I remember there was a bit of a problem with the translation into Maltese of “penile dysfunction” for one of those medical information leaflets that are found inside cartons of pills. “Zob” was considered not clinical enough and too vulgar. I don’t remember how the problem was solved – nor what word was used for dysfunction. I wonder whether John could suggest something – two words – short and sweet as in English.
One thing I’ve long observed is that whenever there’s a notice in multiple languages, the English version is practically always the shortest. This suggests, to me, that the richness of the language allows one to say precisely what one intends, without having to resort to verbosity.

Daphne – “All you need to do is pick up a full English dictionary and a full Maltese dictionary and place them side by side.”

I don’t know of any language that could come out the winner in such a direct dictionary-to-dictionary contest with English.

There are several contributors here who are fluent in German, for example. I wonder how they think German would fare in such a comparison. My layman’s opinion is that no language – not even German – can compete with English for the sheer size of the vocabulary.

“A harsh island breeds a hardy people and hence the people develop a hard language.”

X’ghandu x’jaqsam?

Nittama li fihmtuni x’ nixtieq.

I didn’t say that gas and vapour have the same meaning so I think there’s a case for libel here. :)

What I did say was that vapour is fwar. Steam and vapour are essentially the same except that the words are used in different circumstances (find a good dictionary and look them up). Vapour under pressure, for example is usually known as steam hence also the metaphoric use of the word. Ever heard of a steaming cup of tea? That’s water vapour coming out of the hot tea but we say steaming because vaporous would bring to mind yet another idiom. They are all nuances of the same words suitable for different situations. Italian does not have separate words for steam and vapour: vapore is used in all cases but that doesn’t render the language less polished.

English has probably the largest vocabulary of any language because it has the vitality to absorb and adapt so many loan-words from all over the world. In science, practically all jargon is derived from Latin or Latinised Greek in all European languages and that was my point. It should be easier for us to borrow from Latin because of our proximity (another Latin word) to Italy and the influence of Italian in our language.

We definitely need English for general use and have to take it more seriously but in science we also need a sprinkling of Latin or at least Italian. A case in point is an EU biocides directive I was going through some days ago. It contained the term ‘germ cell’ and whoever translated it in Maltese had never heard of ‘cellula germinale’ so they looked up germ in a dictionary and came up with ‘ċellula ta’ mikrobu’. It is now an official EU directive (1272/2008/EC) that certain chemicals such as disinfectants should carry a warning that they may damage bacteria.

Fwar is steam. And steam isn’t even water vapour, let alone vapour. No, gas and vapour do not have the same meaning. So you’re wrong, and John is monumentally wrong. Damn it John, don’t you realise that if we had to stick to Maltese for science we’d still be rubbing sticks together to make fire?

Gibtni dahri mal-hajt? My arse. Jien minhiex qed “nikkalpesta” (sic) il-Malti billi nghid il-verità. Il-Malti fqir wisq biex jintuza f’kull qasam tal-hajja. L-istess bhall-hafna lingwi regjonali Ewropej. Gej bil-physics bil-Malti….kieku l-physics inkiteb bil-Malti, ghadna bid-dinja catta fuq dahar fekruna….

I think it’s the other way round – no one here said anything against Maltese or about its level of difficulty. If anything someone said that it’s unfair to use English in class if students find it difficult to understand the language (erm – so how about teaching it properly in primary schools?)

Another point raised was that English is an important language which should not be lost. Why does this fact rub you the wrong way so much? The argument was not about adopting English or Maltese as a first language but learning to use both with native-like fluency. It is possible – but as long as this grudge against English exists we’ll just remain a monolingual nation and keep kidding ourselves that we are bilingual people who only use English when absolutely necessary… which is absolute bollocks.

@Baxxter: how about ‘vejper’ then (the use of ‘frekxins’ has already been suggested – not kidding).

I’m not John but am going to answer you anyway. Gas is gass in Maltese, as it is in Italian, French, German and English. I have no idea what it is in Arabic but wouldn’t be surprised if it’s gas too. Vapour is, as you have rightly guessed, fwar.

My turn to ask you a question now. What is faux pas in English?

[Daphne – A false move. The two originally meant exactly the same thing, but then ‘false move’ came to mean any mistaken move, while ‘faux pas’ came to be qualified by embarrassment caused to oneself, to another, or both. I know only very basic French, so I couldn’t tell you whether ‘faux pas’ is restricted to use in embarrassing situations in its original language, or whether it is used for any sort of false move, but I’m sure the French-speakers on this blog will put us right on this one.]

Maltese has no word for latent but then, neither did English, German, French and Spanish. They all had to borrow the word from Latin and we can do that too. In all major European languages I have checked, the phrase latent heat capacity is expressed in the same way: ‘latent’ and ‘capacity’ are taken from Latin while, in many cases ‘heat’ is derived from the local language.

Using Maltese to express scientific concepts seems difficult only if one looks for inspiration in our Arabic roots instead of the Romance ones. We should not be inhibited from borrowing heavily from Latin: scientific English seems almost like a modified Graeco-Latin dialect.

We do not have different words for ‘listen’ and ‘hear’ because, evidently, the Maltese never felt the need to distinguish between the two. I don’t think any language is inherently primitive; it’s the people who use it who may be primitive or sophisticated.

It is of course silly to insist on using predominantly Maltese in education. As a matter of fact, our familiarity with English from a young age is a cultural heritage that should be cherished and, in the past, gave us an edge over other European nations. We are losing this advantage and other countries are fast catching up.

I believe there should be a renewed campaign to improve usage by attracting British teachers and lecturers, not necessarily to teach English itself but any subject. This is the only way to reverse the spread of the low-brow pidgin language that has developed, even in schools. Perhaps we could have less music/art appreciation and more grammar in our schools, too.