebody brought up this thorny subject
I’ve been loath to write once more about the English pronunciation of so many people who need to use it as part of their work (the rest can speak as they please), including almost all broadcasters with rare exceptions like Norman Hamilton, who is tal-pepe. Every time I raise the subject of language and pronunciation, a thousand people jump down my throat. The last time I mentioned the disgraceful way in which children are being taught at school to pronounce words like party, teacher, blackboard, carpet with a rolling ‘r’, some Alternattiva cretin who was looking for reasons to pick on me because I don’t like his political party wrote a huge epistle saying that this is my opinion and lots of people in England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales and North America roll that ‘r’. Perhaps, but in received pronunciation that damn ‘r’ is never rolled, and what teachers in our schools should be teaching is not the dialectical pronunciation of Lancashire, Aberdeen, Dublin, Ohio or Southern Manitoba, but received pronunciation. Unfortunately, they are not capable of doing this because they roll their rs, too.
A couple of Sundays ago, Michela Spiteri brought up another thorny matter to do with pronunciation, one which I have been wholly reluctant to address lest I be hounded once more by the Snob Police, who think that insistence on doing and pronouncing things correctly is ‘snobbery’. Over to Michela:
If we insist on attacking people whose Maltese falls short of what is deemed acceptable, then let’s hear it for the other side too. Why should newscasters confuse the letter ‘a’ with the letter ‘e’? ‘Acceptable’ is pronounced ‘exceptable’; you flush a loo, you don’t flash it. The skin on your body is your ‘flesh’ not your ‘flash’. But the little light that goes off when you take a photograph is a ‘flash’ not a ‘flesh’. The pen you write with is not a ‘pan’. And the pan you fry your egg in is not a ‘pen’.
The difficulty that Maltese people have with the pronunciation of English vowels has fascinated me since I started school and discovered that there were children who swapped ‘a’ and ‘e’ when speaking but not when writing. More interestingly still, they did not use ‘a’ and ‘e’ interchangeably, sometimes describing the thing we wrote with as a ‘pan’ and at other times as a ‘pen’. No, they literally swapped those two vowels on a permanent basis. So the thing that we wrote with, as Michela points out, was a ‘pan’, but the thing in which their mothers fried their suppertime eggs was a ‘pen’. In other words, it wasn’t that they had difficulty pronouncing ‘pen’ or ‘pan’, but that they used the vowel sounds for the wrong vowel. They had a ‘ket’ as a ‘pat’, which they ‘patted’ when they got home from school. If they were ‘bed’ they were sent straight to ‘bad’ without TV. And if they were good, they ‘set’ on the sofa and watched the television ‘sat’. When we went to parties, they played with belloons and ate jally. I thought it was one of those childhood things, but as I grew up I noticed loads of grown-ups doing it too, except that in the adult world they had the choice of speaking Maltese and did so, which masked the problem – until, that is, we get to broadcasting.
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Reply to Antoine Vella Click here to cancel reply
I have always been particularly irked by the fits of sniggering provoked by insistence on pronouncing the word “bowl” properly. On the whole, I am not certain I agree with the emphasis that you place on pronunciation, however. To listen to the lamentable state of grammar and syntax, which has got noticeably worse in Malta even over my relatively short life _ one realises that the teaching of basic rules of the English language are a far more urgent priority than how you choose to say ‘a’ and ‘e’. This absolutely not a class issue; the longer the situation is left untended, the more Malta risks losing its already shaky claim to being a bilingual nation, with all the disastrous economic consequences that would entail.
Blame it on the Great Vowel Shift:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Vowel_Shift
I am a 17-year-old student and currently am in sixth form. My language of choice is Maltese.
With this in mind, I am oft-endowed with mispronunciations of both English and Maltese; oft-endowed with Maltese sentence structure from those who prefer to speak in English (and vice-versa); oft-endowed with Maltese or English expressions which are transferred incorrectly when one is speaking in the language which has no such expression; oft-endowed with spelling mistakes of many Maltese and English words — I know, I am no teacher but when at college, I find myself correcting those who commit the aforementioned.
One of the main problems, I would say, lies not only with the misuse of English and Maltese on television, but also with the misuse of English and Maltese by the teachers themselves, and worse still, by teachers teaching children; I pass by a certain primary school, and hear a teacher conducting the lesson in English (quite loudly). Her horrible English will negate and stifle, from the start, the ability of these children to speak and write English properly. Of course, students should be taught received pronunciation. One should learn the standard of any language before learning its dialects.
I learned something interesting recently during a Maltese lesson, on this very same subject of pronunciation. The teacher, first of all, was reading us examples of Maltenglish, and one of them was this:
Ara Carmen, kif int [dis’mornink]?
The letter ‘g’ in morning, along with the letter ‘th’ [ð] in this, were given a Maltese injection. The teacher told us that the reason why ‘g’ became ‘k’ when the Maltese person uttered that phrase was that in Maltese, we devoice our final consonants; the first thing that came to mind was that the words “this” and “morning” are not Maltese.
And I asked the teacher: “Why is it, that because we devoice the final consonant in Maltese, we do the same when speaking other languages and use it as an excuse, almost, for our mispronunciation?”
After discussing it for a while during the lesson I said that:
a. because the woman was speaking Maltese she could just have said ‘Ara Carmen, kif int dal’għodu?’ since we do have actually the words in Maltese for ‘this’ and ‘morning’;
b. the woman had chosen to speak Maltese but at the same time to insert a few English words, so the least she could have done was to pronounce the two English words correctly;
c. if she cannot pronounce English words such as ‘this’ and ‘morning’ correctly, she should revert to speaking in Maltese.
I see no need — and do not — mix Maltese with English, for I can with both languages hold a proper conversation without the insertion of words from the other, except when there are certain words which are not to be found in one of the languages, such as ‘mug’ in the case of someone speaking Maltese; I do not say ‘muggijiet’ as a plural to ‘mug’, but use the English ‘mugs’ as well.
In the end, all there is to it is the proper teaching of both Maltese and English at home and at school, the encouragement to speak and write both properly, and possibly the introduction of an oral exam which carries more marks than a written exam, and thus, children and students will find that elocution and pronunciation are a very important part of any language. I am studying English at A-level and we have no oral exam. What a shame.
[Daphne – I think that what is happening is that English words and phrases are being incorporated wholesale into Maltese, and so becoming ‘Maltese words’. ‘Dismornink’ is a perfect example. Others are ‘majtezwel’, ‘gast’ (with a g bit-tikka), as in ‘ha mmur sad-dar gast kemm nippikkja t-tfal’ (and there’s another one, nippikkja’), and now, thanks to an infamous television advertisement, ‘bwietz’, a jumbled double plural of ‘boots’.]
I had missed Michela Spiteri’s article, though I share the same thoughts exactly.
The major problem I see with such pronunciation (apart from the fact that the people who talk like that tend to be the ones to try to ridicule those whose first language is English) is that the people who decide on the official Maltese words/spelling tend to speak with such an awful accent. Hence, official Maltese words such as these are featuring regularly in junior school Maltese textbooks:
blekbord
wajtbord
wajer
kuker
tajer
bajro
garaxx
gerzi
xorz
kuxin (imhadda?)
gowler (Why not goal-keeper?)
Oh, and then there’s the official “IT” lingo, such as “fajl” and “emejl”, though the one that beats the lot (and it is not even an IT word) has got to be “manwal” for “manual”. The incredulous can click here:
http://www.kunsilltalmalti.gov.mt/filebank/documents/kompjuter.pdf
Whatever next? “Entivajrus” for “anti-virus”?
“EmejleDDres” (with the emphasis on the double d) for “email address”?
[Daphne – Maybe you should write them a note and explain that a goaler is a person who scores a goal, and not a person who stops others from doing so by standing in the net. I suppose they got it all confused with ‘goalie’, short for goal-keeper.]
Regarding my previous link ( http://www.kunsilltalmalti.gov.mt/filebank/documents/kompjuter.pdf ), you’ve got to go to page one to see what I mean.
This ‘a’ and ‘e’ business can be so confusing, like being asked at a party “Did you visit the jats at Luqa?”, to which I replied “No, what jazz show?” and got the answer, “No, not jezz – jats at the air-show”. “Oh, you mean jets!” And people think I am being tal-pepe.
It can be confusing to the extent that I find myself “mentally translating” as I do when I am conversing in Italian. The latest one I heard while zapping on TVM”s Song for Europe was Valerie Vella saying, “and for our foreign viewers, as the show is being streamed on the NAT…”, and for a split second one just does not comprehend what is being said.
[Daphne – Or maybe, what is being SAD…..]
I think the important thing to be addressed is people’s vocabulary and word usage not how they pronounce words.
[Daphne – Pronunciation is crucial if it changes the meaning: pen/pan; said/sad; pet/pat…]
I hate this switching of vowels – and it’s true that many people in Malta do it. At the very least, when newscasters are chosen, this sort of thing should be weeded out. It’s terrible having to hear the news in English with all “a”s sounding like “e”s and vice versa. Surely, we can do better.
Haha and when people say something like ‘wather’ instead of ‘water’ but then ‘den’ instead of ‘then’.
This rendering of foreign words into one’s language, with its own pronunciation, is not unique to Maltese. It wouldn’t be a big deal, if one would then pronounce the words correctly when speaking English.
In any case, we’d be deluding ourselves in thinking that English was ever anything but a foreign language. A national language maybe, but foreign nonetheless. Same as the other ex-British colonies.
By and large I don’t really care how people pronounce words and normally I am not one to correct anyone – it’s not really my style. Sometimes, as David pointed out, it does get embarrassing because you find that you are simply not understanding what is going on – and I hate having to say ‘oh you mean jets’ .. (it always sounds insulting no matter how you say it), but it does come tumbling out after a long five minutes feeling like a right knob. It’s either that, or compromise yourself and pronounce the word badly yourself – which isn’t really an option.
Having said that, I draw the line when it comes to people who do it for a living – newscasters, air hostesses who always sound so constipated ‘Ladies and Gantlemen … please ensure that no items follonyou (fall on you) before leaving the ah craft.’ I had the whole thing written down once …
There are many people out there who can do the job well. So let them do it. It doesn’t need to be an issue.
To our ears, English pronounced with a Maltese accent sounds, well it sounds embarrassing. But, and this is a big but, to someone, who’s first language is English, it just sounds like a foreigner speaking English. No different that a German, Italian, Frenchman etc etc speaking English.
I kind of agree newsreaders should have a better command of the language they use professionally. No, scratch the ‘kind of’, I agree 100%. If you can’t speak the language properly, then do something else. In every day life, ‘wrong’ pronunciation is annoying, but understandable, professionally it’s inexcusable.
What do you mean “rolling the r”? Does that mean pronouncing the “r” like in American pronunciation? If yes, I am all for rolling the r. There’s nothing more annoying than Maltese people speaking in a pseudo-British accent.
[Daphne – So let me get this straight: you find somebody speaking with a pseudo-American or ‘transatlantic’ accent perfectly acceptable, but a pseudo-English (as opposed to British) accent is annoying? How does that work? Take a word of advice, if you adopt American pronunciation in Europe without being American or having an American parent at least, you’re going to be taken as some kind of con-man, a fraud or a joke. In Europe, those who speak English are expected to do so using English, not American, pronunciation. Additionally, Americans speak American English not British English. It’s a different language.]
Although I like the English language and am used to it, I have to admit that, through the ages, English people have gone to great lengths to render their spelling and pronunciation as complicated as possible. You can never be sure how a word is pronounced until you actually hear somebody say it.
Fortunately Britons are extremely tolerant of what they consider ‘foreign accents’ which is why they graciously accept the many different versions of their language which have developed in America, Australia, the West Indies and other places.
I think that part of this tolerance might come from the awareness that they themselves find it hard to pronounce other languages, especially Romance ones. In fact many modern ‘English’ words are actually mispronunciations of old French or Latin ones. This is nowhere more evident than in biology where English speakers have to carry out verbal contortions to vocalise Graeco-Latin terms.
In Malta, precise English pronunciation is really crucial mainly for actors and broadcasters. In others it is a nice touch as long as their grammar is also correct.
[Daphne – Fausto posted a link to a piece about the Great Vowel Shift. It’s interesting.]
Actually it’s “e-craft”.
It does need to be an issue, because it’s the teachers’ fault, and the teachers’ teachers’ fault. And because we pass ourselves off as The TOEFL Nation.
If some Maltese could only get the right words… just got this email:
– Wahda mara qabditha l-‘Gasket flu’ – Gastric flu
– Wahda ftahret li r-ragel wahhlilha l- ‘Intercourse in every room’ – Intercom in every room
Wahda ohra marret tixtri l- ‘Ghost Cheese’ – Goats’ Cheese
– Ohra marret tixtri l-‘Yoghurt tal-Kliewi’ – Youghurt tal-Kiwi
– Ohra riedet id- ‘De fuckinated coffe’ – Decaffinated Coffee
Xi hadd staqsa ghall-gelat ‘Strawberry Nipples’ – Strawberry Ripple
– Ohra kellha ugigh ta’ ras u riedet ‘Panadol tat 250 miles per hour’ – Panadaol tat-250mg
– Meta siefret marret tara l-‘Kastell ta’ hand grenade’ (Kastell ta Henry VIII), Piccalilli Circle (Piccadilly Circus) u marret ukoll ghand ‘Self Raising’ (Selfridges)
– Ohra marret tiekol tigiega ghand tad-daqna – (KFC Kentucky Fried Chicken)
[Daphne – Any more? Send them in.]
One can’t keep tal-pepe out of the vowel thing. A lot of tal-pepe teenagers speak bad English (literal translations from Maltese) but because they don’t say pen instead of
pan etc, one knows they are tal-pepe. On the other hand, the opposite of tal-pepe people who make an effort to speak proper English will still give themselves away if they get the vowels wrong. So I think the vowels should be corrected first and no teacher, newscaster etc. should be employed if they are guilty of pen/pan.
[Daphne – You’re right there. I knew a highly intelligent (and street-savvy) boy of around 15/16 who had understood early on that the key is in the vowels, and not in the clothes or the car, or anything else like that. The reason he caught my attention in the first place is because despite having come out of residential care he spoke exactly like someone who might have come from a privileged background (it was anything but). Once you have the vowels, people don’t look at the rest of it for clues, they just ignore the clothes etc. So despite coming off the streets, living in a care-home and so on, he got the accent right and sailed on from there. This isn’t surprising at all. People don’t accept you and take to you if you look and dress like them, but if you sound like them. If a quite obviously Chinese person were to speak and converse in Maltese with Maltese mannerisms, the message our brain receives is ‘Maltese person’ despite the Chinese physical features.]
Check out this little gem that was in the press last week:
“She took the advice and kept ringing until a man answered, telling her she couldn’t speak to her husband right away. He then cut.”
Cut what, may I ask? His hair? His losses? His wrists upon reading such a sentence? No silly, he just cut, as in “imbaghad qata'”. In Maltese English, to cut also means to hang up. People use it in conversation all the time, but I have yet to see it in print.
But surely the example above was taken from a publication that isn’t to be taken too seriously… Actually it was taken from The Times… http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20090204/local/victims-widow-testifies-in-san-gwann-bank-murder-trial/
Does this make it official? Should someone call the guys at The Oxford Dictionary and inform them about this new meaning of the verb ‘to cut’? Should foreign people learning Maltese be taught that when you terminate a phone conversation you say ‘indendel il-fuq‘ to restore linguistic balance? Will The Times ‘arrange’ their English?
And by the way, guys, it’s neither pen nor pan. It’s biro.
[Daphne – There’s something very odd on timesofmalta.com today. Kurt Sansone’s report on the discovery of Punic tombs beneath Josie Muscat’s hospital project is accompanied by a video of Kurt describing the event and interviewing people….in Maltese, like a TVM news report. I can’t work out why – after all, Kurt speaks decent English, and if for some reason he objects to doing so, the report and interviews should have been carried out by some other journalist. On another matter, Josie Muscat’s hospital project being disrupted by the tombs of the Punic ancestors he denies we have seems to be a neat case of poetic justice.]
Any accent is acceptable, but only if done right. 99% of Maltese people simply sound like snobs when they speak in an English accent because it doesn’t come natural to them. It just sounds like they’re trying too hard (because they are). It’s so unnatural in fact, that you can always tell that the person is Maltese.
All I’m saying is that people should speak in whichever accent they please, as long as it is natural and comfortable to them. If that means a hallata-ballata of American, Austrialian, and Scottish accents, so be it. In my case, yes, I tend to have an American accent, probably because I have a few American friends and I mostly enjoy American entertainment, so I picked it up. I don’t see anything wrong with that. Just because we are European doesn’t mean we should sound like English people.
[Daphne ‘Any accent is acceptable, but only if done right.’ Not really, Drew. Things are not acceptable in a vacuum. They are acceptable to others. Nothing is generally acceptable, not even the internet, still less an accent – as you demonstrate amply with your prejudice towards Maltese people who, to you, sound like snobs when they speak with an English accent. On the other hand, a Maltese person who speaks with an American accent despite not being American is acceptable to you, but I have a hard time seeing past the obfuscating accent when I meet such people. It all depends on to whom you wish to be acceptable, and for what purpose. I don’t think James Bond would have been the screen success he is if he spoke with a German, Russian or Swedish accent (those accents are reserved for the crooks). It’s usually a perfect English accent, and the Scottish accent only got past because it came equipped with Sean Connery. Accents tell you things about where people are coming from and how they see themselves. They’re not acceptable or unacceptable in themselves; it is what lies beyond them that is truly acceptable or unacceptable, and that’s what the accent gives away.]
By the way, with reference to my above comment, I’m obviously talking solely about accents and not incorrect pronunciation.
Following this thread, I felt I had to share Trevor Zahra’s brilliant poem “Di Nju Moltiz”:
Di Nju Moltiz – Aqra u gawdi
L-ghalliem jghidilna dejjem
Li l-Malti hu hafif,
‘Mma jien nipprova niktbu
U lanqas biss naf kif.
Jista’jkun illi mohhi
Ikun mitluf, kultant,
Jew forsi, kif tghid ommi,
Jien hrigt ftit injorant.
Ghax l-aktar li nithawwad,
U naghmel salt caflis,
Hu meta nkun se nikteb
Xi kliem gej mil-Ingliz.
L-ghalliem qalilna niktbu
Dal-kliem, kif inhossuh,
isda…mhux in-nies kollha
L-istess preciz jghiduh!
Missieri jghidlu telefon
in-nannu: teleforn
Il-Mummy (jew Mami): telefown
L-ghalliem jghidilna blekbord
Iz-zija tghidlu blakbord
Mark Xuereb jghidlu blekbort.
Jien tghidx kemm ili nara:
Jeans u mobile miktubin,
Narahom fuq it-television (Sorry: televixin…)(Sori: sori)
Imm’issa suppost nikteb:
gins, mowbajl, tenkju, plis,
guddej, gudnajt u hendawt,
“Gej fowtow, ghidu cis!”
L-ghalliem jibqa’ jghidilna
Li l-Malti hu hafif,
‘Mma n-nannu l-bierah qalli:
“Dan Malti tat-teftif!”
Tu rajt diss moltis properli
Jess, ju mast hev samm gazz,
Plis, gimi e brejk, ticers:
Jur gona drajv mi nazz!
Some other “old favourites”:
Ghamilhu baj il-menn
Ara kemm hi najs il-gerlij, mur ilghab maghha
Ejja ha’ mmorru skuwl
Metjuw (Matthew)
Endruw (Andrew)
Defni …
My all-time favourite, however, has got to be the time my then three-year-old daughter was told “What e nice shoe you hev, ej!”, to which she innocently replied, “I have two.”
@Daphne
If I come across anymore I will surely send in, but during a typical day I’m sure most of us come across similar gems. For example, last week I was at the mechanic and I heard “xokabsover”… I guess they were referring to a “shock absorber”. Off to prepare a “sengwic” now.
[Daphne – This kind of thing leads to all sorts of misunderstanding. The other day I just couldn’t find my mobile phone. “Tlift it-telephone,” I said to the person who asked me why I was in panic mode. She looked at the fixed-line phone on my desk, then at the cordless phone near the television, then at me with an expression that said ‘Are you quite all right?’. Then I found my phone and picked it up trumphantly, and I was promptly set straight as to my Maltese vocabulary. “Eh, mela l-mobajl tlift? U jien qed nghid, kif setghet tilfet it-telephone? Dak mobajl.”]
The following words are hardly ever pronounced right in Malta.
comfort (ends like fort)
corridor (ends like door)
mentor (ends like tore)
metaphor (ends like for)
[Daphne – Actually, the last three are correct, as long as you leave the r silent, but it’s a definite oh sound, pronounced rapidly. The incorrect pronunciation would be the one that people have been conned into thinking is the correct way: corridE, mentE, and metEfE.]
Malcolm – “And by the way, guys, it’s neither pen nor pan. It’s biro.”
Make that Biro, given that it’s named after its Hungarian inventor, Laszlo Biro. The official Maltese word for ball-point pen is “bajro”, probably because the nincompoops were unaware that it’s a surname. Perhaps they would like to take a look at this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A1szl%C3%B3_B%C3%ADr%C3%B3 )
[as you demonstrate amply with your prejudice towards Maltese people who, to you, sound like snobs when they speak with an English accent. On the other hand, a Maltese person who speaks with an American accent despite not being American is acceptable to you, but I have a hard time seeing past the obfuscating accent when I meet such people]
I never said one accent is acceptable while another isn’t. What I meant is that as long as a person is not trying too hard, any accent is okay. The reason why Maltese people speaking in an English accent tend to come across as snobs to me is because they sound like they are forcing it. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but it just doesn’t sound right. In fact you can always tell that it’s not an actual English person speaking.
[Daphne – By saying that Maltese people who speak with an English accent are snobs to you, what you are saying is that you find their accent, and by default them, unacceptable. Also, I am curious to know how you reach the conclusion that your assumed American accent doesn’t sound try-hard to others. On the other hand, Maltese people who speak with the accent you dislike are rarely trying at all. You will generally find that it is their natural accent, rather than an assumed one, though they are quite capable of assuming a Maltese English accent when it suits them, as I am. I do it all the time: I use one accent to speak to Maltese people who might otherwise mistake me as somebody putting on airs, and another accent to speak to non-Maltese people and to Maltese people who speak as I do. The one thing I will not do is speak Maltese with anything other than a tal-pepe accent. I refuse to be bullied into using the accent and pronunciation of the working-class, of rural people, or of God knows what else merely because it is the dominant accent and hence, officialdom has decided that it is the official one.]
@J.Bonnici
The last three are correct in American pronunciation.
[Daphne – It would be American pronunciation only with a strong final r. With a silent r and a round o, it’s correct English pronunciation.]
Maltese natives are so wise!
[Also, I am curious to know how you reach the conclusion that your assumed American accent doesn’t sound try-hard to others]
Well, when I’m using the accent people (including Americans) tend to think I’m American. And I wouldn’t say my accent is “assumed” unless by that you mean “supposed”.
[On the other hand, Maltese people who speak with the accent you dislike are rarely trying at all. You will generally find that it is their natural accent, rather than an assumed one]
I guess it is natural in the sense that people grow up speaking with the accent. But I don’t know… it still doesn’t sound right. I’ve been trying to figure out why for years, but I can’t put my finger on it. Maybe it has something to do with people mispronouncing a few words here and there that makes them sound idiotic and gives them away.
[I refuse to be bullied into using the accent and pronunciation of the working-class, of rural people, or of God knows what else merely because it is the dominant accent and hence, officialdom has decided that it is the official one.]
This is what I’ve been saying. I refuse to be bullied into using “Received Pronunciation”.
[Daphne – It would be American pronunciation only with a strong final r. With a silent r and a round o, it’s correct English pronunciation.]
Yes. I forgot that ‘door’, ‘tore’, and ‘for’ are pronounced ‘dooh’, ‘tooh’ and ‘fooh’ in that obnoxious accent of yours.
[Daphne – No, they’re not. They’re pronounced doh, toh and foh. An assumed accent is one which you have assumed, as opposed to the one you were brought up using. I’m not surprised people, including Americans, think you’re American. North America contains all sorts, including millions of people who can barely speak English (because they’re first generation immigrants), but who do so with an American accent. An ‘American accent’ is a wide grouping indeed, and one in which you can get away with murder as long as you roll a few rs and remember a couple of sit-com pronunciations. Not so an English accent. I remember the hilarity with which the character Daphne’s accent, in the sit-com Frasier, was greeted in the British press. She was supposedly an Englishwoman washed up in – what was it? Seattle? – and spoke in an invented broad accent which was not her own, though the actress was English. Though it would have sounded English to you and to American audiences, British audiences recognised it as fraudulent.]
To be fair though, the use of the word biro came from the British and you still find pockets of people in England who still use the word – even on TV. However the name comes from the brand and not the guy who invented them as such. That is to say that if he had decided to call his company after his dog, we would all be writing with fidos.
Another popular brand name that has entered the Maltese vocabulary thanks to the British is hoover. Throughout the UK, hoover as opposed to vacuum cleaner is still widely used – even as a verb.
One of the latest such brand names to be officially embraced by the English language is the verb to google – meaning to search for something online. Needless to say, ‘tiggugilja’ has already worked its way into the Maltese language. Personally, I find nothing wrong with that – especially seeing as it’s so much fun to say.
The secret is to use your imperfect accent to your advantage. Like the time I was mistaken for a Rhodesian by an Irish lass. Of course I went along with it and milked my presumed identity for all it was worth. Much more interesting than boring old Malta. Yes, it was Rhodesian, not South African. And she was getting married the next day, so I was on my best behaviour.
Maltese natives are indeed very, very wise, and cunning too.
The Maltese language does not have the phoneme (ae) so people try to use the one which sounds the closest to it. Therefore ‘pan’ = ‘pen’, ‘cat’ = ‘cet’, ‘flash’ = ‘flesh’ etc… Same thing applies to the ‘th’ sound – ‘de’ instead of ‘the’.
It’s normal for mono-lingual people (which in reality is what many Maltese people are) to do this with a second language as it’s difficult to recognise and learn new sounds after a certain age. The sad thing is that the Maltese who do manage to use the ‘th’ or ‘ae’ sounds are looked upon as snobs.
Although the idea of ‘correct English pronunciation’ is passé (RP is spoken by less than 2% of the English population hence BBC’s use of presenters with regional accents) Drew’s statement that any ‘accent is ok’ is utter bollocks – there’s nothing wrong with trying to teach our children the correct pronunciation of Standard English – so if it’s supposed to be ‘the’ why settle for ‘de’ especially when a sound can change the meaning of a word (‘tree’ as opposed to ‘three’). Do you think that tourist guides can refer to ‘George the Turd’ without raising eyebrows?
There is a short feature on Malta by the NY Times (if I remember correctly) – anyway, it’s on You Tube. Hear the Maltese speak in that clip and tell me if they ‘sound right’ as opposed to the people accused of ‘putting on’ an accent simply because they try to speak Standard English.
[Daphne – Do you mean this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QErVvURxhyY
Good advertisement for a place that sells itself on teaching English as a foreign language: The New York Times clip uses English sub-titles to explain what the English-speaking Maltese interviewees are saying, even the guide at the Roman Domus Museum in Rabat, and the Gozo temple guide, too.]
pajnepil
boj (boy)
Yup, that’s the site I was referring to
@NGT
“Any accent” meaning any standard accent, and not pronouncing words incorrectly like “third” as “turd” or “pan” as “pen.” I was also cringing at that YouTube clip, and there were times when I could hardly understand what the Maltese people were saying.
@Daphne
“An assumed accent is one which you have assumed, as opposed to the one you were brought up using”
I don’t know about other people, but in my case, family members, peers, and teachers all spoke in a variety of different accents ranging from RP, to Canadian, to Maltese-English. I don’t like the word “assume” because I never made a conscious decision to start speaking in a particular accent.
“An ‘American accent’ is a wide grouping indeed, and one in which you can get away with murder as long as you roll a few rs and remember a couple of sit-com pronunciations.”
Hehehe, yooR absuhlootely rayt. Not.
[Though it would have sounded English to you and to American audiences, British audiences recognised it as fraudulent.]
An American might not recognise a fake English accent, but would recognise a fake or first-generation immigrant American accent.
To NGT and Daphne
Didn’t you just love the man in St. Mary’s Church -‘peanuts’!! Incidentally where is St. Mary’s Church?
[Daphne – I noticed my friend the waiter at Cafe Cordina fleetingly in the last frames of Strait Street.]
Amanda add Melkim (Malcolm) to your list of boy’s names. Is there anyone left in Malta who pronounces
‘scaffolding’ correctly?
Interesting article I came across:
http://bad.eserver.org/issues/2001/57/carroll.html
“most continental Europeans can’t differentiate between a British and an American accent. I know it’s unbelievable to Americans to think that we sound even remotely like Brits, but I’ve never yet met a continental European who could distinguish between our accents (same with Irish, Australian, Canadian, and other English-speaking accents). In fact, they generally assume I’m British (and I’m Texan!).”
What’s all the fuss about?
This cracked me up! So hilarious! Well done, Daphne. Keep it up!
@Drew
I never met Europeans who could NOT distinguish different English accents. Depends on the people one meets, I guess.
Here are my pet hate pronounciations which I hear all the time
inxurjans – insurance
brejkfast – breakfast
coklejt – chocolate
exxtrej – ashtray
ekstrej – x-ray…….grrrrrr this one is widespread
Anna – Talking of “inxurjans”, when I worked in insurance, I was once approached by a client who wanted a ‘third part firing left” (third party fire & theft) policy. Here are some others from my working life:
Comprehensive policy? – Comprihenxin
Windscreen? – Winscrijm
Mudguard? – Medgerd
Petrol? – Petlor
Peugeot? – Bugu / Pugot …
[Daphne – Don’t forget the ZuZu pick-ups.]
lisptik – lipstick
kjuwtiks – nail polish
kjoks – kiosk
erhowster – airhostess
And cross my heart, the following is true and happened to me:
Once I was waiting in line at a bank and the woman in front of me starting chatting away telling me all about her precious son. At one point, she told me that he was born around Easter-time (twieled ghall-Easter) so she had decided to name him “ghall-Easter hux hekk xieraq”. It took me quite a few embarrassing moments to realise that she had named him…..Alistair.
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I can agree with most of what you had to say but when it comes to Michela’s comments I’m afraid I’m a bit stuck. I’ll explain: She mentions the words FLESH and FLASH. Pray, can you or Michela please explain how we are supposed to pronounce these words. Don’t tell me FLASH is pronouced FLUSH! I was always taught that there are certain words which are pronounced the same and sound the same but are written differently. The ones above is a case in point!
[Daphne – Flesh and flash are NOT pronounced the same way. Of course not. Flash takes a flat ‘a’, a sound which doesn’t exist in Maltese.]