Oh, so now it's IRkotta, is it?
Last Sunday, Kirkop’s council hosted something it called IRkottafest. That’s right IRkottafest. It was, the newspapers faithfully reported, a celebration of IRkotta.
Enough is enough.
This has got to stop.
Are we going to carry on enshrining the mistakes of the poorly educated in the official version of the language? The word is RIcotta. That’s right, ricotta – from the Italian for ‘recooked’.
Many Maltese appear to have a problem with liquid consonants, letting them slip freely around a word or substituting one for another. So ricotta becomes ircotta, petrol becomes petlor, pilloli become pirmli, and yes, delfin becomes denfil.
Thanks to the stupid title of an even stupid textbook, three generations of Maltese children have grown up convinced that the Maltese word for a dolphin is denfil, instead of the more obvious – if you know other languages – and correct delfin.
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Good for you to point it out. And they insisted that irkotta is different from ricotta due to the way it is made locally. We have to be unique.
Maryanne, it is in fact made differently: in Italy and other countries it is usually made from whey (left over from cheese-making) while here in Malta it’s made from whole milk.
The interchangeablity of consonants ‘l’ and ‘r’, has long been accepted as one of the idiosyncrasies of Maltese, together with other quirks such as changes in the position of certain vowels.
Attempts to give some pseudo-technical explanation for the different pronunciation (see the ‘expert’ mentioned in Norma Borg’s comment) are downright silly and very clearly artificial.
Yeah they’re right about the difference – local ricotta often tasted like crap, especially when made with ‘halib tat-trab’.
sorry but out local irkotta is the best on the market…
It is different..and this product is genuine…please try to learn the difference and ask the experts!!
[Daphne – Prodott genwin. What’s a product like when it’s NOT genuine? Made of reconstituted Chinese cardboard, perhaps?]
Some ‘expert’ actually pointed out on tv that it is irkotta and not ricotta as in Italian since it is not recooked and only cooked once……so because it is not recooked they put the vowel before the consonant…..I couldn’t believe my ears.
That’s because we cook it on a spiLitiera tal-pitLolju.
… while wearing “sliper” (tennis shoes or whatever), and after having popped a “pirmla” or two.
They are experts ..do not worry!!
The Maltese word for ricotta IS irkotta. Just as the Maltese word for kettle is kitla, and just as the Maltese for indicating that everything is all right is “orrajt”.
[Daphne – I’m Maltese, Albert. So is every member of my family and of my husband’s family and so are all my friends. And I have never heard one of them say ‘irkotta’ or ‘l-irkotta’. The word we use is ‘ir-rikotta’. The sort of people who say ‘irkotta’ are the sort who say ‘petlor’ and ‘pirmli’. You can see how a lazy tongue would mash ‘ir-rikotta’ into ‘l-irkotta’.
Unfortunately, this drive to persuade people that the ‘real’ word is irkotta has caused a great deal of confusion, and the other day somebody I know who would rather walk barefoot over nails than be heard saying ‘mehegni’ for ‘mahogany’ was overheard asking for ‘irkotta’ at the cheese counter – something she would have never done up to a few months ago.
Kitla came into the language a long time ago and it’s now too late to root it out. Sadly, it’s also the case with very many other words which are now an irrevocable part of the language. But the situation with ‘irkotta’ is different. It’s clearly the preserve of the uneducated – because the educated just don’t use it – and should be prevented from entering the official language. Instead, it is being actively encouraged into officialdom. You are merely falling prey to the received wisdom that ‘Maltese’ is what the uneducated working-class speaks, when with all other languages that I can think of, the official version is always the language spoken by the educated. There is enough violence being perpetrated on Maltese – can we stop adding to it?]
And, yes, Maltese irkotta is not Italian ricotta. The method is different. The taste is different. Of course, deciding if one is better than the other is something which depends one´s taste.
[Daphne – The two cheeses are made a little differently, yes, but the name is the same. Irkotta is CLEARLY a mispronunciation through ignorance of the Italian ricotta. It is NOT a different word for a different cheese product.]
Before you choose to label those who call it “irkotta” uneducated or ignorant, both harsh terms for merely “mispronouncing” the word, might I suggest consulting other sources – not just your family and friends.
Joseph Aquilina, in his well respected dictionary, translates the term ricotta into “rkotta”. I don’t think he was ever one for cutting corners with our language, nor would it be fair to say he wasn’t educated.
[Daphne – My family and friends are not ‘just’. They are representative of that much-despised class of people called tal-pepe. And not one of them says IRkotta. In fact, we all think the very idea is preposterous and hilarious. Yes, the use of the word IRkotta does reveal that the person comes from a working-class family, and whatever changes there might have been along the way, that single word is a dead giveaway.
I did not label those who use the word uneducated or ignorant. I said that the word owes its existence to ignorance. Ricotta is one of those basic ‘home’ words, central to home life in Malta, so whether a person uses irkotta or rikotta says a lot about the sort of home he or she comes from.
Here’s another one: whether you use the word ‘sink’ to describe the bathroom basin. In Maltese families which are relatively new to bathrooms in generational terms, and where people washed themselves at the kitchen sink, the bathroom basin is called a ‘sink’, like the thing in the kitchen. It’s not so much a transposition of meaning as a transposition of purpose. So now ‘sink’ has become the ‘Maltese word’ for a bathroom basin.]
Hi Daphne,
I pride myself on a pretty acceptable vocabulary, so I was a bit surprised by your quibble on ‘sink’.
My Oxford English Dictionary defines it as “a fixed basin with a water supply and outflow pipe”, in no way limiting the definition to the kitchen. For hoots and giggles, here’s the Wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sink
I think your suggestion that the terming of the “bathroom basin” a “sink” is a Maltese bastardisation is unfounded. What are you basing it on?
[Daphne – Read my reply to Dominique. A sink is the whole thing with plumbing. The basin is just the basin. But the sink/basin distinction in England and Malta is class based, like irkotta/rikotta. To one set of people, kitchens have sinks and bathrooms have basins. To another set of people, there are no basins but only sinks. American English knows only ‘sink’. Essentially, the distinction originates from those who washed themselves at the kitchen sink and those who did so at a basin set in a washstand in their bedrooms. The latter continued to call it a basin when it began to have plumbing attached and moved to a separate bathroom. So the people who say basin are from the class of those who had washstands and bedrooms to put them in, and those who say sink are descended from the class of people who didn’t, and washed themselves at the kitchen sink. Isn’t life odd.]
I do not agree with those who refer to people as ”tal-pepe” (I understand that in certain areas the english was more used than the maltese ) but your comment ”that the word owes its existence to ignorance” is completely wrong. Each language is a dialect of an older language and you can’t attribute different dialects to ignorance!
Although, to be honest I’m not the least bothered about the Maltese language which is just street vernacular, I reckon that these are deformations that take place when languages are still building their basic vocabulary.
Similar deformations exist in European languages drawing on Latin.
[Here’s another one: whether you use the word ‘sink’ to describe the bathroom basin. In Maltese families which are relatively new to bathrooms in generational terms, and where people washed themselves at the kitchen sink, the bathroom basin is called a ‘sink’, like the thing in the kitchen. It’s not so much a transposition of meaning as a transposition of purpose. So now ‘sink’ has become the ‘Maltese word’ for a bathroom basin.]
Daphne, I don’t know where you got this one from!
The Brits use SINK for what you call a bathroom basin. Come here – the posh South East, UK [not all the Maltese are pimps and live in the squalid parts of London] – and check for yourself! You might want to pop over to Windsor Castle and check if the Queen uses a golden sink or a a golden basin!
What we call a basin is a plastic tub.
[Daphne – I’m afraid you’re wrong. In Standard English, the thing in the bathroom is a basin and the thing in the kitchen is a sink. Everywhere that British English is spoken, sinks are in the kitchen and basins are in the bathroom. The exceptions are as I describe. When the bedroom basin was replaced by a basin plumbed into a separate bathroom, it continued to be called a basin. When the kitchen sink was replaced by a sink plumbed into a separate bathroom, it continued to be called a sink. Sink, when used for bathroom basin in British English, is either a working-class derivative or the influence of American English, which knows only sinks and no basins. If the people you mix with in the ‘posh south east UK’ refer to the thing in the bathroom as a sink, then they are non-U, to use Nancy Mitford’s famous term, and you just don’t get it.]
[Daphne – Sink, when used for bathroom basin in British English, is either a working-class derivative or the influence of American English, which knows only sinks and no basins. If the people you mix with in the ‘posh south east UK’ refer to the thing in the bathroom as a sink, then they are non-U, to use Nancy Mitford’s famous term, and you just don’t get it.]
You’re even more English than the English themselves! How many years have you lived in the UK? And don’t call us working-class – we’re definitely not round here! I DO NOT JUST MIX WITH POSH PEOPLE – I HAVE THEM AS NEIGHBOURS!
You’re just full of it, Daphne!
[Daphne – You’re as working class as they come. You’re shouting out the clues. You just don’t know it. Or rather, you do, but think that you can switch class with your clothes. Dream on. Liam and Noel Gallagher know better. They might be stars and millionaires, but they’re still working-class and they say so with pride.]
Mario Serracino Inglott defines tal-‘pepè’ as ‘ksuħat; etiketta żejda; tixmir tal-imnieħer’, and J Aquilina defines it as ‘words used in certain idioms with a pejorative sense meaning ‘dandyism, affection’, snobbism.’ Cheers!
Daphne, the Maltese word is ‘Rikotta’ not ‘Ricotta’ unless ‘Kollox’ is written with a ‘C’. ‘Irkotta’ is also a Maltese phrase used to denote covering something with rikotta.
[Daphne – When you speak, Charles, can you tell the difference between ricotta and rikotta? So bugger that.]
Kettle / kitla – root K T L, don’t see anything wrong
well done!!
Kif tista’ taghti l-gherq lil kelma Ingliza? Kemm hawn bravi hawn.
Isn’t language simply what the majority decide it is?
[Daphne – Here we go again. It all depends on what you mean by language. There’s the official, formal version, which is the language spoken by the minority at the ‘top’ of that particular society – but not in Malta, where the official language is what the working-classes speak – and there’s….language. The Oxford English Dictionary is packed with words that are obviously part of the language but which you wouldn’t or couldn’t use in certain contexts, and others which would identify your class origins etc. But there is a difference between these words and an obvious mispronunciation. Lots of members of the English (and American) underclass switch the K and S in ‘ask’, but it doesn’t mean that if there are enough of them doing it, ‘aks’ will be listed in the Oxford English Dictionary as a ‘variation of ask’.]
If Maltese people agree that that white cheese made from whey is irkotta, then so it is.
[Daphne – Which Maltese people? I don’t agree. I have just taken a quick poll, and the consensus is that only NQLUs say irkotta and that it’s preposterous to give this obvious mispronunciation superior status to rikotta, just because the tal-pepe are grossly and outrageously outnumbered by the working-classes.]
After all that’s how languages develop. Bonswa, bongu, maltemp, giggifogu and countless other Maltese words came about in the same way.
I have no background in linguistics, but I believe that when it is said that French, Italian, Spanish, etc are derived from Latin, I understand that they evolved from “badly” spoken Latin. The well educated probably derided.
[Daphne – At the risk of repeating myself rather too often, you can’t compare the assimilation of loan-words in non-literate or pre-literate or semi-literate society with their assimilation in the present-day. Loan-words today are incorporated into the language intact. Not even the Italians try to change the spelling of English words, and the English don’t change the spelling of French and Italian words, and that’s how it should be, because nowadays we can all read, write and spell and we are supposed to be educated. In changing the spelling of loan-words we are several centuries behind the times.]
Language is not a science. You cannot measure the word against the concept it represents. We laugh when people say “pitlor”, “pirmli”, “spren”. I find it funny myself. However I’m sure someone a few years ago laughed when the peasants said bongu instead of bonjour.
[Daphne – Perhaps you should ask yourself instead why ‘bongu’ survived and ‘bonjour’ didn’t. No doubt it was for the same reason that IRkotta is set to win the Rikotta Wars: the tal-pepe are outnumbered and so the peasants will win. It’s the French Revolution all over again, but this time with dictionaries.]
I am going to go on a tangent but I think we have very different definitions of who is “tal-pepe”.
Tal-pepe speak a baffling mix of English and Maltese which is neither one nor the other. Phrases such as “now I am going to have to stay cleaning the floor all over again…ufff” come to mind. I consider them to be as bad as petlor people.
[Daphne – There is just one kind of tal-pepe people: my kind. Tal-pepe refers to the real (old) Maltese middle-class, originally from Valletta, with summer houses and later permanent homes in Stella Maris parish, Sliema. They (we, but that might offend) speak perfect English and perfect, old-fashioned Maltese (no irkotta and blekbort and the like), and consider people who say “now I am going to have to stay cleaning the floor all over again…ufff” to be deeply NQLU mittilkless chavs.]
Daphne…I am sorry to say that you are wrong on this Irkotta issue…better consult this with ITS or MDP on the matter.
[Daphne – Who told you that Malta Dairy Products and the ITS – which has been silent on the matter, incidentally – are right? The usual attitude of not questioning the voice of ‘authority’….]
Daphne haven`t you got better things to do?
You can start teaching yourself to be polite for one ….so rude you are !!
Funny, I always thought it was spelt ‘rikotta’ but pronounced irkotta just as Mdina is pronounced imdina and Mnarja is pronounced imnaria. By the way, I don’t say petlor and pirmli.
Probably we need to distinguish between ‘language’ and ‘speech’. Whether we like it or not, it is through popular usage that languages evolve.
As for ‘rkotta’, Aquilina’s dictionary refers to it as the more current form of ‘rikotta’. He also quotes De Soldanis’ dictionary ‘Damma tal-Kliem’. So it appears this is not just a modern-day corruption of the word.
On this count Daphne is totally correct – the word IS RIKOTTA (vide Joseph Aquilina’s Maltese English Dictionary (Volume II – pp 1222) – but let’s say that the Maltese people as in all the English words have corrupted the word and slang re-worded it as irkotta. (Ex. l-irkotta kienet kiesha).
Dear Ms Saunders, it is not a question of any one view being totally correct. But please, if you quote sources, do not quote them out of context. Joseph Aquilina on p. 1222 of Volume 2 of his Maltese-English dictionary under ‘rikotta’ states: “Variant of more current form ‘rkotta’, q.v.” You will find that on p. 1229 a more detailed entry is given for ‘rkotta’.
Daphne, why not start writing a few columns in Maltese?
[Daphne – Because I work for a newspaper that’s published in English. And because when you’ve become accustomed to the immense freedom that English gives you, restricting yourself to the the straitjacket of Maltese is a challenge not a pleasure. It’s like going at your garden with a pair of nail-scissors instead of a lawnmower.]
Maltese a straitjacket? That’s a sure way of saying you don’t know Maltese. Imbasta titkellem Malti perfett. Biex lanqas taf tiktbu. Stick to tarts and coke-sniffing magistrates, qalbi.
[Daphne – If you think that Maltese is in any way comparable to English in range of expression, then this reveals the limits of your knowledge of English and not the limits of my knowledge of Maltese. This is not a ‘for’ and ‘against’, but a simple statement of fact. You don’t have to be so chippy and defensive about it. It’s one of the reasons why Maltese-speakers find it so difficult to grasp idiomatic English: they just can’t understand how and why there are so many different words and they can’t grasp the nuances of meaning that differentiate the one subtly from the other. That’s why everything is beautiful, lovely, nice or ugly.]
“just as the Maltese for indicating that everything is all right is “orrajt”.
I assume you’re joking!
she is I think
Id-djallet malti HADD ma jista ihassru …turux li intkom Maltin tan-n*****
Mario, such a typical mentality, don’t improve – bring everyone else down! Isn’t your shoulder sore with all those chips?
Ircotta, irkotta or rikotta is tasteless, cheap in quality and rubbish. Give me the real thing anytime – gbejniet friski. You may spreed them on bread and butter, use them for ravjul, pastizzi, torti, qassatat and sweet meats too. U ghidli x’int tiekol.
What? On butter? You must be kidding.
Yes on butter as well as on hobz frisk biz-zejt u kunserva.
Daphne’s feelings have been shared by the educated for centuries, but language moves forward all the same. For example, in Shakespeare’s time the educated complained that the lower classes were dropping their Rs on the end of words like “far’. Hundreds of years later the Scottish and even the Americans still pronounce the R, the Queen and the upper classes don’t.
Moving even faster today is the replacement of the T with the glottal stop (dropping the T by stopping the air at the back of the throat instead of with the teeth on the tongue).
Think of how the Queen says “letter” compared to how the working class pronounce it. However, the Queen is increasingly starting to drop Ts! She doesn’t drop them in an obvious word like “letter”, but in a word like “Gatwick”. Recordings of the Queen over the decades shows a steady increase in the Ts being dropped. This is entirely consistent with the linguists findings that the accent of the upper class today is the accent of the middle class in the past.
[Daphne – That’s true – listen to BBC recordings from the 1940s.]
Vast moves have been made in accents over time, and always from the working classes upwards. Look for example at the Great Vowel Shift in English, German and Dutch. The more common a word was, the faster the pronunciation changed. The word ‘sea’ was said with a low A to rhyme with the modern pronuciation of ‘far’. The educated complained terribly as the accent changed, but each generation lost the battle and their grandchildren had the accents they resisted.
[Daphne – The process has been arrested already by the great changes that have taken place in the last 50 years: widespread literacy (if you can read and spell you are less likely to shift consonants around when speaking, for instance), the growth of American influence, and the explosive shifts in the means of communication. The main influence on English now is not the working class, but television series made in the US. English learned as a foreign language used to be pronounced as close to British English as possible. That was very desirable. Now the desirable objective is to speak like an American.]
it is not the same..check with the local experts and learn something new!! it is you who be ashamed on this matter!!
There is a difference between softening the pronunciation (in the same way the Germans and the Maltese transform the ending Ds into Ts) and lazy tongues. But I agree that the Maltese do have lazy speech which mainly manifests in their diction, and lack of clarity in their speech (‘en gros’ Maltese people mumble!). This come from lack of reading aloud, quality singing and theatre studies in school.
People who say l-irkotta do not necessarily say petlor and pirmi! While irkotta is the Maltese version of ricotta, petlor and pirmli are lower working-class versions of Petrol and Pilloli.
Daphne…I`m reading some of these comments and honestly some of them disgust me ….Everyone is pointing at the opposed word they use ….but the most disgusting comment that I read was yours in all respect. I for one say Irkotta but I DON`T say Petlor and in all truth you are also in the the wrong because it`s pilloli and not pinnoli.
@Pepe…Has it ever crossed your mind that certain people need speech therapy and maybe your words hurt other people`s feelings?
Sorry I think this should come to an end. We all have something in particular , good or bad.
And you are being ignorant of calling very well educated people UNEDUCATED Just for saying irkotta and not rikotta ( which is italian and NOT maltese by the way . If you`re that perfectly educated , give us the pleasure of finding the Maltese word
Never noticed this irony, that the book that was supposed to teach us Maltese had a spelling mistake in its title.
Look on the bright side – at least “Id-Denfil” of thirty years ago or more otherwise contained proper Maltese words, and not mis-spelt corruptions of English words “sold” to today’s schoolchildren as “Maltese”.
I am sick of repeating that my daughters’ junior school Maltese schoolbooks, worksheets, etc are replete with “words” such as:
pokit (for pencil-case, that is)
trakk
vann
garaxx
sliper
kuker (plural: kukers)
frigg
wajer (plural: wajers)
tajer (plural: kukers)
homwerk (plural: homwerks – failing to realise that “homework” is a collective noun, and hence, there is no plural)
hendawt
The one that really must take the biscuit, however, is my 7-year-old’s recent Maltese comprehension “homwerk”, which included a reference to “fer” (fur) and “tediber”.
The Kunsill tal-Malti, or whoever it is that is responsible for making such words official Maltese, is creating a new generation of people who can neither speak nor write either Maltese or English correctly.
That these incorrect colloquialisms – such as “pokit” for a pouch, meaning that children then fail to understand that, in English, pockets are actually something else entirely – are given the stamp of officialdom does not mean that they are the proper words to use.
[Daphne – Far from erasing class differences, they are merely serving to highlight them. We now have children who happily absorb words like ‘pokit’ sitting in classrooms with children who have been instructed by their parents that they must on no account use the word ‘pokit’ for a pencil-case except in the classroom to keep their teacher happy, because it is wrong. Not only is it wrong, but worse than that, it is NQLU. The horror. Do they still call inflatable armbands ‘mussils’? I’m a bit out of touch with the words used for children’s things now.]
Maltese people may understand what other Maltese people mean by “pocket” used for all kinds of pouches, but non-Maltese speakers of idiomatic English are at a complete loss.
‘Sliper’ would read ‘sleeper’ since an ‘i’ that’s not followed by a double consonant is always soft in Maltese – e.g., hin, fin, Kelin, tin, Beltin, delfin, damdin. Compare to minn, zinn, malinn.
But the absolute winner of this nonsense is whoever thought of changing the spelling of ‘skond’ to ‘skont’. It’s a non-starter. It does not even sound the same (but then I speak old-style Belti).
Norman Lowell is right when he calls them ‘tal-Kakkademja tal-Malti’.
[Daphne – Oh hi, Kev ta’ Sharon. I thought you’d never join this debate, stuck back there arguing about Nick Clegg and The Telegraph.]
Same goes for ‘pokit’ – it should at least be spelt ‘pokitt’.
The only exceptions are words of Italian origin, such as ‘figura’,
(It’s ‘damdim’, btw, not ‘damdin’)
Sent a telegraph to Nick who?
Skond has become skont because skonThom that’s how it should be.
Actually, Aquilina gives both skond and skont as variants.
But, excuse me dear Kunsill tal-Malti, why did you do away with one variant?
Because someone says skonTu?
I always heard people say skond it-tali never skontu!
But perhaps I live in outer space, where Maltese is spoken by Martians and Venusians.
So, Daphne, you lecture the working-classes to death about language when you are ONLY bilingual with Maltese and English being your only reference points?
Perhaps, a thorough grounding in French, German, Italian, and Arabic might allow you to put things into perspective! Many of your points are valid, but your arguments (not just in this case) lack the precision and expertise required by professional journalism as one would came across in La Stampa, Le Figaro, or The Times.
Yes, words come easily to you, but the pitfall of verbal diarrhoea never seem to be too distant!
[Daphne – Do you know many ‘professional journalists’ at La Stampa, Le Figaro and The Times? I doubt it. I, on the other hand, do. What shocks me is how little many of them know about anything at all. Their job requires them to pick up information on the hoof, and that’s what they do. The verbal diarrhoea is yours – right through your comments.]
What a whole load of nonsense! What does professional journalism got to do with knowing professional journalists? I have Daniel Craig living up my road and, until a couple of years ago, had Jimmy Page living 1 mile away from me – both of which I’ve come across. That makes neither a James Bond nor a rock guitarist!
[Daphne – OOH GOSH LUCKY YOU. Was Daniel Craig wearing those trunks when you bumped into him? You’re very illogical. Knowing ‘professional journalists’ doesn’t make me one as well (though I am that, of course, given that the description applies to those who earn their living from journalism and not to those who reach Joe Fenech’s standards), but it does give me the chance to assess their level of expertise and knowledge. And guess what? They’re often found wanting. Look at my latest post, for instance. The woman doesn’t know what she’s talking about, and even her facts are wrong, let alone her opinion based on them. Yet she writes for The Guardian.]
I have rubbed my shoulder with very few journalists simply because I was never in that kind of field. However, one gets to know a journalist or a writer through his work. After a very successful career, and 10 years down my retirement age, European papers (English, German, French and Italian) are my daily bread and you DEFINITELY can’t lecture me about quality journalism.
[Daphne – Forgive me if I come across as sarcastic, but somebody who says ‘I rubbed my shoulder with’ is hardly in a position to judge standards of journalism.]
Now that you’ve had a go at me, you still haven’t denied what I said:
You’re a speculator and an orator (à la Norman Lowell), but I wouldn’t call you a journalist and certainly – being only bilingual – not a linguist (so please don’t lecture anyone about a field to which you don’t belong!).
If one looks closely at your writing, one soon finds out that mockery and hysteria pervade, overtaking finesse and satire. And what is sad about that is that ‘that is VERY Maltese’!!!! You might have a good grasp of English but definitely don’t have a clue of English culture!
[Daphne – Correction: I am not a working-class Maltese who speaks English as a language learned in later life and who has gone to live in south-east England, there to bump into Daniel Craig. Ma, xi dwejjaq ta’ nies. Qisek xi Frans Sammut. You can take the Maltese villager to England, but you can’t make him think.]
Un peu de qualité, par l’amour de Dieu!!!
Enough said from me!
CORRECTION:
POUR l’amour de Dieu.
no irony at all..you got it wrong
The Kirkop council must be paving the way so that next year they will call this event the Kirkottafest.
Lets hope they don’t move it to Putirjal.
No … haven’t you heard? The village is being renamed ‘Kirpok’ …
very funny indeed….
…. or maybe, Irkoppafest
How many ‘fests’ do we need? In the past five months I’ve counted Citrusfest, Ghaselfest, Frawlifest, Hobzfest, and now (I)rkottafest.
Bring back the one and only Maltasajf ’86, I say.
The most fashionable festival is still to come. It will be called InFest.
The best will be InjoranzaFest!
You say “Frawlifest”?
You must be wrong. According to Daphne’s reasoning, that should be “Fraglifest” … since the word for strawberries in Italian (or should I say Maltese?) is “fragole”.
[Daphne – Is there a class of people who still call strawberries ‘fragole’? I rest my case. There is, however, a very large class of people who still say delfin and rikotta. And thank God for that. The peasants won the frawli and bebbux wars, and now they’re fighting to win the irkotta battle.]
Frawla comes from the Sicilian fraula.
Let us not forget that Sicilian is an older language than Tuscan.
it’s you who’s fighting a lost cause Daphne!!…
rkotta is the proper word! and this follows the stem r-k-t normally!
the ‘i’ is not written because it’s just a phonetic vowel added to help people pronounce words!
I’m looking forward to December’s ‘Krismissfarderfest’.
It-Taljani hazin ukoll jghidu ‘fORmaggio’?, li gejja mill-Franciz ‘fROmage, ma nahsibx!
Nofs tuzzana tal-irkotta nghidlu, u mhux nofs tuzzana tar-rikotta, jew lumenu(piu o meno) tal-haxu’.
actually both spellings are correct. check the etymology
http://www.etimo.it/?term=formaggio
lumeno comes from lo meno not piu’ o meno
Well, the Maltese may have butchered the Italian word, but that’s what it is today. Imnarja was once luminaria, to give you another example.
According to Prof. Aquilina both versions are correct i.e. rkotta and rikotta albeit rkotta is the more frequently utilised. Same goes for delfin and denfil. Ricotta, on the other hand, is not part of the Maltese vocab.
Hey Daphne,
If I’m not mistaken, some 15 years ago there were some new rules introduced to the Maltese language, which rules included the inclusion of a number of common words used in Maltese, which were derived from another language.
Some examples I remember were: Komputer, Giggifogu (loghob tan-nar ta’ l-art, derived from Guochi di fuoco) and pengwin.
Taking a quick look at a couple of Maltese dictionaries ‘Kelmet il- Malti’ (which in my humble opinion should be spelled: Kelmet ‘il Malti) by Kaptan Pawlu Bugeja and ‘Kalepin’ by E.D. Busuttil, it seems like ‘Irkotta’ is the word in Maltese as is ‘Denfil’.
Yes, they are derived from Latin (Roman) or Anglo, but then our language is made up mainly of Semitic words, which once you learn the original Semitic (Arabic) pronunciation of the same words you realize that the whole language is made up of badly pronounced words which through the years were accepted to become a language.
LOL, kelmet ‘il Malti’
1) It would have to be “kelmet ‘il-Malti”, if anything.
2) You got it all wrong. It doesn’t mean (literal translation) ‘she spoke to the Maltese’, but rather ‘the words of the Maltese [language]’.
http://mt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stat_kostrutt
Fuq din ma’ nahsibx li ghandek ragun mija fil-mija. Il-kelma tizviluppa u ddur u titlef suritha maz-zmien.
[Daphne – John, il-punt hu li ghad hawn klassi tan-nies li jghidu ‘rikotta’ u li ghadhom ma ntilfux fl-izball ta’ ‘irkotta’. Xi mitejn sena ilu probabli kien hemm l-istess sitwazzjoni bi kliem bhal ‘fragole/frawli’, ‘babbaluci/bebbux’ u tant ohrajn, u rebah l-iskorett. Issa se jerga jirbah l-iskorett fil-kaz ta’ irkotta/rikotta minhabba is-semplici fatt li hemm hafna izjed nies li jghidu irkotta minn li hemm li jghidu rikotta. Nahseb li z-zmien meta konna ninkorporaw l-izbalji fil-lingwa ghadda – illum suppost nafu ahjar. L-Inglizi m’ghadhomx ibiddlu l-loan words: rendez-vous, per ezempju, baqa rendez-vous, mhux bhal bouef li sar beef. L-istess it-Taljani: jiktbu ‘sexy’ u mhux ‘secsi’. Il-Malti spicca sar frakass shih.]
Naf li ricotta hi bit-Taljan, imma minn dejjem irkotta konna nghidu meta konna mmorru nixtru xi nofs artal minn ghand tal-merca.
Jien dik il-“fest'” fuq wara ittini f’ghajni hafna. Haduha minn Oktoberfest.
[Daphne – U jien, il-mummy kienet tibaghtni nixtri nofs ratal rikotta, mhux nofs artal irkotta. Heqq.]
Daphne, issa, bil-Malti, “mummy” sar “mami'” (bl-accent!) fil-kotba ta’ l-iskola tat-tfal.
initially it was named Festa ta’ l-irkotta
Bl-istess raġunament, aħna jista’ jkun li aħna kollha low class għax il-labar tal-inxir ma ngħidulhomx ‘ċombini’ bħall-Għawdxin. Issimplifikajniha matul iż-żmien għax iġħna, forsi?
Ukoll, jien probabbli nikkwalifika bħala membru tal-klassi l-baxxa allura għax insejjaħlu kompjuter. Il-puristi, però, huma nobbli fuq in-nobbli għax għadhom jinsistu li jsejħulu ħussâb u jirriffjutaw li jitħammġu bl-injuranza tal-massa. The very few; the elite. Qed tifheeeeeem?
[Daphne – Hang your chips out to dry with a few of those combini, do yourself a favour.]
Inti li ghandek Malti perfett u li thossok daqshekk superjuri hdejn l-umani l-ohra … tibghatni mhux tibaghtni!
Dear Daphne,
May I draw your attention to how you write ‘tibghatni’.
The root is B – GH – T.
Hu x’ghamel il-bierah? (Mamma) baghat mela l-mudell hu seraq. Hi tisraqni mela hi tibghatni.
You’ve been bluffing about your perfect usage of the Maltese and English languages. While I sincerely congratulate you on the good usage of the English language I feel that you need to work harder on your Maltese and should stop classifying people on how they pronounce or write words which you are not so FLUENT in. No wonder you call writing in Maltese a straitjacket experience!! I suggest you try some humble pie for a start.
P.S. This was not the only Maltese mistake you did!!!
[L-Inglizi m’ghadhomx ibiddlu l-loan words: rendez-vous, per ezempju, baqa rendez-vous, mhux bhal bouef li sar beef. L-istess it-Taljani: jiktbu ‘sexy’ u mhux ‘secsi’. Il-Malti spicca sar frakass shih.]
They might not change the spelling but they surely destroy the pronunciation!
Daphne, would you fancy coming over for some broosh-ate-er and tug-lea-telly arl pest-oh? Or you’re already booked for another rundy-voow?
Irkotta = made from milk, first cooking;
Ricotta (re-done) = made from whey, which is a byproduct of cheese curds.
[Daphne – Sigh.]
Then what is the correct Maltese version for these terms? Thanks.
I think: the word is really RKOTTA, but on putting the article, you cannot say il-RKotta, so you add the i before the RKotta… so it becomes l-iRKotta. (just like Mdina and Mnarja etc)
Whoa! That’s the problem of how it got corrupted solved!
Btw, Daphne, it’s true that the word is derived from the Italian/Sicilian word ricotta, but if it stayed the same as in the Italian/Sicilian language, we wouldn’t be speaking Maltese, but Italian/Sicilian, no?
[Daphne – No, we would just be using a loan-word properly.]
And another thing, the Semitic language permits changing of the vowels, but not changing of the sequence of the consonants. And both rikotta and irkotta (or rkotta) obey this rule. There are other ghastly words which form part of the Maltese language these days, under the approval of the ‘authorities’ and which are worse than the rkotta question. If you tackle each one, I’m sure you’ll have a full time job in front of your laptop/pc/Mac/whatever you use.
[Daphne – Well, these issues are surprising fraught. I’m astonished.]
tghallem Daphne!!!
[Daphne – X’inhu? Nitghallem nitkellem bhal tar-rahal? Mur hudu f’gh**nek. Ahjar tar-rahal jitghallmu ftit jitkellmu bhall-puliti, forsi naslu x’imkien.]
xi mkien, ghax x’imkien hija dnub mejjet fil-malti!
tkunx hamala u pastaza…il-veru int bla gost ta xejn
Interesting … all this is similar to these debates?
Floriana or Furjana
Porta Reale or Putirjal
Gargur or Hal Gharghur
Fleur de Lys or Furdilis
Apparently it is the majority who decides and not phonetics, syntax, grammar or whatever …
Actually, you swapped “Gargur” and “Hal-Gharghur” round.
The correct pronunciation is actually “Hal-Gharghur” (hull-ur-uwr). My late grandmother, who hailed from Valletta and who spoke correct English and Maltese (never intermingling the two), always referred to it as such.
The pronunciation got corrupted into “Gargur (gurr-goor) possibly during British rule, in much the same way as Tigne’ (of French pronunciation) got corrupted into “teenie”. Likewise “the maasa” for Marsa/the Marsa Club. It does not mean that such pronunciations are correct, nor that they are acceptable.
No. It would seem that the “gh” was somehow more pronounced in the past. It has become more silent with the passage of time.
You can find reference to “Casal Gargur” which predate the British presence.
Just as in Notary Zabara’s acts (see Fiorini’s collection) you will find the term “galca” referring to “ghalqa”.
Another example: Gauci = Ghawdxi.
This seems to be a phenomenon which occurs in Italy too.
The word “zahra” (blossom) is “zagara” in Sicilian and Apulian.
Note the similarity with the English “William” and the Italian “Gugliermo” or “Wales” and “Galles”.
Another example “ghazziela” = gazelle. Not how that “gh” became a “g”.
In dentistry we have people coming to have their “daghrsa tal-ghaqda” to be taken out. When I correct them and tell them that it is “daghrsa tal ghaqal” – wisdom tooth – I am usually told off that I am mistaken because some TV presenter always says it that way.
“Is Irkotta the same as Ricotta?
Ricotta is a typical Italian cheese made primarily from whey of other cheese. The name ricotta means ‘recooked’ in Italian since this whey is heated to produce ricotta curd. The usual way of making ricotta is to heat whey with a food grade acid.
On the other hand, the main ingredient of Irkotta (as produced by MDP) is primarily milk. Its production involves the use of sea water or a sea water replacement (water and salts). The Maltese name Irkotta is a corruption of the name of the similar Italian cheese.”
http://www.maltadairyproducts.com/question/is-irkotta-the-same-as-ricotta
“Irkotta” is a corruption nonetheless, whatever the production process involves. I have yet to hear people asking for “ricotta” when they want to buy “Italian” ricotta from their local grocer’s, if the word “irkotta” is what they normally use, and vice-versa.
We must be one of the few countries where ignorance is aided and abetted by many who should know better and often institutionalized.
I am sure everybody knows the origin of “giggifogu”!
I thought it was ciccifogu.
And it has got nothing to do with me, or me with it.
I’m glad, I was actually slowly being convinced that it actually was Irkotta from buying cheese cakes too many times (I can’t help loving them).
Have you ever heard of the term METAESI? It refers to the transposition of letters within words that occurs from the evolution of one language from another (eg. the Italian worlds diffused into the Maltese language).
This makes it simpler the tongue to pronounciate the word. (We have many tongue twisters that exploit this fact). This explains why we have the words denfil, petlor, pitlorju, artal and the rest.
It is definitely not a question of poorly educated people as was given the impression in the article!!
[Daphne – No, it’s a question of people who can’t pronounciate words or even spell them.]
Daphne
Mr Montesin might have made several spelling and other mistakes in his short contribution, but what he’s writing is linguistically and scientifically correct.
It’s all a question of language evolution through metathesis.
Now you’re shooting the messenger when you know that the message he’s conveying is true.
[Daphne – This is so exhausting. I mean, really exhausting. Pick up a copy of Aquilina’s dictionary right now and count the number of singular nouns in which an initial R is followed by a vowel. There are whole armies of them. Now count the number of singular nouns in which the initial R is followed by a consonant. Not many, are there? This could be because, from what I’ve noticed, the initial R tends to be followed by a consonant and not a vowel in the singular form (as opposed to the plural form) when the word is a very obvious loan-word from Sicilian/Italian. Hence, while we have no trouble at all pronouncing ‘rihan’ or ‘ragel’ or ‘razzett’, we apparently have terrible trouble pronouncing rikotta, and so it must become rkotta. Strangely enough, however, we are able to pronounce ravjul, and don’t feel any pressing need to make it arvjul. So we tuck in happily to platefuls of ravjul tal-arkotta.]
Konsonanti likwidi ghandhom huma klawstrofowbici allura jehtiegu bilfors il-vokali tal-lehen fil-kaz ta’ rkotta peress li hemm rk fejn xulxin hemm il-bzonn tal-i bhala vokali tal-lehen. Daphne fil-kaz ta’ ravjul il-konsonanta likwida “r” ghandha l-ftuh ghax hemm l-“a” warajha, mhux bhal meta tghid irkotta!
[Daphne – U hallina. Spjegali ftit ghaliex nies li jistghu facilment jghidu kliem bhal ‘ribass’ u ‘riglejn’ u ‘rimedju’ isibuhu daqs tant difficli jghidu ‘rikotta’. Irkotta dahlet fil-lingwa bl-istess mod kif dahal ‘lamenu’: sforz l-injoranza sfrenata ta’ nies li ma jafux jiktbu. Issa tulejt (kelma ohra gdida bil-Malti) ghall-irkotta. Imma f’gieh kemm hemm, jghaddu ghoxrin sena u se jkollna l-istess argument fuq’lamenu’.]
rkotta — huwa nom tat-tip u rikotta huwa nom femminili tal-unita`
Irkupptejja għadha kif faqqgħet! ;)
Sorry Daph – it’s irmedju. Same for irtokk, irmigg, irkada, irpilja, irvina, irfina, irpuzat, and irkaptu (ritocco, remeggio, ricadere, ripigliare, rovina, rifinire, riposato, and recapito).
But then remissa for rimessa.
Ritocco = irtukkat
Riposato = irpuzat
Rimessa = remissa
Why not irmissa?
And ricetto = razzett. Why not irzett?
But then lamento = ilment. Why not lamment?
If RiCeTTo becomes RaZZeTT, LaMeNTo should become LaMMeNT.
So, really, you are right. There is no rule.
It’s just damn arbitrary.
Dictated by damn ignorance.
ARjuranza!
PRONOUNCE
Dear Ms Caruana Galizia
Please note to add ‘(ra)Hal’ before Kirkop ;)
…and I really mean this…so Hal-Kirkop’s council…or Hal-Balzan’s council etc.
Regards
K Caruana
Hal Kirkop, Hal Balzan
without a hyphen
Dear Ms Caruana Galizia
Another thing…to my knowledge the Maltese word for ‘(il-)kitla’ is ‘(l-)inhasa’.
Regards, again
K Caruana
Why is it so hard to accept that words and languages change? It really isn’t a question of educated versus uneducated. Languages are alive; people make the language what it is. If Maltese is going to sound like Maltese then a number of foreign words will take on Maltese rules of pronunciation. What is so wrong with that?
In a way education is what is making it so hard for our language planning to move forward. People who are educated in other languages will say that if a word comes from another language it should remain untouched. But if we didn’t have change we would not have any of the thousands of languages we have today.
Go tell the French they are speaking bad Latin. Without change we would not have Italian, French, Spanish, Romanian, Portuguese and the rest – Europe would still be speaking Latin. Perhaps not even that. Possibly we’d be writing in German… or a version of German they spoke thousands of years ago. I’m sure at some point the Germans thought the English were speaking German very badly.
Ironically we sort of owe it to the uneducated for the wealth of languages that exist today. You might think I’m exaggerating, but it’s little things like ‘irkotta’ that keep a language alive. Do not fight change. Change in a language is good.
I completely agree with you.
You forget ‘ErKondixin’
OK point taken. Next time I skip the queue at my local tal-pastizzi, I won’t say “Tini zicc irkotta hi”.
Another annoying one that‘s creeping in is “l-ewwelnies” instead of ”l-ewwelnet”.
[Daphne – The one that really sets my teeth on edge is ’tislija’ instead of ’tislima’.]
tislija and tislima do not mean the same thing.
[Daphne – They are used interchangeably on radio shows.]
And you are right. They should NOT be used interchangeably.
Isselli u ssellem do not mean the same thing.
But then again, this is a country of approximations.
@Daphne
Well, the thing is this…languages change as they spread. The Romance languages, Italian, French, Spanish and others came to be because the Latin they originate from got “corrupted” as it spread among the populations who inhabited the areas the Romans conquered.
This process continues today, though because the written media is today so prominent, it has been slowed down. Yet, even in Roman times this phenomenon had given rise to some concern.
A Latin scholar had even written a dictionary of words which he noticed were being spoken “badly”, with the “correct” Latin form. To no avail. From these “mispronunciations” came forth the “new” Romance languages.
IRKOTTA & RIKOTTA are both wrong. The correct word is RKOTTA. Check Aquilina, Serracino Inglott & others.
[Daphne – I think I’ll go and watch some Eastenders reruns.]
Aren’t these the same people who say futbol, kejk, mitjar etc are correct?
David, what’s your problem with Maltese?
You have been contributed to this blog ever since its inception and you have always expressed derogatory remarks on Maltese scholars and writers.
What’s your problem, mate?
I have been contributed to this blog?
I knew my wife was trying to get rid of me!!!
I have never passed derogatory remarks on Maltese and certainly not Maltese ‘scholars’, I simply know that English is a far more important language than Maltese, even here in Malta, in fact, especially in Malta.
And yes, I also believe 95% of Maltese literature is amateurish at best, as if I cared what Marija and Karmenu did on their way to school, (DENFIL) when I was 9 and had Enid Blyton waiting for me back home! As for poetry, ugh, I remember studying Ruzar Briffa by heart for the damn exam, got my 2 and never looked at a Maltese book again!
Maltese soaps – don’t get me started!
English is my language of choice, I ‘think’ in English, my wife and I communicate in English (as a matter of interest we are both the first generation of our families to do so, despite our parents speaking Maltese at home – same for our friends incidentally) and our children all speak English – their friends do so too.
But guess what, I happen to think one needs Maltese in Malta and I don’t scream ‘eeek’ if my children utter a word in Maltese like some people I know who speak to their children in ghastly English.
Also, I think people like that bunch at the meeting in Qala yesterday (Astrid you are in above your head dear) are HAMALLI, yes I said it HAMALLI, NOT because they are from Qala or only speak Maltese, but because of the obnoxious behaviour they displayed at the very idea of a few words in English for the benefit of English residents!
Clear now?
“Mrs Vella asked how the project could even be considered in the Eco Gozo context when there were no proposals for alternative energy. She then asked to say a few words in English for the benefit of foreigners present. She was greeted with boos from the the public.
Gozitans insisted that only Maltese is used and start shouting and booing whenever an English word was used – much to the frustration of English-speaking foreign residents – some who have lived in Malta for over 10 years – who stood up to signal their presence in the room.”
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20100527/local/hondoq-meeting-gets-off-to-rowdy-start
Contributing, contributing. Listen, matey, don’t they ever find you guilty of typos?
Anyway. My point is that you seem to abhor anything which has got to do with Maltese. I don’t mean when your children utter Maltese words. I’m talking about Maltese and things written in Maltese.
You’ve chosen to switch to English. That’s fine with me. But I can’t understand down which neuron path you go to take an aggressive stance toward Maltese. It beats me, mate. Really.
You remind me of Olvin Vella. But you’re the other way round. He is Maltese vs English. You seem to be English vs. Maltese.
It’s a matter of perceptions, laddie. So don’t get too worked up.
One other thing, David. What do you mean by “amateurish”?
If you don’t write because you’re paid to do it, then you write out of love. That makes them what the Italians call ‘amatori’ – amateurs.
The creative impetus fuels the need to write. Our market is too small to have many professional writers – people who can make a living out of writing. So, by definition, they have to be amateurs – people who write (in Maltese) out of love (for writing).
If, on the other hand, you meant that Maltese writers are mediocre, once again I have to point out to you that you are contradicting yourself.
You said: “As for poetry, ugh, I remember studying Ruzar Briffa by heart for the damn exam, got my 2 and never looked at a Maltese book again!”
Then you said: “I also believe 95% of Maltese literature is amateurish at best”.
Now, if you have never ever read anything else after getting your 2 in Maltese, on what do you base your belief that 95% of Maltese literature is amateurish at best?
You cannot claim your belief on actual knowledge of the literature, as, by your own admission, you haven’t read any.
So, on what do you base it? Probably on prejudice.
Do you share the same prejudice toward the literature of other lesser-used languages? What is your opinion, for instance, on the literature of Estonia (1.3 million inhabitants), Latvia (2+ million), Lithuania (2.8 million)?
I think I will meet you half way and say that 95% of world literature is amateurish (in the sense of mediocre). It cannot be otherwise, else the world would be full of Saramagos, Moravias, Rushdies, Garcia Marquezes, Allendes, Sepulvedas, Eloy Martinezes, Nerudas, Kunderas etc etc.
Reading is a wonderful experience. Don’t spoil it for yourself by allowing your judgment to be clouded by prejudices. You never know, you might unexpectedly unearth a diamond from under the dung and silt of shallow writing and mediocrity.
“Contributing, contributing. Listen, matey, don’t they ever find you guilty of typos?”
No dear – ContributED, ContributING that’s no typo!
Not at all Nostradamus old chap, just because I find Maltese literature boring and know that English is far more important? It’s you who seem to bee seeing things that aren’t there – subconscious perhaps?
Aquilina in his dictionary says that rikotta is a variant of rkotta meaning that both uses are correct in the Maltese language.
[Daphne – Rikotta (ricotta) is a variant of rkotta! What an egocentric nerve! It’s the other way round.]
Actual quote from dictionary: “Ricotta. Var. of more current form rkotta”
Min jghid ‘ricotta’ ikun wild ir-regina li qed ibarri lil dinu Daphne, u ma ‘jasalx’ (?):
Online comment by Mario Tabone-Vassallo, today’s Times:
Jiddispjacini tassew. Prosit ta’ l-isforz u tal-kuragg. Uhud rebhu, minkejja li kantaw b’ilsienhom flok barruh. Hasra li ma nuzawx l-ilsien wiehed nazzjonali li ghandna, il-Malti, li hu hekk sabih. Lil min bloggja “Because English is also a language of Malta! And the only one of the two that will get you anywhere worth going!”, nghidlu li jista’ jkun li kieku tkun wild ir-regina taf ikollok hajja ehfef, izda ommok hi li hi u tal-misthija twarrabha. Daqstant jghodd ghal ilsienek. Nittama li kull min jahsibha bhal min bloggja fuqi, jasal san-nofs fejn wasalt jien [bl-umilta kollha] u ghala le, hafna l-hinn minni, minghajr qatt ma barrejt lil dini.
[Daphne – Ma, xi dwejjaq. The ‘forsooth, kind sir’ of Maltese.]
YOU FORGOT LISPTICK INSTEAD OF LIPSTICK
Can’t agree on this one!
We’ve always called it Irkotta! what do you say pastizzi tal-irkotta jew pastizzi tar-rikotta? torta tal-irkotta jew torta tar-rikotta? Kannoli tal-irkotta jew kannoli tar-rikotta?
[Daphne – Well, ‘we’ve’ always called it rikotta. I grew up surrounded by adults who spoke only Maltese amongst themselves, and the only people who said IRkotta were the home-helps, and I thought it was funny. I could work out already – because my curiosity about words and language began really early – that it was a mispronunciation. When I went out into the ‘world’, I began to encounter other people who also said IRkotta but they had one common factor: they were all NQLU. My friends and their parents said rikotta. So yes, ‘we’ did say and still do: pastizzi tar-rikotta, torta tar-rikotta, and kannoli tar-rikotta, because that’s the proper way to say them.]
As far as i know Irkotta has been around as long as Kitla!
“It’s clearly the preserve of the uneducated – because the educated just don’t use it – and should be prevented from entering the official language. Instead, it is being actively encouraged into officialdom.” Takes more than some Rikotta to make u educated!
[Daphne – True. but then it takes just one word – irkotta – to tell me all I need to know about where u r from.]
Oh come on Daphne you cannot be serious. You cannot make out a person just by hearing irkotta. I grew up in an English-speaking environment, my parents are both highly educated as were my grandparents and as am I.
The only person in my family who used to say ‘rikotta’ was my good old grandmother, and I used to think she sounded funny saying it. The reason being that even at that young age I noticed that it did not fit the Maltese rules of pronunciation.
[Daphne – Unlike you, I did not grow up in an English-speaking household. In fact, my generation is probably the first (and only one) in the family to speak to each other in English in adulthood, and our parents speak to us in Maltese. Now this is a genuine question, so don’t think I have any ulterior motive in asking it. I’ve noticed that when people who say ‘irkotta’ are speaking English and not Maltese, they call the stuff rikotta and not irkotta. So if your mother, who preferred to say irkotta, sent you out to buy some, what would she have said – ‘Isabel, please go down to Toni’s and buy some irkotta’ or ‘Isabel, please go down to Toni’s and buy some ricotta?’]
You asked what makes ‘rkotta’ Maltese. Well the fact that as you said 90% of Maltese speakers say ‘rkotta’ does make it Maltese; 90% say it that way because they know the rules innately.
Note the following:
rkotta is the prevailing form in the same way we say rkant, rkaptu, rkada, rkupra (and please don’t tell me you say rikanto, rikapito, rikada or rikupera).
[Daphne – No, because by the time I came along, those forms had died out. But I still have a hard time saying IRcevuta instead of ricevuta, though the latter has almost died out, and I feel absolutely no pressing need to say IRkotta because thousands of people still say ricotta and it remains a living word. Also, while rikatt and rikattat are under pressure (it has begun) to become rkatt and rkattat, I imagine you feel no need to pronounce them that way just because some people do.
There are no rules, innate or otherwise. We still buy products bir-ribass and not bl-irbass, carry out ricerka for projects and not ircerka, find certain people ributtanti and not rbuttanti, put out out empty shampoo bottles for riciklagg and not rciklagg, think that the seagull dancer behind Thea was ridikolu and not rdiklu, are dismayed to find that our bank balance has been much ridott and not rdott, rail on timesofmalta.com against the rifugjati and not the irfugjati, buy rigali for each other at Christmas and not rgali, draw people’s attention to a different subject by saying rigward and not irgward, praise our children for their good rapport and not Arport (that’s the one where planes take off and land) – I could go on for hours but won’t bore you.]
Why do we put the ‘vokali tal-leħen’ before the cluster ‘rk’? Because that is the way it works in Maltese when ‘k’ comes after ‘r’ and has a vowel following it: rokna – rkejjen, trekken – tirkin. Same with plosive t: ratal – rtajjal, rtir, rtokk. And there are other consonants that work that way. Grab a dictionary (Aquilina’s will do just fine) and check it out.
[Daphne – Isabel, when I told somebody else here that I’m a word nerd, I meant it. I live, breathe and eat words for breakfast. When I come across strange words I write them down and admire them and research them – in English and Maltese. I have an almost instinctive understanding of how words work – I understand them like other people understand music, a completely alien language to me – and that’s how, despite never having had a single English grammar lesson I still know how English grammar works. I worked it out ‘by ear’. It’s one of those freaky passions – could have been worse. And that’s why I noticed – despite not having a clue about the ‘rules’ – an initial R tends to be followed by a consonant in verbs or in the plural form of a noun in which the initial R is actually followed by a vowel (ragel/rgiel, razzett/rzietet, ruh/erwieh and so on). I riffled through Aquilina’s dictionary, as you suggested, and what I discovered is that singular nouns in which the initial letter R is followed by a consonant are actually very unusual (rcevuta). Ricotta is a singular noun, therefore if there is any ‘innate rule’ at all, that innate rule suggests that it should stay the way it is, but in its plural form (should such a thing be required ever), it would become rkottot. Now ask yourself why the people who say ‘ravjul tal-irkotta’ and ‘ravjul tal-arkotta’ don’t go the whole hog and make it ‘arvjul tal-arkotta’. ]
It really is quite interesting. I believe you really do interest yourself in the language, so this is something you might want to try to understand and embrace rather than try to find reasons why it shouldn’t be so.
[Daphne – People who are interested in language are interested in language, not in a language. The trouble with many of the academics who study Maltese and who then proceed to dictate to us is that they’re not really interested in language at all. What they are interested in is Maltese, for a variety of reasons but mainly to do with national pride. That doesn’t make for a good linguist because theirs is not a love of language but a love for their country. You will notice, for instance, that they are not similarly curious about English – for example – and make absolutely no attempt at getting to grips with it or even understanding how it works, even though they are obliged to use it much of the time. I sometimes get the impression that they actually take a perverse pride in not bothering to use English properly or developing their range of vocabulary. No person who truly loves language would do that. It is precisely because I love language that I find IRkotta so offensive.]
There will always be some irregularity or other (it is language after all) but generally rules are rules and the speakers of a language will try to follow those rules with whichever word comes their way. It is a natural process and it is a good process. That is what makes Maltese sound like Maltese and stay Maltese.
[Daphne – Much as it pains me to refer anyone to Wikipedia, I think you really need to read this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creole_language ]
Let me clarify my linguistic background: My parents, grandparents, friends of my parents etc. spoke Maltese when they spoke to each other, English when they spoke to us (my siblings and I). This went on until I was around 6. They gradually eased into speaking Maltese (not by speaking mixed Maltese English, but by using either Maltese or English) because they were worried we wouldn’t be able to interact properly with our peers (we went to a ‘skola tal-gvern’). Nowadays we usually speak Maltese at home.
[Daphne – Why didn’t you say so from the start? So you’re NOT from an English-speaking background and you went to a government school, which you would never have done if you came from the Rikotta Classes. So the fact that you say irkotta is not an anomaly, as you suggested earlier, but entirely consistent with what others here call my ‘theory’.]
My mother would have probably said ‘ricotta’.
[Daphne – What, you mean you don’t know? I’m very clear in my mind as to whether my mother says irkotta or rikotta. I can’t even imagine her saying irkotta.]
Even I say ricotta when I speak English. It is the only acceptable form in English, isn’t it? (I find the ‘cooked once’ versus ‘cooked twice’ argument rather irrelevant. We still call it ricotta in English whether it is cooked once, twice or three times.)
[Daphne – Ricotta is an Italian word whichever language you use. Ricotta doesn’t exist in English. The English use the Italian word for a product that they would ordinarily call cottage cheese. To say that you use the Maltese word irkotta when speaking Maltese but the ‘English word ricotta’ when speaking English is ludicrous. Those who switch between ricotta and irkotta depending on whether they’re speaking English or Maltese signify that at some level they know irkotta is a mispronunciation of ricotta, even if it’s only subconscious.]
Still I don’t ever recall her saying it, because when we were young she never sent us to buy stuff from the cheese counter (there was always an enormous queue there). I would hear her say irkotta when I was with her shopping and she’d ask for it over the counter, in Maltese. So in my world it is, and always has been, ricotta in English and irkotta in Maltese.
I’m glad you don’t say rikada and rikupera… But do you think the forms we have today are incorrect? If it were up to you, should we still be saying rikada and rikupera?
[Daphne – No. But then I wasn’t part of the process that saw that change happen. I am part of the process by which ricotta is degenerating into irkotta and I refuse to be part of it.]
I don’t think ricotta should be labelled incorrect, because as you say, thousands of people still say it, and as a student of linguistics, I prefer to describe rather than prescribe.
This is not to say I don’t deem certain things correct or incorrect. But one of the things I love about language is that it changes; something that is incorrect today will be correct tomorrow and vice versa. That is the way language works. People will try to control it, but really you can’t do much.
You can invent new words and hope they catch on. It is easier to introduce new words than to force-change or force-remove existent words. And that is the beauty of language. The differences that evolve through regular use are what make language so interesting and what gives you and me things to go all freaky about and that is what allows us to get so thoroughly absorbed in one word.
[Daphne – Yes. I’m proud of having put one into local idiom: elves, used for those politically motivated people who populate the on-line comments boards. But with irkotta it’s a lot more complex than that. It’s still absolutely laden with social significance. It is in fact a class signifier. Trying to persuade people who say ricotta that it’s perfectly fine for them to say irkotta is like trying to get them to drive a Ford Escort Mark I or its contemporary equivalent or call their son Olvin or Charlon or Quinton Jo. It’s not JUST a word.]
I love language too; in fact that is what I studied at university: linguistics. Obviously I don’t deem myself to be any sort of authority on the subject … there is only so much one can learn in three years (although obviously one tries to stay abreast with all things related). My comment on you really being interested in the language was not pointless garble. Someone, or several people, said you don’t really care for Maltese or something or other. I know you can’t really just love one language and not care for any others.
[Daphne – Good on you for noticing that.]
Re the plural vs singular argument, I can’t be sure. I really need to take a good look at everything and do it the good old linguistic-analysis way (definitely not today or any time soon; I’m trying to finish writing my dissertation). However, you’ll find that not all consonants work in the same way. Here many factors are in play. Number of syllables, whether the consonants concerned are at the beginning of the word or at the beginning or the end of a syllable, whether it is a long or short consonant (in Maltese we write double letters for longer ones), what consonants and vowels come before or after the ones concerned, where they are formed in the mouth and so on.
It is not a very easy task to say what the formal rules are. But make no mistake there are rules of pronunciation and they come as naturally to a native speaker as the rules of grammar do because they have passively acquired these rules. (Btw by innate I meant they come naturally to the native speaker not that anyone is born with the rules already. Maybe it wasn’t the best use of the word.)
As for that wiki article, I know about Creole and pidgin and Maltese does not qualify and I don’t think it could ever qualify as pidgin (or as Creole either).
[Daphne – That is not why I flagged it up. I did so because it describes what could happen to Maltese under the current pressures. It also describes perfectly the ‘new language’ spoken by whole groups of Maltese people in their 20s: a pidgin mash of Maltese, English, American, text-speak and internet speak.]
It is still hugely Semitic, not a mash up of 5 languages (am throwing Spanish and French in the mix too). Every language has borrowings. Technology has made new words coming in from outside a faster process, and I think changing these words and making them our own (by way of pronunciation, change in their morphology and so on) is a necessary process in language formation. One should also note that although Creoles are held in low esteem they are still functional languages. Bear in mind that linguistically there is no variety of language higher than another. Some Creoles have complex grammar and are in themselves very interesting. Socially language is another thing altogether.
The only problem I see with the way words are coming into Maltese, is in their spelling. I find no problem with garaxx for instance. It is how we say it in Maltese and no one is going to convince me to write garage when I write Maltese. I say garage (with a voiced alveolar fricative, although some dialects of English use a voiced alveolar plosive) when I speak English, garaxx (with a voicless alveolar fricative) when I speak Maltese.
The problem I have is with words that contain diphthongs (aj, ej, ij, oj, etc) because they look forced and unnatural written using Maltese orthography – it does not facilitate reading which is the whole point of orthography (i.e. that it should make it possible for speakers of a language to read off a piece of paper). I think it is too soon for these words to be accepted as Maltese words. They still have to undergo some change for them to be compatible with Maltese orthography. And the reason they aren’t compatible with Maltese orthography is that their pronunciation has nothing to do with Maltese pronunciation. Like it or not, they will change and I believe it is good for the language.
One last teeny point: when you say that the English haven’t changed ‘rendez-vous’ (and other recent borrowings I assume), do you mean that they kept the original spelling, or that they pronounce it like the French do?
[Daphne – Original spelling, and as close an approximation of the French pronunciation as they are capable of.]
I’d like to know what you mean by ‘correct pronunciation’ because as I understand it, correct pronunciation is not just a question of a vowel following a consonant in the same way as it does in another language. It also means using the same accent and the exact same phonemes of the language in question.
The English have changed rendez-vous – I have never heard any English person say it like the French do. In my experience it’s closer to run-day-vu (or something to that effect. I’m sorry but I really don’t have the time to look for IPA symbols) different accenting and different vowels.
[Daphne – The most important thing is that they don’t pronounce the z and s and that they don’t spell it ‘rundeyvoo’.]
Thank you for these discussions, Daphne. If it’s too long to post never mind (I tend to go on and on) but I’d really appreciate an answer anyway :) Thanks.
Perhaps I can add something here to the great Ricotta AAArkotta Debate of ’10.
My father is Maltese and comes from a Maltese speaking family. My mother is British. We are working class, albiet professional from my generation.
[Daphne – How refreshing to have somebody speak like this, without chips or adding ‘and proud of it’, which reveals more chips, after contending for two days with working-class Maltese thinking I’ve insulted them by using that description, and getting all tetchy. The matter-of-fact English – I love you.]
My father says irkotta. But he translates it as ricotta for my mother. I grew up saying ricotta at home, which was English speaking. Even my father would say ricotta in that context. If my mum had said l-arkotta she would have had us falling about the floor laughing.
I have a fear of sounding like a ponce when speaking Maltese so as a child I asked for ricotta and now I ask for irkotta at the cheese counter and think I’ve got it sussed.
Ironically, my English has been corrected by Maltese chavs. I’ve been laughed at for saying ‘magnum’ with a hard ‘g’ and pronouncing turquoise as ‘turkoys’, bowl as bowl, etc.
By the way, I read somewhere about the bathroom sink issue. I don’t think it is only Maltese. We always called the sink, the sink no matter where it was located.
[Daphne – Yes, that was my point: that working-class people call the thing in the bathroom ‘a sink’ like the thing in the kitchen, because in the pre-bathroom era they washed themselves standing over the kitchen sink. So when the act of standing over something sink-shaped and washing oneself transferred from kitchen to bathroom, the name went with it. It’s a parallel situation with those who say ‘basin’ – pre-bathrooms, they washed themselves standing over a basin inserted into a table, in their bedrooms. Technically, a sink is a basin with plumbing attached while a basin is just that – the actual receptacle. But the difference in use comes from washing habits before bathrooms, when there might have been plumbing in the kitchen even if there was no bathroom. Such are the fascinating idiosyncrasies of language, and an example of how words reveal so much more than just their explicit meaning. Americans say bathroom sink.]
I always thought Maltese who spoke about a ‘basin’ as quaint. There you go. You would say ‘basin’ and I would think ‘how quaint’ and I would say sink and you would think NQLU. Maybe it’s working class everywhere not just here.
Another interesting word is coup d’état
i find no problem in discussing the origin or correct usage of a word! What i don’t agree is your implication that anyone who uses the word Irkotta (and i know many many people who say Irkotta) are peasants or working class – and i am saying that cause you are equating that with uneducated since i have no problem with peasants or working class. I don’t like the way you speak about people from different social strata. I don’t like the way you tie the educational level of an individual with his class.
I am no word nerd but i love to discuss word origins, correct usage of language etc but your arguments seem to be intertwined with a high dosage of classism.
[Daphne – The two are inseparable. One of the reasons we can’t have any proper discussion on matters of language etc in this country is because as soon as we get down to brass tacks – and that necessarily involves making distinctions between social groups – all the chippy people come flying out with their resentment and bitterness. What can I say? If you know many, many people who say irkotta then you know many, many people who are working-class or close to it. Of course, you may be using a different definition of working-class which is why you cannot see it, so there you go. Your really big challenge now is to find somebody tal-pepe (proper tal-pepe, that is, and not mittilkless with a sjut and an Alfa) who says ‘irkotta’. Then we’ll talk.]
what is inseparable education and class? You are right I can’t follow your argument well… maybe because i come from a working class… and proud of my roots!!!! The way you put it is as if the working class are a Maltese subspecies full of uneducated peasants.Just in case you were referring to my replies I am in no way full of resentment and bitterness! Why should I? Because you think I am uneducated because i say Irkotta instead of rkotta :)
Maybe if you define for me your definition of working class and proper tal-Pepe then I might start to understand you. But if I am understanding well you are saying that a real tal-Pepe is the one who truly speaks Maltese well… is that correct?
[Daphne – Look, I’m not going to bother with this. It’s like pushing an elephant uphill. References to working-class are not disparaging, but statements of fact. If it’s there, you call it by its name. That ignorance was rife in the working-class a couple of generations ago is indisputable. So was illiteracy. Mistakes in pronunciation grew out of this ignorance and illiteracy. It was because people were illiterate that they switched consonants around. You don’t do that kind of switching when you have to write a word and when you know how it is written.
That’s why truly literate people from families who have been literate over very many generations don’t have any problem with liquid consonants. It’s not their DNA that’s different, but their family history of literacy. Our primary source of language is the home. Words are passed down the generations just as other tendencies and habits are. So if the word passed down the generations in your family is irkotta and not rikotta, this tells you that at some point your family began to mispronounce it (because the people who say ‘rikotta’ are still around and haven’t died out), and that your family’s main social interaction was with other people who also mispronounced it. So when literacy in your family improved, the word continued to be handed down as ‘irkotta’ because by then it had become the way ‘we’ say it.
I’m simplifying greatly here, but this is basically how it works. Eventually, over the course of generations, the mispronounced word can wipe out the other pronunciation completely (rcevuta/ricevuta), so that all classes of people begin to use it and it becomes completely class-neutral. But with irkotta/rikotta we are still not there yet. The people who say rikotta (original pronunciation) are still alive and thriving and there are thousands of them, restricted to a particular social group. It is also possible to notice that those who say irkotta come from families with a comparatively brief history (in generational terms) of literacy. Let me give you another contemporary example: what sort of people say ‘lamenu’ instead of ‘almenu’?]
Today I went to tal-pastizzi and asked him for a qassata tar-rikotta… he understood what I wanted, gave it to me and told me ..Ha l-qassata tal-irkotta….. but then he’s working class.
I am considering taking legal action against you and this blog because this whole argument about rikotta and irkotta has caused hours of lost productivity due to arguments for and against.
By the way did you know that in Bormla a kolonna is called a kanolla?
The word is “rkotta” as is “rkant” (auction), “rkib” (riding), “rkobba” (knee, pronounced “rkoppa”), and others with /r/ + consonant.
We say “bajd u rkotta” and “il-bajd u l-irkotta”. But then we have “rikatt” (blackmail) not “rkatt”, from “rkatta/rikatta” (to blackmail). Interesting piece, anyway.
[Daphne – Oh baby, that’s where you’re wrong. This place is teeming with people who say ‘irkatt’ and ‘irkattajtu’ in just the same way and for the same reasons that they say ‘irkotta’. Maybe irkatt hasn’t made its way into some benighted dictionary yet, but believe me, it’s there.]
What about the pronouciation of ‘Vella’? Should it not be pronounced ‘Veyya’?
[Daphne – No. It’s a Sicilian name, not a Spanish one. I believe Giovanni Bonello had once written about a theory he had researched: that it was the name given to a very large group of (unrelated) people of Maltese origin who returned from exile in Sicily. A great number of Maltese surnames are that sort. It’s also the reason Debono and Tabone/a occur so commonly and the families are unrelated. They’re Maltese from Bona/Bone/Bono in North Africa – depending on the pronunciation. Caruana is common for the same reason: people from Kairouan.]
Interesting…and Galizia? Certainly Spanish but of Jewish connotation I believe, like every other Spanish surname in Malta (Toledo, Valenzia).
[Daphne – No idea, though I believe the ones in Malta came from Genoa (hence the Italianate spelling) but yes, were originally Jewish and from Galicia.]
I had read a similar story about the origin of the Vella surname.
The gist of the story is basically the same except it placed the original location of the exiles close to the Fiume Vella (not of Maltese origin).
If my limited geographical knowledge serves me well, the Fiume Vella is located approximately east of Rome and very close to Chieti. The story claimed that a town had infuriated the King of Naples who promptly exiled them to the Maltese islands. The natives collectively called them Di Vella which stuck through the years in its shortened form.
[Daphne – That might actually be what I had read. I can’t remember. In fact, yes, the surname in its original/earliest recorded form is actually Di/De Vella. There must also be reason why the surname is so prevalent in Mellieha.]
I apologise but I have no references available to back my contribution. It is an interesting story but I will not vouch for its veracity. I have no reason to doubt G. Bonello’s research.
[Daphne – I probably misquoted that research considerably, given that I did so only from vague memory.]
The family name Vella has been recorded in Germany, Netherlands and Spain since at least the 16th century. However, it is probable that there is no connection with the Maltese Vella(s).
One of the top Mafia families in Gela, Sicily is called Caruana.
[Daphne – Sicily and Malta were colonised from Kairouan. That’s why Caruana is a uniquely Siculo-Maltese surname, and occurs so frequently.]
Giovanni Bonello tells us that before the Great Siege all those who were unfit for war were transferred to the Gela/Licata area in Sicily.
Caruana, like Sciabbarrasi, Piscopo, and many other Maltese surnames are also found in the Agrigento / Porto Empedocle area slight more to the north of Gela and Licata.
Also, let us not forget the 50 Maltese families who went to Pachino in 1750 when the local baron exercised his jus popolandi and asked the Grand Master to send some “coloni” to colonize the swamps and marshland of Pachino.
Daphne it is obvious that Maltese is not your forte. Although coming from the Italian ricotta, through assimilitation in our native tongue the word has become rkotta in Maltese.
The i at the beginning is only added to aid in pronunciation (the vokali tal-lehen). We have many similar words ; we say lasktu and not lastku (Italian elastico), xpakka and not spakka (Italian spaccare).
Language is supposed to be a tool to serve us and not the other way around. If a word becomes accepted by the people over many years who are we to deny them from it. You are right, however, about denfil, petlor and other misspellings; these are examples of pure ignorance.
[Daphne – So is IRkotta. Same difference. I’m actually pretty good at Maltese – don’t let them fool you. You’d have to be pretty dumb to believe that a person who mastered one of the world’s most complicated and complex languages – and idiomatically, too, without being a native-born speaker – can’t get to grips with Maltese, which is so much simpler and so basic. Oh, and where I come from, we say ‘lastku’ not ‘lasktu’ – lasktu, like irkotta, is an NQLU identifier.]
Actually, yes the Maltese word is ‘irkotta’.
[Daphne – Here we go again. Come on now: what makes ‘irkotta’ a Maltese word, rather than a mispronunciation?]
From http://www.maltadairyproducts.com
Is Irkotta the same as Ricotta?
Ricotta is a typical Italian cheese made primarily from whey of other cheese. The name ricotta means ‘recooked’ in Italian since this whey is heated to produce ricotta curd. The usual way of making ricotta is to heat whey with a food grade acid.
On the other hand, the main ingredient of Irkotta (as produced by MDP) is primarily milk. Its production involves the use of sea water or a sea water replacement (water and salts). The Maltese name Irkotta is a corruption of the name of the similar Italian cheese.
Daph, so you’re a linguist and an expert in the Maltese language now? Do you happen to speak or write in Maltese, every now and then, at least?
[Daphne – All the time. I even correct the spelling on the posts that come in here sometimes. If I’m a pain-in-the-butt about English then I’m obviously also going to be a pain-in-the-butt about Maltese. I hate sloppiness in the one for the same reasons that I hate sloppiness in the other. Don’t make the mistake – as others do – of believing that those who speak only Maltese are the ‘fluent’ speakers. Often, they are the poorest speakers of all, because they are uneducated and their use of language reflects this.]
My thoughts exactly. By the same token, I would not make the mistake of believing that those who speak exclusively English are necessarily fluent speakers of the language. University is jampacked with students who speak solely English. I consider the latter category just as stupid as the one you mentioned, irrespective of how many academic degrees they might have. If you always lived in Malta, it is unacceptable that you don’t speak the language or simply stammer your way through a conversation in Maltese.
Just joking about the expert thing earlier by the way!
il-lejborist, you’re becoming a ‘ la boring ist.’
TROY, why don’t you get on your wooden horse and sod off?
Lejborist,
Jien ghandi hbieb li jaghmlu parti minn familja nobbli Maltija u jitkellmu u jiktbu b’Malti perfett. Ghaliex qed nghidlek dan? Ghax int ghandek il-mentalita’ li jekk int ‘pulit’ allura ma tafx bil-Malti. Hafna drabi min jahseb li hu ‘pulit’ l-aktar wiehed li ma jafx jikteb u jitkellem la bil-Malti u lanqas bl-Ingliz.
I agree with Albert.
The word in Maltese is irkotta. Ricotta is in Italian.
[Daphne – What makes it Maltese, SPTT? The fact that uneducated Maltese people use it, while educated Maltese people don’t? And have you noticed, as I have, that the very same people who ask for ‘nofs kilo irkotta/arkotta’ at the grocer’s then walk down the street to ask at the pastizzerija for ‘nofs tuzzana tar-RIKOTTA’? Do you know why? Lazy pronunciation. ‘L-irkotta’ is quicker and easier to pronounce than ‘ir-rikotta’, but then ‘tar-rikotta’ is quicker and easier to pronounce than ‘tal-irkotta’. Is liSPtick a Maltese word too, by that same reasoning?]
They probably ask for ‘ta’ L-IRKOTTA’ not ‘tar-RIKOTTA’… they do sound the same.
Dear Daphne
Admit you are not a linguist, especially where Maltese is involved. The real Maltese word for that stuff is IRKOTTA.
The fact that your family always said RICOTTA does not mean anything. And yes, I come from the poor uneducated masses. The fact that you don’t come from where I do does not make you an authority on the Maltese language.
[Daphne – You’ve just proved my point. Who was more likely to pronounce a word correctly – somebody from the ‘poor, uneducated masses’ or somebody from the 10% (at a conservative estimate) of the population who were properly educated two or three generations ago? The maid said ‘irkotta’ and the ‘sinjura’ said ‘rikotta’ but ‘irkotta’ is deemed to be the correct version because there were more maids than sinjuri. You just have to love this kind of reasoning. Only in Malta.]
Jien Malti bħalek u rkotta ngħid. Ngħidu aħna, il-pastizzi tal-irkotta huma popolari.
Xi darba ddiskuti l-kliem Ingliż kif jinbidel għax, ħa ngħidlek, qed tiffissa fuq il-Malti.
Ngħidu aħna, għalkemm il-hamburger huwa marbut ma’ Hamburg, bħalma l-frankfurter u l-wiener marbutin ma’ Frankfurt u Vjenna, l-Ingliżi interpretaw hamburg-er bħala ham-burger. U fuq l-istess mudell jgħidu wkoll cheese burger u veggie burger.
Olvin Vella, bhala membru tal-Akkademja tal-Malti, forsi tixtieq tispjegalna ahjar kif “kliem” (li mhumiex kliem, izda bastardazzjoni) bhal dawn spiccaw bhala kliem ufficjalment Maltin:
sliper
futbol
wajer/wajers
kuker/kukers
tajer/tajers
wajper/wajpers
hendawt
homwerk/homwerks
Homerk hi Grezz
O Gesu! Dan hu l-gherf KBIIIIRRR ta’ Olvin Vella?
Hekk jikteb akkademiku?
Il-pastizzi tal-irkotta huma popolari?!
Popolari?
Mela kantanti tal-Jurovixin dawn?
Olvin, spjegalna ftit kif bdejt tghallem l-Universita’ b’Fesrt Dikri siehbi!
Really, is this how an academic should write?
“Xi darba ddiskuti l-kliem Ingliż kif jinbidel għax, ħa ngħidlek, qed tiffissa fuq il-Malti.”
Why the rivalry between Maltese and English?
[Daphne – Yes, I know. I’ve said here already that it’s a strange sort of linguist who is motivated by the politics of one language rather a love for language in general. And a linguist who can’t seem to learn English – his written and spoken English are terrible – while living in Malta where it is used all the time, is…..words fail me.]
Hmm Daphne – what’s the plural of Delfin? Delfini? Dliefen?
[Daphne – Obviously, delfini. But I imagine we’re expected to say ‘dniefel’.]
correct reply daphne. Dniefel. neither delfini (in italian) or DLIEFEN which is obviously wrong.
Any comments from our local linguistic experts? It would surely be much appreciated…
Maybe Olvin Vella tal-Akkademja tal-Malti (above) would care to oblige.
At least they didn’t call it “ARkotta” – the worst version imaginable to my shocked ears.
Well, Maltese is being raped, let there be no misunderstanding about this. A classical example is when “raha” (he saw her) is pronounced “rahha” (like sahha), “taha” (he gave her) is pronounced “tahha” and so on.
Then there are those obnoxious words: timmijtja (to meet), tippejstja (to stick using glue), tinvita (to invite, when in fact it means to screw) and all the “futbols” and “tajprajter” and all this crazy literal translations.
Not to mention, of course, the academy-sanctioned “skont” which I hate with a passion and which I refuse to use not even under pain of death.
I hate seeing a language which could be so expressive being so savagely butchered even in official spheres.
Isn’t ‘skont’ the word for reduction in price (eg. skont ta’ 5%)?
I refuse to use it instead of ‘skond’ (I take it to mean ‘according to’, such as ‘skond ir-ricerka…’ etc).
I fully agree with you, Yanika.
“Il-Malti qed jigi invitat”…..
Here’s a question for our historians. If Maltese “ricotta” is so different from the Italian version, why was it called “rikotta” in the first place?
[Daphne – It’s Sicilian, not Italian. And the method of production is not that different at all.]
At least it doesn’t sound as tragic as ‘pene di spagna’.
Well actually it’s produced in other regions as well.
Does the fact that there is no Arabo-Maltese name for it show that it was introduced well after, say, 1600?
[Daphne – I would say after the 14th/15th century. I keep starting, and aborting, a research project on the names we use for different foodstuffs and cooking/eating implements in Malta, and what they tell us about how long we have known/used those foods etc. We use pure Arabic words for all the basic herbs and pre-discovery-of-the-New-World spices (like cumin), for example. We use Arabic for raisins when in Sicily/Pantelleria that word survives only for the grape variety which is used to make raisin-wine, but not for the raisins themselves. As for common error being enshrined into the language, one of the most striking examples is ‘water’, for which we use the Arabic word ‘maaa’. Error affixed the definite article to the noun, with the result that we have come to use a double definite article (l-ilma) when it should be just il-maaa. But when we speak about HOT water, we get it right: ma shun/il-ma shun. Fascinating. I love these things: a word nerd.]
If you need any help with the project just give us a tinkle.
[Daphne – Bit hard for me to give you a tinkle when you won’t say who you are.]
Since you’re a word nerd, here’s one for you:
We have tarja > Arabic ‘tariya’ or Sicilian ‘tria’.
[Daphne – I know that already.]
But then we also have, interestingly, something with no Sicilian equivalent:
fdewwex > Spanish ‘fideos’ > Arabic ‘al fidawsh’
[Daphne – Nice one. Thank you.]
Anybody who reads Andrea Camilleri’s Montalbano thrillers in the original language will be surprised with the proximity of Sicilian words with Maltese. For example azzaro (steel), giugiulene (sesame seeds), tebuto (casket), cirasa (cherries), seggio (chair), carozza (car), bastarda (cauliflower) etc.
Hekk jonqosni. I make myself known wara l-porkerija ta’ kummenti li kultant nghaddi. Ha nitlef il-ftit reputazzjoni li ghad fadalli.
You know my email address, so you could always send me a missive.
[Daphne – I thought that was fake, too.]
That’s my stage name as a DJ (private functions only). It was the product of the usual going-off-on-a-tangent jokes among friends, and it stuck.
I thought HP Baxxter was a German singer / DJ!
L-arjuranti jghidu arkotta!
Darba smajt wiehed jghid Lulufant (iljunfant – elefant?) u ohra tghid lumafuma (malafama).
Il-Malti DESKRITTIV: LUMAFUMA, LULUFANT
Il-Malti PRESKRITTIV: MALAFAMA, hrm… ILJUNfant jew ELEfant?
How about ‘weesreem’ windscreen, ‘dodgebord’ dashboard, ‘mudgar’ mudguard, ‘balldog’ bulldog but my favourite one is ‘fox tyre’ fox terrier.
Keeping with the automotive theme: horsepipe (hose pipe), challenger (battery-charger); and how about Labradog for a famous breed of dog.
Hi Ian, you must have forgotten about kelb tal-Lassie for rough collie, kelb tal-pulizija for German shepherd, tal-Pukk for a pug, safe-starter for self-starter, xikel for shackle, puncher for puncture, bangisijiet for bandages, stick for elastoplast, ghamillu tajt for fasten, etc,etc, etc.
Kelb tal-wolf or tal-alsation for a German shepherd dog and kapsover instead of shock absorber
it’s madgart actually
In Aquilina’s dictionary one finds that Rkotta and RIkotta are both enlisted and accepted as possible versions in Maltese. While with “Rikotta” the article is “ir-rikotta” as stated, it would be difficult to use the same with “rkotta”. So the “i” is used to help pronunciation. Try to pronounce “Mur gibli r-rkotta”… much simpler to say “mur gibli l-irkotta”.
The same happened with “Fran” (pl. of Forn). We say Triq l-Ifran and not Triq il-Fran.
[Daphne – People enlist in the army not words in dictionaries. Sorry to be so sharp, but really, it’s tough being hectored on language by somebody who makes mistakes like that.]
As for denfil/delfin, Aquilina accepts them both as good and part of the language. The phenomenon is not to be considered as some sort of handicap we have, but simply a metathesis of “l” and “n” (vol. I, p.231). It’s not something abnormal. Neither Aquilina considers it as a sign of lack of education or used only by the working class.
[Daphne – It’s not up to Aquilina to consider it. It’s a fact. Observe, and you shall see.]
For further reading: Hume, Elizabeth, Metathesis in Maltese: Implications for the Strong Morphemic Plane Hypothesis. Proceedings of the NELS 21. University of Massachusetts, Amherst, 1991.
According to Guze Aquilina, it’s actually Rkotta. And are you sure it’s delfini? What about il-plural miksur?
[Daphne – Apparently, Maltese is a free-for-all and we are allowed to use our own judgement, as long as we are working-class. Well, let me strike a blow for the tal-pepe crowd and say that we are allowed to use our own judgement too: the plural of ‘delfin’ would obviously be ‘delfini’.]
At least it happens in other languages too. To “google” is a proper verb nowadays. Also color is as valid as colour and organization is even better than organisation (according to MS Word!).
[Daphne – Color/organization are American English and colour/organisation are British English. It’s not a matter of better or worse: they’re just different forms of English. American English is used only in the United States. You can’t write British English and then slip in ‘color’, because that would be a spelling mistake. Most people wouldn’t notice if you use organization instead of organisation, though.]
American English has snuck into English used all over the world. TOUCHE´!!
You’re right because that only applies to Semitic not Romance words.
Bravo, Coqqu.
How about the plurals of serp, ċerv, kitla, balla, pinzell, rotta and a host of other words of Romance and Anglo-Saxon origin?
Judging from the above comments I am more than convinced that in Malta we have NO real problems.
You hit the nail on the head, Giovanni!
I am awfully surprised that no one suggested a referendum in order to decide the valid pronunciation/spelling of the Maltese version of the Italian/Sicilian soft unripened cheese known as ricotta.
Besides, even adhering to the Italian version but changing the name to ‘rikotta’ has already bastardized the Italian spelling in order to accommodate the Maltese version.
So, perhaps, a referendum is in order in order to find out how many still pronounce the cheese as ‘rikotta’ as opposed to ‘Irkotta’ and let the majority decide once and for all.
It makes me wonder how ‘tijm’ (team) and ‘gowls’ (goals) and ‘kowcis’ (coaches) seem so frequently in use without arousing the slightest whimper from the linguistic gurus who thus far have refrained from labeling the users of such words as ‘the common folk’ or ‘the working class’.
[Daphne – Oh, they’re DEFINITELY working-class. The rest of us stick to team, goal and coaches. And nobody says ‘common folk’ except in 1940s English Presbyterian novels.]
Had the working class and the common folk not restructured foreign words to suit the Maltese phonetic tendencies, our accepted vocabulary would be that much poorer.
[Daphne – Just think how much richer it would have been had they let the others have a go. But no. Irkotta and blekbort it is.]
In fifty years time you and I will not even be a memory and whether the Maltese refer to the cheese as rikotta, ricotta or irkotta would be immaterial but certainly one version would predominate and be commonly used without much question.
The article says “Thanks to the stupid title of an even stupider textbook”. Granted, if the title is misspelled it is a stupid one.
But, why do you say it is a stupid book? We used to love it in school. Reading was easy, understandable and quite interesting too.
[Daphne – Id-Denfil was ghastly. I’d go from a home packed with real books for children – the bright, brilliant, quirky books of the late 1960s and early 1970s which were published in England and influenced by the social changes of the time – to a classroom where I would have to read from this grim, black and white publication with dire, unimaginative story-lines and line drawings of children dressed like my parents (and with similar hairstyles) in their WWII childhood. Boys with side-partings, buttoned shirts, belted shorts and…..socks, for heaven’s sake, when all the boys I knew had floppy post-hippy era mops, torn jeans and T-shirts. And they all seemed to be VERY friendly with the kappillan, a concept completely alien to us. Our kappillan lived a few doors away and the only time we paid him any attention was to kick footballs at his departing back after he had gone past scowling.]
“We used to love it in school.”
Right. You probably know I’m going to have to disagree VERY strongly here.
Love what? The lies about an idyllic Malta? Smiling, clean, friendly bus drivers WEARING A UNIFORM? Dolphins swimming along the Gozo ferry when everyone knew they’d been hunted to extinction in Maltese waters? Dentists using foot-pedal drills at the “Berga”? (Ghax ilkoll ulied Mintoff fil-genna Socjalista).
[Daphne – Baxxter, at the time ID-DENFIL was being forced down my eight-year-old gullet, there were dolphins swimming alongside the Gozo ferry-boat. We children took them for granted, along with that other feature of the crossing: flying fish. What species are those? They used to whizz up out of the water.]
Really? I’m afraid I grew up surrounded by a brown sea full of floating turds, so I never saw any dolphins. That’s the problem, you see. For thirty years, that book was never updated.
Just about the only factually correct depiction was that of all mothers being housewives. Not quite conducive to economic and social development, but at lease closer to the truth in the early 1980s than spotlessly clean dustmen.
Can’t say dolphins were exactly frequent in my time (4 years older than you) but flying fish were and indeed we saw a turtle or two every now and again.
I also remember the dolphins and flying fish (I believe they are called ‘rundunell’ ) swimming alongside the Jylland and Calypso in my younger days.
The last time I saw a turtle (as “not in an aquarium”) was around 1974 on stairs next to Smugglers Cave in Marsalforn.
It was lovely, alive, enormous – in the eyes of a child – and about to have its head cut off by an elderly woman, presumably to be eaten.
Imagine doing that in full view in Marsalforn today – there’d be an uproar, and rightly so.
You’re comparing a book used at school to the Enid Blyton marvels we had at home. You can’t compare. Compare it to English textbooks at least.
What’s wrong with the book showing kids how things are supposed to be (a friendly parish priest, a polite bus driver etc). I don’t think they should publish Malta’s going-to-the-dogs to seven-year-olds.
Certainly we Maltese bicker a lot, maybe who is not happy with books like these should write their own version of short stories.
Actually both “Denfil” and “Rkotta” are considered to be correct, as are equally “Rikotta” and “Delfin”. At least this is what appears in Prof. Joseph Aqulina’s dictionary. He gives both versions as correct.
[Daphne – B***er Aquilina, honestly. You should see some of the words in Serracino’s dictionary. Tal-wahx.]
But one of the words for the soft cheese is certainly “Rikotta” and not “Ricotta”, which is, of course, the original Italian word. Ours is therefore (whether rikotta or rkotta – delfin or denfil) not a mispronunciation of the Italian, as some would hold.
[Daphne – Of course they are! Do you honestly think that the people of Malta spontaneously invented the words ‘rikotta’ and ‘delfin’ independently of Italian? The word we use for that cheese is valuable precisely because it tells us how late and from where it came to Malta – post-Muslim Sicily. Otherwise it would be pure and simple ‘gobon’.]
Now whether you decide to disagree with Prof. Aquilina or not, is, of course, an entirely different matter.
“rovelver” is another one – “trabixu”, “bongu”, “katnazz”…
One minute, one minute.
trabixu: OK, given that there is no word for it in Maltese, what do you suggest we call it? tire-bouchon? I’d like to see my compatriots get their tongues round that one. il-corkscrew?
bongu: It’s either this or the ludicrously artificial “l-ghodwa t-tajba”.
katnazz: Again, where’s the problem? cadenas > katnazz.
I agree with you, especially the bongu – we have become so obsessed with trying to prove Maltese is so unique that we try and invent words – another word I can’t stand is ‘mitjar’.
There’s nothing wrong with using “l-ghodwa t-tajba”…other languages have “bon jour”, “bon giorno” and “good morning”
As for trabixu and katnazz, it’s the same unfortunate story with “kitla”, no?
There are the extremes, of course: xikabosvers for shock absorbers, winstin for windscreen, river of moses for reverse osmosis and so forth…
Actually, the etymology of that word in our language is from Venetian and Milanese “catenass”.
If “l-ghodwa t-tajba” is artificial, what do you call “il-wara nofs in-nhar it-tajjeb”? I hate it.
“Unfortunate story”? What do you propose to call it then? “Il-korkskrun”?
U l-iehor. Issa Venetian, Milanese, French, kif tista’ tghid minn fejn giet?
David Buttigieg, thanks for expressing what so many of us feel. “Il-mitjar”. Jaqq. “Bdot”. Jaqq. U wahda mill-Grajjet Malta: “Il-Bahar Nofsani”.
[Daphne – My personal jaqq: “Merhba. Dalwaqt ninzlu fid-destinazzjoni taghna.'”This is followed closely by: “When opening the overhead compartment, take care that no personal items FOLLONYU.’ And even better ‘The emergency exits are clearly signed’. Now if they were signed by George Clooney I’d be happy to sit and gaze at them for three hours.]
The children always have a good laugh when we fly Airmalta, and always listen out for the “emergency exits are clearly signed” bit.
One would have thought that – so many years down the line – somebody would have pointed the error out to the company.
[Daphne – I did, years ago, pointing out that the word they’re looking for is ‘marked’ not ‘signed’. And I was sent an explanation justifying the word ‘signed’ because another airline uses it too. Oh, so that’s all right then. They really have to get rid of that ‘FOLLONYU’ because it’s a total joke.]
Catenaccio perhaps?
Which would become catenazzu in Sicilian and therefore katnazz in Maltese…
As far as I known the correct corruption of revolver is loverver rather than rovelver.
“The correct corruption.”
This is unique!
JP Bonello, sounds unique, but let us say it could mean that if you corrupt someone, and you tell the government about it, you will get a pardon. As though you never committed any crime. It is a proposal of the partit tal-irkotta.
The fact that it comes from the Italian word ricotta doesn’t mean we have to revert to using the original. It’s been used for quite a long time and it has become accepted.
[Daphne – Here’s the thing, SPTT. Accepted by whom? There is a significant and sizable section of Maltese society who find it completely unacceptable, the mark of ignorance, and who teach their children to say ‘rikotta’, correcting them if they come home and say ‘irkotta’, having heard it elsewhere. So what now – the Irkotta Wars?]
A language is a living and changing phenomenon. The time it stops changing it is dead. This type of word-formation mechanism and many others (such as back-formations) are means by which a language (not only Maltese does this) acquires new words and adapts for everyday use.
Kindly keep your judgements as to which sector of people are “uneducated” to yourself, as in linguistics you seem to be the “less educated” one, to refrain from using adjectives.
[Daphne – It is not up to me to judge who is educated and who is not. There are standards common to developed societies. A university degree, for example, does not make for an educated person, still less for linguistic fluency. You do not need to be a linguist to work out that irkotta is the preserve of the uneducated and rikotta the preserve of the educated – and I say ‘educated’ here to avoid using a word involving class which will probably drive you even further up your particular wall. So let me spell it out, shall I, lest there be room for further misunderstanding: the labouring classes and their immediate descendents ONLY are the ones who say IR/ARkotta. Everyone else says rikotta. You can work this out yourself by simple observation, though I will admit that it is much, much easier to observe when you come from the class of people who say rikotta than it is the other way round. This is because there are far fewer rikotta people than there are IRkotta people, so the IRkotta people don’t notice them and when they do, they think they’re the ones making the mistake.]
If it were only the word irkotta!
Listen to the broadcast news. Can they speak Maltese? During the TVM news it has become a habit to state some Maltese proverb. Very often they do not mean what the newscaster believes them to mean.
Then on ONE, instead of asking for the right word in Maltese they say the word in English. And once we are in it, what about stray phrases making you wonder who is the accused, the prosecutor, the judge!
The problem is certainly our system of education – the mixed ability classes in the primary level and then the fact that all students move to the secondary level in the same school, whether they are high, middle or low achievers. This system makes the students believe that they know much more than they do.
Then the university doors are wide open to thousands of students in this tiny island leaving certain jobs for those who are barely above the low achievers! It is a vicious cycle.
You are mistaken Ms Galizia quoting you “The word is RIcotta.”
Yes that is the word, in Italian, but definitely not in Maltese! We don’t even have the letter “c” in our language. I always grew up hearing “irkotta” and in my opinion that is the correct version of the word in MALTESE. Also it is denfil is the word used by “Flora u Fawna”.
As a very intelligent Maltese language teacher once told me “Its the people who decide the language, as they are speaking it!”
[Daphne – Look, 90% of the population of Great Britain does not speak the Queen’s English. Nevertheless, the Queen’s English is the official version of the language and it’s the one on which you are tested and examined. It’s the same in Malta: 90% of the population does not speak ‘proper’ Maltese, but the difference here is that because 90% of the population speaks that way, then it IS the official language. Majority rules.
Just because 90% of the population says IRkotta or worse, ARkotta, this doesn’t make it the right/correct word. Of course, you might ask: correct for whom? Let’s just put it this way: the people who say ir-rikotta mentally slot those they hear saying ‘l-irkotta’ into a different (lower) social category, and those who say ‘l-arkotta’ are slotted lower still. Words give away huge amounts of information about background and social origins. There is a whole host of such ‘sort people out’ words in English. Apparently, it’s the same with other languages. I once heard a Dutch friend dismiss another Dutch friend (they both seemed the same to me) with a sniffy ‘She says XXXX. Only the working-class Dutch say XXXX.’ And then, surprise, surprise, I introduced one Norwegian woman to another Norwegian woman. I thought they would get on well, two isolated Norwegians in Malta. But no. There was a distinct feel of ice. ‘She’s a peasant,’ one said of the other afterwards (she didn’t seem at all peasant-like to me). ‘The words she uses, that accent…’. So there you go: IRkotta marks you out as working-class and ARkotta as underclass.]
The latter part of your reply simply shows snobbery. This is the same snobbery with which people from the south of the UK treat the northerners, south of Italy vs. north of Italy etc. At best, the choice of words reveals one’s educational background.
[Daphne – The social divide in Britain is not north versus south. You’ll find that a Scottish aristocrat speaks exactly the same way as an aristocrat from Somerset. This isn’t about snobbery. It’s about stating facts. It’s not snobbery to point out that nobody in Malta’s proper middle class/upper-middle-class/aristocracy (such as it is) says ‘irkotta’. It’s stating a fact. It’s also stating a fact to say that people who say ‘irkotta’ betray origins that they might be quite proud of but which, on the other hand, they might be wiser to conceal, especially if they’re putting on airs and graces with fancy cars and nannies. ‘Irkotta’ is, in fact, a dead giveaway.]
At the end of the day, language is a de facto standard which people use to communicate. As such I don’t see how one can really judge “correct” or “proper”. You cannot gather data and test the word and see which word describes a concept best.
[Daphne – Bingo. The meaning conveyed by words – or more pointedly, our choice of one word over another – is not just explicit but also implicit. Hence, when you tell me that you’ve just bought some irkotta, I know that you’ve just bought some of that soft cottage cheese, but I also know that you come from a working-class family, or just one or two generations away from working-class which isn’t long enough to relearn pronunciation. I will know this even if you are, in every other respect, indistinguishable from an upper-middle-class person.
Sadly, if the powers-that-be keep banging on about ‘irkotta’ being acceptable, nobody but the sharpest social chameleons are going to make the switch to correct pronunciation. It’s this simple: when you go up in the world, you don’t carry on dressing like a truck-driver and you might even learn how to use a knife and fork properly (though I’m not betting on it, judging by what I’ve seen). So why the bloody-mindedness about justifying the use of words like ‘irkotta’? That’s a code which sends out signals, too, you know.]
I would add to this discussion the fact that there is a whole discipline, “Sociolinguistics,” dedicated to exploring the social class differences reflected by language usage.
Drrrrrrrr Licariiiiiiiiiiiiiii would happily oblige, Edward Clemmer, since he teaches the subject at university
I wouldn’t know about aristocrats as I did not live amongst any. I will assure you however that professionals from Scotland and England do not speak the same way.
[Daphne – Professionals are not a social class. People in the professions come from all classes of society. It’s only in Malta – and perhaps Pakistan – that entering one of the professions means moving into a whole new social class. If you’re working class when you become a doctor, you are a working-class doctor. I know lots of Maltese find this really difficult to understand, because they think class is about skola and flus, but believe me, that’s the way it is – just as you can be an aristocratic pauper who has never read a book.]
A particular example that had fascinated me was the word “outwith”. As far as I knew, this was not an English word and thought it was some Scottish peasant term. I was wrong however as the word even turned up in various technical documents I came across.
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/outwith
[Daphne – It’s Scottish English. The English don’t use it at all. Interesting, though.]
I automatically say “irkotta”, and I’m from the lowest rung of the social ladder. But I’m not proud of it.
@Hot Mama
As for Professor Licari [who makes it his point to say he teaches “sociolinguistics” in the Department of French at the University], I generally ignore his pompous newspaper pieces, and certainly his politics, or geo-linguistics, or whatever he claims to be doing.
Once upon a time at various universities, including the University of Malta, in Departments of Psychology, I regularly taught “Psychology of Language” and “Language Acquisition” [and in the beginning of the Chomsky generation, “psycholinguistics”].
My introduction to sociolinguistics was sparked by William Labov’s (1972) book Sociolinguistic Patterns. My former research group continues to publish and research: Daniel C, O’Connell & Sabine Kowal (2008), Communicating with One Another: Toward a Psychology of Spontaneous Spoken Discourse. New York: Springer Science. I have not been up at the U of Malta since 1996.
Lavatory but not toilet, sofa but not settee, napkin but not serviette, what but not pardon, how do you do but not pleased to meet you….rikotta but not irkotta
I don’t mean to intrude, but to be honest over the years the Maltese language has been subject to many changes both because of the various countries which have taken control over our island and likewise because of the fact that the language has result in a combination of all sorts.
[Daphne – You’re not intruding. Everyone is welcome. But if another person writes ‘the Maltese language’, I shall have to lie down on the sofa until I am calm again. The language is actually Maltese. You needn’t specify that it’s a language by tacking on the word ‘language’, as distinct from, say, what – the Maltese architectural style? So let’s start again: “Over the years, Maltese has been subject…”. That’s better.]
With words such as woxing-maxin [washing machine], skont and tal-iskola among a few, you have to shake your head for they are new to us still.
However this doesn’t mean that we won’t get used to it and it won’t become part of our language. Everyone it’s true is entitled to their own opinion, however, simply because you say a word one way and others say it another frankly doesn’t make you right and they wrong.
[Daphne – I hate to disabuse you of your fond notions but yes, there are errors in usage, spelling, pronunciation and the rest, and whatever the Champions of Proletariatspeak might say, the fact remains that ‘PANCER’ is wrong and ‘PUNCTURE’ (spelling and pronunciation) is right. And no, I will not get used to it. Nor will thousands of largely silent others. We will refuse en masse to say blekbort, pancer, pirmli, irkotta, sliper, and denfil, and we will know that we are right.]
And about your comment: IRkotta — as working class; while ARkotta as underclass; then because you say it RIcotta does that what.. make you noble??
[Daphne – Oh dear god. The distinction between irkotta and rikotta is DEFINITELY class-based. If you won’t take this simple truth from me, ring some professor of sociolinguistics and ask him or her. I spelled it out elsewhere in this ream of comments: nobody, and I mean nobody, from the proper old middle-class, upper-middle-class and what passes for the ‘aristocracy’ (I have to put it in inverted commas because a fiefdom that covers the extent of a few tumoli is hysterical) says IRkotta. When they hear somebody else say it, they clock him/her as working-class or as recently emerged from the working-class. This is not ‘just me’ saying it. It is a cast-iron fact. You can work it out for yourself by assessing all the people you know who say rikotta and all the people you know who say irkotta. And when you assess the people who say irkotta, don’t look at what they are now, look at where and what they’re coming from.]
I apologise if for some strange reason the phrase ‘the Maltese language’ upset you. Maybe it’s because it’s recurrent amongst the numerous posts/replies you’re received to your controversial article which has spurred many a remark.
[Daphne – I just find it so irritating and it was the nth one to come in, that’s all. Int wehilt ma’ rasi. I can’t understand why, when writing, Maltese people always use ‘the English language’ and ‘the Maltese language’ instead of just writing ‘English’ and ‘Maltese’ which is what the languages are called. If you were to answer the question ‘what languages do you speak?’ with ‘I speak the English language and the Maltese language’ it would sound pretty weird. Anyway never mind.]
However, frankly I couldn’t really give a damn; as long as one person understands the other; then communication is coherent. Besides specification or rather detail ensures that there’s no misunderstanding whatsoever. Nonetheless, seriously you sound like an irritated school teacher who simply takes pleasure in scrutinizing every single detail and takes pleasure and lecturing others on what they should and shouldn’t do. Frankly, I think you can do better than that.
[Daphne – Miss Whiplash, that’s me. If I were Miss Softsoap I would have a much smaller audience because it’s not as much fun. Clearly, you can’t pick up on the fact that I’m amused most of the time.]
Well I agree with you on the fact that some of the latest concoctions have been rather amusing and please note I am referring to solely those derived from the English language [yes the English language; if I’m allowed to even say that MISS]; however together with everyone else I am ready to accept them.
[Daphne – You’re allowed to say whatever you like, just as you’re allowed to wear pink feathers in your hair and some bright orange platform shoes to walk down Republic Street. Up to you. But repeated use of ‘the English language’ where English will suffice is ‘Indian English’ not idiomatic English. This is a free lesson. You can take it or leave it. In fact, I did think of producing a book: ‘English for Maltese people’, because the mistakes made by Maltese people are highly particular and the reason for them can be understood only by another Maltese person. I think that could be interesting. So many difficulties with the past tense, with could, would, should – no need to be so touchy.]
I’m afraid it’s your problem if they bother you. Sure we are all entitled to voice our views and that’s what we are presently doing here; yet criticism should be constructive and less offensive. No pun intended; but when you say that you know you are right – it’s is simply a matter of opinion.
[Daphne – You know, this is just the problem with present-day Malta. There is no wrong and right. There is only opinion, and one opinion is as valid as another. I know I’m right, Samantha, because this is one field with which I am very familiar. Now if you were to ask me about chemistry, I’ll say Pass. But there is no way on earth that I am going to challenge a chemist and say ‘That’s your opinion.’ Nor am I going to cross swords with a historian of the 20th century over what happened during X battle in World War II. If you insist on believing that correct usage is a matter of opinion, your English – I know nothing about your Maltese – will remain as weak as it is now. You are clearly not comfortable with the language; you know that I am. And yet you tell me that mine is an opinion which you can disregard. How does that work, exactly? I actually hate teaching. It’s bloody boring. In my experience, you either have a feeling for a language or you just don’t get it. If you have a feeling for it, you’ll pick it up just by reading and listening, and I mean really listening. That’s how I picked it up. And believe me, I never told speakers more fluent than I was ‘that’s your opinion’. I worked out how they used the language and why they used it that way instead of another way, and then I did the same. And when I chose whose idiomatic English to learn, you can be certain that it wasn’t the equivalent of those who say irkotta.]
Finally; the distinction between words and referring to them according to class sounds rather snobbish and ridiculous if I may add.
[Daphne – It’s not about snobbery, Samantha. It’s a whole field of study: sociolinguistics. You might have perfect manners and be brilliantly well spoken and impeccably dressed, but say Pardon or Pleased to meet you in England and you’re sorted immediately into your pigeonhole: several slots lower down from the people you’re meeting if they say What and How do you do. If somebody who said Irkotta had asked me out back in the days when, I would have dismissed him immediately as potential boyfriend material. He might as well have driven a red Ford Escort armata. Whether you like it or not is irrelevant. That’s the way things are. You can bury your head in the sand or you can face it. The thing is, it’s only when you venture beyond your world that you discover these realities. If you grow up surrounded by people who say irkotta, and all the cherished ones close to you pronounce it that way, irkotta becomes your identity. Admitting that irkotta is a mistake, an embedded working-class mispronunciation, is to indirectly admit that there is something ‘unsatisfactory’ about your origins (I wouldn’t bother, quite frankly), and so it becomes all overwrought and emotional.]
It’s like classifying the Maltese as “hamalli” and “tal-pepe” simply because of their language use.
[Daphne – You’re getting your carts and horses back to front here. People are not ‘hamalli’ (I don’t use that word, incidentally) or tal-pepe (I use it self-deprecatingly) BECAUSE of the language they use. They use the language they use BECAUSE of their social background. It’s the other way round. This is not only in Malta, but in every society the world over, except for the most primitive. When stratification develops in society, the language ‘stratifies’ too.]
I’ll be honest with you I have never come across “Irkotta” however I believe that it is through speech that a word comes to life thus if some say it one way and others an other; there’s no right and wrong; it gradually becomes acceptable. As for assessing the origin of all forms/sounds of the much debated term that isn’t up to me to calculate.
My friend whose mother is a German baron says irkotta…
PS Daphne, there is no such thing as a social class in this age!
[Daphne – A German baron gave birth and it didn’t make the National Enquirer? My God.]
Are you even trying to come up with a decent counter argument? Just admit it, you are wrong. You are not some linguistics expert, you are just a lawyer.
[Daphne – Where did you get the idea that I’m a lawyer? ‘Just admit it, you are wrong.’ The last person to say that to me was Inspector Anglu Farrugia, with consequences that continue to echo down the decades. I hope this won’t upset you, but I find it difficult to engage in debates about language with somebody who thinks that a German baron can give birth and that there are no social classes because it happens to be 2010.]
Andrew Azzopardi, let me give you another example. When I say that I love to eat “hobz bil-jam”, I pronounce it exactly like the English word. I will never say “gamm”, no matter how many people say it and even if they call it snobbery (which it isn’t).
So you are not speaking neither just maltese nor just english maryanne, you are a code switcher. (there is nothing wrong with it in my opinion)
Dear Daphne, has Dr. Andrew Azzopardi ever asked you to be interviewed on one of his programmes on Campus FM? Please, if he has asked, do not as I believe you might hit him with your handbag as he is so irritating and condescending towards his interviewees.
[Daphne – That’s OK. I can irritate and condescend with the best of them. But I don’t do interviews.]
I came across this lately: il-passatemp tal-“berdwocing”.
And now that the football season is here again, one wonders whether or not we’ll be hearing about the “werld kapp” (tal-futbol, naturalment).
I have fond memories of hearing about “Is-Sliema WAnderers” on the radio. It’d be laughable if it didn’t make us sound like such an uneducated country. Of course, we might really be an uneducated country and I’m just in denial. (I send at least three or four emails a week to The Times correcting their English.)
anonymous coward
Your post about Sliema Wanderers reminded me of Ira Losco’s Eurovision entry Seventh Wonder. She mispronounces ‘wonder’ throughout the whole d*** song. It used to kill me!
[Daphne – Wonder/wander. Now I get why Maltese people confuse the pronunciation and pronounce ‘wonder’ like wander and ‘wander’ like ‘wander’. The pronunciation would actually be the other way round in Maltese.]
@ Hot Mama: Oh yeah, forgot about that. However, I think the “worst pronunciation in a Eurovision song” award goes to Morena.
There was also that time, and I think this was when Lynn Chircop represented Malta, where the woman reading the results of the Maltese televoting announced: “Dis is de rizalt of de Moltijz vowt.” Cringeworthy.
@ Daphne: Well, that may be true, but I am of the opinion that the Maltese problem with pronouncing those words is a product of sheer intellectual laziness… just like a lot more that is wrong with “us”.
After two years of living in England and trying (very) hard to get my pronunciation right it still amazes me how much of a conscious effort it requires to learn to speak English properly.
Laziness?
What about the English trying to pronounce foreign names?
BerluscoWni
SarkoWzy
Ah! The Maltese are lazy; the English are industrious. With their diphthongs!
Language. It’s living and it evolves.
You know, Shakespeare invented lots of contemporary words in the English language. One example? Eyeball.
What I’m saying is that the evolution of language is inevitable and uncontrollable by any one individual. Complaining about language changing can be compared to complaining about a waterfall splashing.
In that case should we build a dam upstream, we should be able to stop it….
You are right – linguists and such insist that Maltese is an evolving language, and should it stop evolving it will cease to be.
However the problem is that the way it is evolving is disgusting, changing consonants, accepting English words and converting them by using Maltese spelling (dijvijdij from DVD always makes me chuckle).
Jamie,
evolving is one thing, degenerating is another thing entirely. Most of what has been mentioned here is an example of the latter rather than the former.
Not as much as Erin Serracino Inglott.
Not to mention the ridiculous words that are now officially forming part of the Maltese language, such as my personal favourite – and please be sure to note the sarcasm there – “maws” (computer mouse), “hendawt” (handout/photocopy given in class), “kejk” (cake) and “mowbajl” (mobile phone…correctly known in Maltese as “telefon cellulari”).
Ridiculous.
The ‘flying fish’ were most probably Swallow fish, Hirundichthys rondeletii – although shoals of small fish that leap out of the water to escape predators may seem like ‘flying fish’. http://www.fishbase.org/Summary/SpeciesSummary.php?id=1035
Now, where did I leave my anorak …?
[Daphne – It’s the anorak subjects which draw widest debate and most comments. The IRkotta post is going wild. Thanks for this.]
Let’s not go down the anorak street again….please!
and snippers for slippers
Bil-Malti, “sliper” (with one “p”, for tennis shoes and the like).
conolla for collonna
No actually, you mean for Kolonna
“Gozo Channel captain says suspension was like he had done something wrong”
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20100526/local/gozo-channel-captain-says-suspension-was-like-he-had-done-something-wrong
Dear Ms Caruana Galizia,
You are wrong in your linguistic assertion of the word ‘rikotta’. Aquilina’s Dictionaries are the yardstick by which Maltese linguists work. These dictionaries ascertain us all that the word to be used is ‘rkotta’.
May I ask you to be careful in your comments about the Maltese language since, as can be easily proven, you are not as erudite in it as in other things.
Sincerely,
John Ebejer
[Daphne – I’m afraid Aquilina was wrong on this score. The word is clearly and obviously ‘ricotta’ and the fact that the ignorant and uneducated masses chose to mispronounce it does not mean that the rest of us have to follow suit. Indeed, we should NOT follow suit and point out how it should, in fact, be pronounced. If Aquilina’s successor comes along a generation hence and insists that we all say ‘petlor’ or ‘pitlolju’, my reaction will be exactly what it is now, and so should yours.]
My favourite Maltese word is probably ‘cupsovers’ or ‘kuppsewverz’. A pint to the supplier of the first correct translation.
Shockabsorbers. (But I’m not into pints.)
altogether now: shock absorbers!
Shock absorbers.
I wonder if any World Cup games will be decided by “penaaaltri”.
Well done, gentlemen. At least I’m 99% sure you’re all gentlemen. Let me know when you’re next in Vienna so I can arrange to buy a pint for those who want it.
Next: ‘Irrudu nifthu l-ispakkxin’
What a charade. The real word is ARKOTTA. Any other versions? These are all mangled Italian words. In Maltese we say HAXU.
Although very few people in England speak English, I have never heard an Englisman refer to the charming friendly fishy as DONPHIL.
Screwing up words is a prerogative of us Maltese.
We always used the word rikotta in my family and I am from deep south. My aunt, from up north, used to correct me when I said zunnarija instead of karroti as she believed that she had noble blood running in her veins.
[Daphne – Ah, another interesting one. Zunnarija/karroti is an urban/rural distinction and not a social class distinction. You won’t hear zunnarija around the urban core of Grand Harbour/Sliema, no matter what sort of person you speak to. But round where I live now, everyone uses it. In fact, it’s where I heard it first. So when I shop locally, I say zunnarija and the rest of the time I say karroti. That’s also a Sicilian word, I believe.]
B@~+?r Aquilina ? U int min tahseb li int ?
Esperta fil-pulitka, esperta fl-ikel, esperta tal-Malti, esperta tal-Ingliz, esperta tal-arkotta, esperta tal-ikel (Well, Taste is definitely unrivalled and would fit the London Sunday Times), esperta tar-razzizmu……
Whatever it is , arkotta, irkotta, rikotta, gibli nofs tuzzana jaharqu m’and il-Kristal Pelis tar-Rabat, u zulli minn hemm !!
Il-Crystal Palace ghandu iktar ambience mill-Valletta Waterfront kollu. Dak biss se nghid. Ghaddejt mumenti sbieh hemmhekk, immers fi shaba ta’ dagha fahxi u r-riha unika ta’ sigaretti mhallta mat-tè.
U tnejn te’. Sorry love but this is not your social class’s place of call. You’d probably prefer somewhere naqr’ aktar tad-dojoq !
By the way, please keep us updated when Taste is due.
[Daphne – Sunday week. I’m working on it right now.]
Can someone tell me why we (Maltese) refer to the spare wheel in a vehicle as Stepny?
[Daphne – Mrs Know It All (as I believe I am known in your circles, and that’s one of the politer names ) will be happy to oblige. http://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/objects/qPgTiS8fQ6SeIqZLvZVfXQ ]
That’s like we used to call il-laburisti Mintoffjani
Daphne, my circles are Blue and Red like my family, some say ‘irkotta’ some ‘rikotta’.
[Daphne – Am I missing something here? How have ‘blue’ and ‘red’ become involved in a discussion about irkotta and rikotta?]
Whatever people call you doesn’t influence me a bit. In my time of life I’m not easily influenced and I don’t need to influence and/or judge others. If you respect me for what I am I’ll respect you and when you try to hit me under the belt, I’ll ignore the bashings.
[Daphne – When was the last time I did that? You, on the other hand, are content to hang around bitching about me on Facebook, which is really unseemly at your self-described time of life.]
Like you and unlike most of your contributors, I don’t hide behind a pseudo-name because my life is an open book and I never fear to express my convictions. Daphne, il-cowards huma dawk li jghattu wiccom, jixhtu z-zibel u jitilqu jigru.Tipiku it-‘Troy’.
[Daphne – I know who Troy is and he is actually a very decent man who contributes significantly to society.]
Troy contributes significantly to society and then comes on your blog calling people arse holes? Perhaps by society you mean the Nationalist Society.
If I make a list of the names you called me it would be taller than the Litanija tal Qaddisin.
[Daphne – No, not at all that. In fact, you probably admire his work too. Maybe he just doesn’t like you. Look, let’s stop this. He doesn’t call you arsehole again and you stop boasting about getting flights off the taxpayer’s back – because that’s what a free flight on Air Malta is.]
In this particular matter, Daphne (god knows how it pains me to write this) is right. It’s the same mispronunciation nonsense that leads people to say the most awful word, ever (even written in my kid’s Maltese books):
“pancer” for a bust tyre!
…and there’s no excuse that it can’t be pronounced because the Maltese have no problem saying ‘Dekcer’ for the thing we sleep on at the seaside.
if I were to venture my little bit, how would I then order a kannol tal-irkotta? Somehow, kannol tar-rikotta doesn’t sound right. Last Saturday we ordered a pizza ai funghi and the waitress replied, we don’t have them, with Mushrooms yes, but not ai funghi.
[Daphne – Where I come from, we’ve always bought kannolli tar-rikotta tal-BusyBee. My grandmother and my mother-in-law both made kannolli tar-rikotta. It’s kannol tal-irkotta that doesn’t sound at all right to me. In my growing-up years, that sort of pronunciation was associated with people who didn’t know how to speak properly, and that’s still how I think of it. And guess what? It’s true.]
Is “kannol bla rikotta” someone who is perhaps just short of 18 years of age when an election is called?
[Daphne – How would the irkotta brigade pronounce THAT? Kannol bl-arkotta. hahahaha]
Just as much as the plural of kannol sounds funny when pronounced/spelled as ‘kannolli’.
I have been around for a couple of decades longer than Daphne but when ordering tuzzana tal-irkotta, they were always called ‘kannoli’ and not kannolli. But then maybe I am mistaken or I come from a lower class of the Maltese citizenry
Does anyone know if a book about the origins of Maltese surnames exists?
[Daphne – The Surnames of the Maltese Islands, by Mario Cassar, published in 2003. There’s lots of interesting information about individual surnames in there, but not a comprehensive study in essay form that brings the information together. Also, I think more could have been made of the fact that some surnames which appear to be compound (two surnames welded together) were always an integral whole to start with – like Zammit Tabona, which is not two surnames joined together, but distinguishes the Zammits who came from Bona from all those other Zammits.]
That book should be handled with forceps while wearing an NBC suit. Surnames are one of the trickiest subjects in history, and the cocksure statements that are bandied about in Malta are just ridiculous.
Hell, even Wettinger is guilty on this count.
Case in point being that Tabone/Debono question. I found the earliest reference to “de Bono” (the chap being a Genoese merchant) in the cartulary of Iohannes Scriba, as he is known, in an entry for 1160. Now modern-day Annaba was referred to as “Bûna” or Buna only from the 11th century, and the name was Frenchified to “Bône” in the 19th. The surname Debono or Debonu (one single word in all cases except one) is first mentioned in Malta in the 15th century. “Tabun” is an oven, and may be at the root of the surname “Tabone”.
So there you go. Lots of error bars around any research on Maltese surnames.
Rkotta sa fejn naf jien!
Of course denfil exists in the Maltese language – look it up in a dictionary.
Sure, it might not mean dolphin, but it does exist – it means “buttress”. I’m not sure why they had a picture of a dolphin on the cover of that series of books – maybe it would appeal more to kids than some sort of supporting wall!
[Daphne – It just gets better and better. This is hilarious.]
The shape of a ‘flying buttress’ is not unlike that of a stylised dolphin cf old maps / brass door knockers, which very likely why the buttress is referred to as ‘denfil’.
It is ‘easier’ for us to say ‘dniefel’, than ‘dliefen’.
[Daphne – Really? Why? Is there a DNA stream in Malta which leads to the birth of people with differently-shaped tongues?]
I can’t stand English words spelt in Maltese or whatever it is! for example: ners, wajer, tajer, televixin…It makes my blood boil!
I took some sheet wood to my local carpenter some time ago and got invoiced apart from other works for ‘xol bil banzo’ …any guesses..
Bandsaw?
Bandsaw?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandsaw
= xoghol bil bandsaw
I believe that Ugo Mifsud Bonnici, when he was minister of education, started this free-for-all in the spelling of foreign words in stupid Maltese version.
African Americans from the “hood” (neighbourhood) generally say “aksd” not “asked”
Latoya aksd her friend, Blanket, to throw her boyfriend to the kerb.
[Daphne – Ah, so that makes it official American English, then, using Maltese reasoning.]
fuss about nothing…primary scope of a language is for communicating. I think everyone knew what the council meant with irkotta…are we coining a new word? I dont think so, no…we need to let language evolve…
[Daphne – Might as well grunt and gesture then. ‘Primary scope of a language is for communicating’ – I know what you mean because I’m Maltese too, but any other English-speaker wouldn’t know what you’re on about with ‘primary scope’. So you see? It’s not just about communicating. It’s also about getting it right.]
‘Primary scope’ hahahahaha
“L-ghan ewlieni”, translated literally from Maltese. Ahh!
That’s another sociolinguistic trait. “Scope” as used in Malta is understood by all Maltese speakers.
That makes it an element of Maltese English.
[Daphne – Sigh and sigh again. I understand what is meant but I also know that it is a mistake and understand why. I will never use scope for skop just because I know that others will understand me. There is no such language as Maltese English: there are only mistakes made by Maltese people who speak English. We are not the descendants of English-speaking immigrants (Australian English, Canadian English, American English, South African English). We speak it as a foreign language.]
“We speak it as a foreign language.”
FINALLY SOMEONE HAD THE GUTS TO SPELL IT OUT.
English is a FOREIGN language.
Thank you, Daphne. From the bottom of my heart.
[Daphne – Thank God for it, though. What would we have done without it? I would certainly have gone mad with boredom, deprived of all those books and films and Eastenders.]
Eastenders apart – which I find appalling (please don’t shoot me!) – I agree 100%.
But my point was – and I guess you will agree with me on this – that we are not BILINGUAL. Maltese is our mother tongue and we use English as a foreign language.
[Daphne – Speak for yourself. I’m bilingual and so are my parents and sisters. When I speak Maltese, I don’t think in English and mentally translate. I think in Maltese. And when I’m using English, I think in English. Throughout the day, when I’m not speaking, writing or reading one particular language, my thoughts vary between English and Maltese. I prefer writing in English and discussing, whether in writing or speech, complex ideas and feelings in English because the expressive range is greater and I find Maltese frustratingly unvaried in this respect and even clumsy when I have to slip in loan-words which sit there like inelegant monsters. I never read Maltese except for the (terrible) newspapers because the rest of the stuff on offer is so very inadequate compared to the standard and range of what’s available in English. And I’m certainly not one of those pretentious intellectual snobs who makes a show of pretending to enjoy something written by Alfred Sant or Frans Sammut. Crashing bores, the two of them.]
Perhaps, it could make sense to do a Fascistic thing like Napoleon did, and do away with Maltese and impose English as a mother tongue.
[Daphne – It would immediately become a sort of Creole. Impossible. And why, anyway? If you can learn one language you can learn two. The trouble is that English is not taught to children as a foreign language, and that’s why they’re not learning it. The syllabus and teaching methods assume that all children enter school knowing English and it’s just a matter of getting the rules right.]
Daphne, you are contradicting yourself.
If you are truly bilingual, the two languages are your mother tongues (or mother languages).
If one of them is a foreign language, then by definition you cannot be a bilingual.
[Daphne – I said that to shut Kevin up. I’m tired and tired of explaining that it’s possible to be brought up speaking both and that I, my siblings and my parents were. You’re expected to have one mother tongue and one foreign language and when you’re tal-pepe you get told that you speak Maltese the way you do because it’s your foreign language. I wanted to drive the point home to Kevin that people can sound to him as though they are speaking Maltese as a second language even when it’s their mother tongue, but that’s because it’s clearly enunciated. His argument is illogical, anyway, because one’s level of knowledge of a language has very little to do with whether it is one’s mother tongue or not. England is full of people who can speak nothing but atrocious English in a frightening array of sometimes incoherent accents. And it’s their mother tongue. People who are truly bilingual operate in both languages without even being conscious of it – accent and level of knowledge have nothing to do with whether a language is your mother tongue or not. If that were the case, Vicky in Little Britain would speak like her queen. They both have just one mother tongue: English. In Malta, too, there’s a significant number of people who speak nothing but very heavily accented and unidiomatic English. Yet it’s their mother tongue. Others can mock, but then they have to remember that there are hundreds of thousands – if not millions – of people with a British passport and the same problem.]
—
Ironically, Frans Sammut’s thesis in his books is very similar to your Weltanschauung. But probably you don’t like him because both of you have a very similar outlook on Maltese society, but from opposing ends! To me, this is the ultimate paradox.
[Daphne – I don’t like him for very different reasons that have nothing to do with his work. I find that kind of personality totally unappealing.]
Regarding Alfred Sant, I cannot say anything because I haven’t had the time to read anything of his as yet.
Daphne, I don’t need to hear you speak. I can judge by your Maltese spelling – which incidentally is not as bad as most others’ whose mother tongue is Maltese. The point is that your English spelling contrasts highly with your Maltese, which is evidently a second language to you.
[Daphne – Kev, I’ve answered this already. I’m self-taught in both languages. I know no rules in either language, unless you consider ‘i before e except after c’ a rule. I know no English or Maltese grammar at all – none. I picked everything up through acute observation. My English writing and spelling is so much better than my Maltese not because I know the language better – I’ve told you already that I know absolutely none of the rules in English – but because I read voraciously, stacks of things, all sorts, magazines, newspapers, comics, novels, biographies, history…When I couldn’t understand something – why this verb went there instead of here, why that turn of phrase – I would write it down and look at it until I had worked it out. It helps enormously that I have an ear for the ‘shape and sound’ of a language so I can tell when something is wrong – in the same way that the musically gifted are struck by even one discordant note in a symphony, something which the aurally ‘illiterate’ like me cannot understand at all and regard as incredible. So with Maltese and English I started at the same level, but now I am streets ahead with written English because I read so much in that language and nothing but newspapers and reports in Maltese. But even so, I am so far along that I find those newspapers and many reports offensive because the use of language (to say nothing of the writing itself) is so very poor and the errors are glaring. As a result, I still use a dictionary to write Maltese – I have long stopped needing one for English – and that’s why my spelling mistakes are almost exclusively in words I can’t look up, like conjugated verbs, dashes and apostrophes, and the like. The thing is that I am totally uninspired by Maltese books, and when my reading time is precious, I want to spend it on enjoyment, not reading as a chore. The only Maltese book I remember enjoying, because it really was very contemporary, was Il-Hbieb tal-Bahar, and I can’t remember the author’s name or find it on my shelves.]
…and to add to that, your Maltese spelling indicates grammatical mistakes that reflect your speech.
And you think I read any Maltese books? I must have read two or three in my lifetime. Yet Maltese is my mother tongue because it is the FIRST language I spoke, even if I don’t remember learning English.
[Daphne – Right. So explain to me how you learned to spell, without reading. Must be that tinfoil hat. From what I observe, including the comments that come in here and which I end up having to correct as best as I can (when I feel like it), those who speak only Maltese haven’t got a damned clue how to write it.]
Maltese is easy to write once you get the structure and the exceptions. One good book is enough to get the gist of it. Then there’s school, of course, with a few grammatical hints here and there by a good teacher once in a while… no tin-foil, I’m afraid.
This is a lost cause. The uneducated always won over the educated when it comes to Maltese. Let’s take city and village names as an example. Borgo became Birgu, Isola changed to Isla, Medina to Mdina, Hal Curmi to Qormi.
[Daphne – The best: Floriana becomes Il-Furjana.]
The list is never ending, but if this is true it really takes the biscuit. In Victoria, Gozo there is a road called Triq Vajringa. When I sought to get to the origin of the name from various Gozitan sources I was told that there was once a fire station in the street and the people living in the area pronounced the word fire engine Vajringa hence the name of the street. Very hard to believe but if true absolutely hilarious.
[Daphne – Let’s make your day: yes, it’s perfectly true.]
What about the origin of the verb “fajjar”? “Fire!” of course …
And Panormus became Palermo; Mediolanum Milano; Neapolis Napoli… what exactly are you saying here?
Il-Furjanizi joqoghdu l-Furjana. Uhud minnhom Balzunetta. La joqoghdu l-Floriana u lanqas Barcellonetta.
[Daphne – The Sicilians/Italians have one name for Palermo: Palermo. They do not have two different names: the original one and the corrupted version, used concomitantly and interchangeably.]
It is only since Miriam Dalli decided to start using Floriana in Maltese, that Furjana has been put aside.
Do you know any Maltese who say Barcellonetta?
Or Arcipelago?
Or Sant’Agostino?
Or Porta Reale?
Or Strada Reale?
The Maltese say Balzunetta, Arcipielgu, Santu Wistin, Putirjal, Strada Rjali. Ergo: Furjana.
[Daphne – Who else but the Maltese would say them? Who else cares or knows those names? Or do you mean something else by ‘the Maltese’? My family are from Valletta, so I really don’t need instruction in this regard – and it’s L-Arcipierku, not L-Arcipielgu…even more corrupted. But those are mere neighbourhoods, streets and a gate – it’s allowed, it’s acceptable, and it’s normal. With Floriana we’re talking the name of a town. It’s got to have a proper name and we’ve got to stick to it.]
Floriana is in Italian (and then English); Furjana in Maltese.
Like Cospicua (Bormla), Senglea (Isla), etc.
[Daphne – Floriana is named after Pietro Paolo Floriani. So there is no Maltese, English or Italian about it and it should stay the way it is. I suppose we should be grateful that the Irkotta classes didn’t get to work on Valletta – Vatella, Vlatena, Vlatiela, Vitella. What fun they could have had. I wonder how they missed that one. Oh yes, that’s right. Valletta was saved by being known in the vernacular, across all classes, as il-Belt. The city. Imagine what would have happened had that not been the case. Diehel il-Vitella illum?]
Can’t stop laughing at this Vitella thing!
Still Senglea comes from La Sengle…
Paola comes from de Paule – Rahal Gdid.
And even Valletta itself is an Italianization of the French surname (de) La Vallette.
So… why is it ok for French surnames to be Italianized (La Valletta – Valletta, La Sengle – Senglea, de Paule – Paola) but not OK for Italian surnames to be Malticized (Floriani / Floriana – Furjana)?
[Daphne – With the three you mention, the names remain fundamentally intact: the switch from French to Italian makes a minimal difference. It’s the difference between Anne and Anna or Ann, for instance. But Furjana is just a mispronunciation given flesh. You can’t ‘make it Maltese’ in the same way that you would have been able to ‘make it French’ (Floriane) because Maltese is not related to Italian in the same way that Italian and French are related to each other. To change the name acceptably from one language to another, the other language has to ‘know’ the name – not the right choice of word, but I’m tired. St Julian’s/San Giljan, for instance, but interestingly, St Andrew’s, a name given by the British, stayed St Andrew’s until it finally became Swieqi or whatever.]
Lascaris was Malticized as Laskri. De Rohan as Dirwan. So why not Furjana for Floriani/a?
[Daphne – Because it’s the name of a town. The Maltese versions of the names you mentioned are not Maltese versions at all – they are just mispronunciations which then became the equivalent of nicknames. But they would have no weight whatsoever in an official document.]
Very interesting comment on whether “Furjana” should make it into official documents.
But let me ask something. The Maltese “nofs” is a mispronunciation of the Arabic “nusf”. When we say “Nofsinhar” we are mispronuncing an Arabic word.
Why should Nofsinhar then make it into official documents? (E.g. Triq in-Nofsinhar, Valletta)
Still go to page 23 here: http://www.doi.gov.mt/EN/gazetteonline/2010/03/gazts/GG%205.3.pdf and you will find… “Furjana”!
[Daphne – For the umpteenth time. This is no longer an illiterate society (though you could be fooled into thinking it is). There is no longer any excuse for enshrining horrible errors in the language. The difference between nofs and nisf is insignificant. For a start there can by definition be no spelling error involved because the writing system is completely different. So if you’re going to focus on pronunciation, you might as well carp about the dramatic difference in the way the vowel sound is pronounced across Malta. Secondly when a place is named after a person, to honour that person, it is crass ignorance to defeat the purpose by corrupting the name beyond recognition. Floriana was named after a person, and if some people had trouble pronouncing it, that was their frigging problem. Their descendants have no such excuse. Show me somebody who can’t say Floriana. It’s more a case of not wanting to. So let people say what they like, true – but to enshrine ‘Furjana’ as the official ‘Maltese’ name….honestly.]
The point which almost convinces me you’re right is that, whereas I say “Furjana”, I can’t bring myself to say “Furdulis” or “Santa Vendra” – I HAVE TO say Fleur-de-Lys and Santa Venera.
If I remember correctly , the Times (of Malta) used to print “Valetta” instead of “Valletta” up to the 1980s. Anybody else remember this?
[Daphne – Yes. That is the proper spelling as it comes from de Valette and should honour his name. It was written as Valetta in all official communications, books, letters, newspapers and so on throughout the British colonial period. At some point, the LL began to creep in, possibly because the ‘shape’ of the word was unsatisfying to those who favoured Italian: ‘Hmmmm, it looks like it needs another L there.’
Eventually it became the official spelling – within memory, that is. The Times hung on valiantly to the proper spelling for as long as they could, but then gave up because the LL became so embedded that it began to look like they were spelling the name of the capital city ‘badly’.
The trouble is that the new spelling also changed the pronunciation. Valetta – quick passage through the first syllable and sticking on the TT – is completely different to the pronunciation of Valletta, with its heavy emphasis on the first syllable because of the double L. The older generations of the tal-pepe class still pronounce it Valetta, engendering mockery for ‘trying to use an English accent’. This reveals ignorance: the pronunciation of Valetta does not reflect English, but the original French name: Valette/Valetta. I still pronounce it ‘Valetta’ and do so unthinkingly, even while being subconsciously aware that this is different to the VaLLetta pronunciation I now hear everywhere. So thank you for making me think about this.]
According to the dictionaries of Aquilina, Serracino Inglott and others the proper word is RKOTTA.
So you are correct and Aquilina & Serracino Inglott are wrong?
[Daphne – We come from different standpoints. Their standpoint is that if it’s used then it’s correct, and my standpoint is that if there are two versions of a word – the version used by the educated and the version used by the non-educated, then one is correct and the other is mispronounced, and no prizes for guessing which is which.]
Horror on 897 bay 6.30 pm news. ‘Bullying’ translated into Maltese : BULLIZMU !
I’ve heard “buuljar” used on a Maltese TV station, possibly TVM.
That’s from Italian: bullismo…
Once I went to a panel beater and he told me ‘Aw ghandna c-cajt habib ghax ilqatt il-flowboat’ I think he meant floor-board. But I don’t blame these people because at that time the education was very poor.
We have to keep in mind that we also have a lot of illiterate people as well, and with some of them, it’s not their fault.
A word becomes influenced by the local usage and plain ravages of time when borrowed from another language. Thus irkotta/arkotta from italian ricotta, bebbux (NOT bebbuxi, which is something else altogether) from Sicilian babalucci and so on and so forth.
If that wasn’t true, all of Europe practically would be speaking Sanskrit. Read David Crystal’s linguistic books or other linguistic expert next time before posting anything similar please.
As for what you referred to as this phenomenon belonging to the non-educated, well I’m sorry but they outsmarted you since they have years of experience speaking the language against simple opinions. Thanks.
[Daphne – Bollocks. You’re comparing the development of language in preliterate (or illiterate) society to the development of language in the present, when it is perfectly possible now to compare and contrast correct pronunciation of loan-words with incorrect pronunciation. That’s why the English no longer change the spelling or pronunciation of their loan-words. Beef, if incorporated into the language today, would have continued to be spelled bouef with a fair approximation of its pronunciation. What we are doing to Maltese today mirrors the development of other European languages before widespread literacy. But why am I not surprised? This is, largely, an illiterate or semi-literate society – but I am perturbed by the fact that those who should be calling a halt to all this nonsense have thrown up their hands in despair – Canute before the flood – and have decided to take the ‘if you can’t beat them, join them’ approach to royally screwing up the language.
You’re another one who makes the unbelievably STUPID – for there is no other word for it – mistake of believing that because people can speak only Maltese then they are the ‘true’ speakers and better still, that what they speak is superior to the version spoken by those who speak other languages too. By definition, a person who can speak only Maltese (as distinct from a person who speaks Maltese) is very poorly educated, and so is the last person to whom you should look for correct pronunciation. The reason why we all say ‘bebbux’ instead of ‘babalucci’ today is the same reason my great-great-great-grandchildren will look at a black dusty flat thing on a classroom wall (if they continue to exist) and truly believe that there is a Maltese word for it and it’s BLEKBORRRRRTTTT. We live in a society which idealises and idolises peasant culture, that’s the problem – l-aqwa xi fenek go xi borma u naghmlu plejtu shih.]
Good point. But then again language is not so rigid as you make it out to be. It is, after all, spoken much, much more than it is written. Words can develop to make sense to small groups, even small groups like a group of friends, let alone a nation. And let alone over time and spreading demographics.
Secondly, thanks for assuming that I make that ‘unbelievably stupid mistake’. I have a Russian friend who in the space of 5 years has managed a great grasp of Maltese, save for an atrocious accent, which is way more than I can say for many people in many regions of Malta. So maybe I gave that impression, if I did, by all means my mistake.
In any case, ‘a person who can speak only Maltese’ is very poorly educated is the biggest piece of bull I have heard this year. We are talking about linguistics here not IQ, please stay on point.
[Daphne – IQ and education are not interchangeable. You can be educated with a low IQ and uneducated with a high IQ. Also, it is impossible to have any education bar the most basic, if you speak only Maltese – the obvious reason being that you are denied access to and understanding of the main sources of education, which are in other languages. Somebody who speaks only Maltese is stuck in the educational equivalent of a padded cell.]
Lastly, before answering things immaturely (blekbort? fenek go xi borma? I mean seriously), consider that now the proper way to correctly write English words in Maltese is to just leave them written as they are in their mother language. Simple as that. Not even using inverted commas.
[Daphne – You do realise that the ‘Maltese word’ for blackboard actually is blekbort, don’t you? And that it has to be pronounced blekboRRRTTTT, with lots of rolling Rs and Ts? Or haven’t you caught up yet? It’s not just in the dictionary, it’s also in children’s textbooks.]
Trust me, it’s not an ‘if you can’t beat them, join them’ approach. Just like, for example, McDonalds’ coined “I’m Lovin’ it”, which grammatically is atrocious but still stuck and entered modern usage.
PS peasant culture? Please read anthropological books on peasant culture for a proper definition. I think what you meant was illiteracy.
[Daphne – No, I actually do mean peasant culture.]
In your defence though, the irkotta-rikotta difference because of cooking procedures doesn’t make sense. Both local and foreign versions are prepared the same way from what I can gather. Not 100% sure though.
[Daphne – You don’t have to defend me. I know what I’m talking about. And any person with a basic education can see that the ‘irkotta cooked once/rikotta cooked twice’ explanation is tosh. The second bit is definitely correct, but the first….unbelievable.]
BLEKBORRRRRTTTTs are already extinct.
True. Now they use “wajtbords”.
As per the ITS teacher who was making irkotta cheese in Kirkop: the difference in names is because the Italians boil the milk twice hence rikotta.
[Daphne – You have got to be kidding.]
The word Stepney referring to a car spare wheel is pure Maltese.
The English version refers to an inner city area in East London and a surname.
It seems that pre WWII a British company based in Gzira by the name of …Stepney & Co sold and repaired car spare wheels.
With our penchant for screwing words stepney IS a spare wheel in Maltese.
[Daphne – Not quite: http://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/objects/qPgTiS8fQ6SeIqZLvZVfXQ ]
The ‘anorak’ joke was meant to be self-deprecating, in the sense that someone who calls flying fish by their scientific name is bound to be an anorak.
[Daphne – I know.]
Nothing to do with the ricotta crisis, which I agree is absolutely fascinating. You’ll never agree by the way, because ‘irkotta’ and ‘rikotta’ are class-based variants and as such highly politicised and prone to inconclusiveness. That said, I think Daphne’s right to find ‘lingwa tal-poplu’ arguments so dumb.
Don’t you have anything better to do?
This whole article is really rediclous and pointless.
ridiculous
…oops my bad, :)
kulhadd jaghmel zball insomma.
wait a sec: i have a spelling mistake – rediclous
ma tmurx tghidli, li ma nafx nikteb :’-)
The way the Maltese cheese is produced is different from the way the Italians prepare their stuff. Italian ricotta is not actually a cheese – it is prepared by heating whey, which is the fluid remaining after milk is used for making other proper cheeses.
Hence the reference to recooked and the origin of the name ricotta – you have to heat milk the first time to prepare cheese and by heating the waste from this cheese making process, ricotta is then prepared.
On the other hand, Maltese irkotta is actually a cheese. It is prepared directly from milk not from whey, so it is not recooked and the name ricotta is a misnomer when you refer to the product produced locally.
[Daphne – AAAARRRRRRGGGHHHH! Madonna! Do you people have a vote? That’s so frightening. Where did the word ‘irkotta’ come from? Go on, tell me. That’s right: FROM RICOTTA. BECAUSE THE STUFF LOOKS SO SIMILAR TO THE SICILIAN VERSION. IT’S THE SAME REASON WE CALL KUSKSU KUSKSU, EVEN THOUGH WE HAVE LONG SINCE BEGUN TO USE PASTA BEADS INSTEAD OF PROPER COUSCOUS. God, so exhausting. I mean, really.]
Jeez
And now, for something completely different.
La ricotta è nu dirivatu dû latti friscu, ca po’ essiri di mucca o di pecura. La ricotta, puru sennu un prudottu casiariu, nun si pò difiniri furmaggiu ma s’havi a classificari semplicimenti comu latticinu: nun veni uttinuta nfatti cu la cuagulazzioni dâ casiìna dû latti, ma cu chidda dî protiìni dû sieru di latti, veni a diri dâ parti lìquida dû latti chi si sipara dâ cagliata ô stissu tempu dâ caseificazzioni.
Lu prucessu di coagulazzioni dî sieroprutiìni veni a na timpiratura àuta (80-90°C): lu sieru veni perciò littiralmenti ri-cottu.
In Sicilia la ricotta è assai diffusa e apprizzata comu alimentu, sula o accumpagnata, puru ne virsioni “infunnata” e “salata”. A ricotta salata è necessaria pi fari la Pasta â Norma (piattu tipicu da cucina catanisi). Si usa puru pi fari la pasta câ ricotta o li ravioli câ ricotta. Ntâ pasticcirìa siciliana la ricotta è usata pâ sò dilicatizza, comu pi esempi ntê cannola siciliani o na cassata. Assai diffusa è puru ntî riggiuni italiani dû cuntinenti.
Perhaps “Irkotta” is being used to identify a brand name? Thus, if one asks for “irkotta” they may be asking specifically for Malta Dairy Products’ “Fresh Irkotta”?
Irrespective of whether “irkotta” is the correct Maltese word or not for the type of cheese this whole argument now becomes irrelevant, since people could be referring specifically to Malta Dairy Products’ own brand.
This is similiar to the use of “Coke” which identifies CocaCola’s “CocaCola” product; and many other products out there.
Għażiża Daphne,
Kieku minflok taqbad u tispara l-argumenti bl-addoċċ studjajt ftit fonoloġija u morfoloġija kont tibda tifhem għalfejn il-konsonanti likwidi jibdlu posthom fi kliem li ġej mill-kliem li mhux semitiku!
[Daphne – Ghalfejn? L-injoranza bazwija, u daqshekk biss. Ghalhekk dawk in-nies li ‘jibdlu post’ il-konsonanti likwidi jigu minn certu klassi tas-socjeta. Jew se tigi tghidli li dan kumbinazzjoni? U kumbinazzjoni – Alla jbierek – hadd mil-klassi tieghi ma jitgerbeb u jitfixkel fil-konsonanti likwidi. Iva, ahna tal-pepe il-Masters tal-Liquid Consonants. Ajma jahasra, x’pajjiz tal-class hatred (kless hejtrit?) ta’ zmien ir-Revoluzzjoni Franciza. Why do you people find it so bloody difficult to accept the fact that there are class distinctions in Malta, and these distinctions are reflected in the use of language? It’s only the WORKING CLASS – maaa, kelma tal-babaw – that has a problem with liquid consonants. My sort certainly don’t. Now ask yourself why, and it isn’t because our DNA is different.]
Ahjar ma nghidilkomx liema “captain of industry” u chief lateral thinker of Malta ktieb “then” flok “than”, illum, fil-Powerpoint presentation.
Xi dwejjaq ta’ pajjiz.
Why all this fuss about a single word. Almost everyday, I have to listen to local tv, radio/stations and excuse me, from supposed to be learned persons many funny words such as: abbord instead of abort, imbaghad instead of imbat, krowazzja instead of Kroazzja, and many many other words. To crown it all now we have the English pronounciation the Maltese way such as karnivil, kerils, kebinet,estownja, men instead of man, and many many other words.
My knowledge of the English language is not of the top grade, but many times I could not follow the new type of English being used nowadays in Malta.
A couple of years ago, one of my children came home from school and innocently (not nastily) told me that during dictation, she had to try to figure out whether the teacher meant “bad” or “bed”, “sad” or “said”, etc.
For a 7-year-old to notice the difference …
…and an ex-headmaster of a top-notch school told some 200 pupils to ‘go by walk’ instead of ‘on foot’. My eardrums nearly burst.
Maltese irkotta is actually different from Italian ricotta. The Italians use a wooden spoon to stir the milk, and tend to look east as they do so. We Maltese use metal implements, and tend to look south as we stir. Hence ‘irkotta’, a unique product, and far far better than the sad dog’s dinner the Italians call food. There’s more. The (authentic, genuine, folksy) natives ta’ veru of Kirkop use a metal spoon with a wooden handle … you get the picture.
Bhal m’hemm “blekbord” hemm ukoll “wajtbord”, u le – m’hiniex qed niccajta.
Niddispra naqra l-kotba ta’ l-skola tat-tfal tieghi, fejn issib ukoll kliem bhal “flett” (ghal-‘flat’, jew appartament).
So according to most contributors it is only the Maltese who screw up words. What about the English: in the English language there are thousands of words screwed up from the German language.
[Daphne – Yes, dating from the preliterate age. Now, the English incorporate their loan-words in pristine condition.]
As you might already well know, Malta and Sicily have often shared similar rulers especially in the Middle Ages, starting with the Byzantines then to the Arabs and later on to the Normans.
In fact what we now call the Italian component of the Maltese language or ‘l-element Rumanz’ was truly more an influx of Sicilian rather than Italian.
Sicily had been for many years a separate entity from Italy and it was only in the 1860s that it formed part of the Italian kingdom and as we both know Malta had already been a British colony back then.
The revolution of the media came much later and for a while only the intellectuals and the ‘alta societa’ were privileged enough to get an education in Italian.
The knights did introduce some new words, however they were more related to the arts and culture, so we must conclude that most of the seemingly Italian words can be in fact traced back to Siciliana.
History apart, if we compare words from Maltese to Italian we can see that they are visibly more similar to Sicilian, just to name a few dannu from dannu(sic.) not danno(it.); kunċert from cuncertu(sic.) not concerto(it.); faċli from facili(sic.) not facile(it.); the list goes on aċtu, azzar, bellus, boxla, cavetta, fliscun, catina, cutra, giuvni, pagun, and guess what rcotta!
Now Maltese prides itself on being THE crossbred language and at times I myself think that this is a huge mistake we make, and impurities such as denfil or pirmli should be avoided and possibly eradicated but for words such as rkotta or fajjar (interestingly enough coming from English ‘FIRE!’) should be kept as testimony of an evolving language and ultimately (call it ignorance if you wish) the ability of our ancestors to improvise and adapt to new languages.
When you get different social levels a case of diglossia is bound to arise – nevertheless I think that Malta is way too small for this to take full effect but if that were the case then we must stick to the logos of language viz. the communication of a given majority.
Diglossia was present in all Arab dominions in Europe. It is part and parcel of our culture.
In Malta we have diglossia, not bilingualism.
(Last time the word “diglossia” was used on this blog, a certain Battlefield or Dangerfield – do you recall his name? – used it on Mlateastaerr to hilarious effect.)
[Daphne – Total and utter bollocks. The situation in Malta is extremely complex: diglossia, bilingualism, people who speak only bad English, people who speak only bad Maltese, people who speak both badly and people who speak both well ranging all the way to perfectly. To further complicate matters, the two languages we’re dealing with are dramatically different in every way and not related at all. They grew out of cultures that couldn’t have been more different and so the word structures, idiom, whatever are ‘designed’ to accommodate a very different forma mentis. The situation in Malta isn’t unique. We like to think it is because that’s the way we are: up ourselves. We’re not the first or the only bunch of people to negotiate life with two languages and find it difficult, and the others don’t go around talking about diglossia or examining their consciences as to whether they’re truly bilingual. Go to Toronto and you’ll see signs up all over the place in both English and French – even on a lavatory door – because it’s mandatory. But everyone speaks English and you won’t get anything done by trying to speak French. Wales? Arabic – with its strict division between the classical Arabic taught in schools and the real language everyone speaks? Brittany? Sicily/Italy? South Africa, with its – how many languages, I can’t remember? If people are brought up speaking both Maltese and English from birth, then that’s bilingualism, no matter the quality or level of the language used. Then there are others who are monolingual and others who speak one as a mother tongue and the other as a learned language. A huge chunk of the population here can’t understand English at all, not one word – except perhaps ‘cat’ or ‘dog’ and simple things like that. Where does diglossia come into it?]
The impermeability between English and Maltese, with English considered as a model for Maltese. This phenomenon is best witnessed in the extensive use of calque, wrong syntax, and the pseudo-Italianization of words taken from English.
I meant to say “permeability” – lapsus (linguae, if you’ll excuse the pun!).
Daphne, thanks for the Stepney link. It supports what I have been trying to point out all along. Malta is in the distinguished company of India and Bangladesh .
I wonder what they call ricotta over there.
I have no intention of offending anyone so I will call it a day.
Paneer / panir http://www.recipezaar.com/recipe/Homemade-Paneer-Panir-Indian-Curd-Cheese-21956
IRkotta is more popular than Joseph Muscat, judging by the number of comments it has attracted here.
Dawn it-teoriji ligwistici tieghek missek tippublikhom Daphne, forsi ta tafx kif nibdew nistudjwahom fil-B.A. tal-Malti flok Aquilina u Vassalli.
Jiddispjacini nghid li ma jaghmlux wisq sens.
[Daphne – You’re boring me, SPTT. Usage of irkotta and rikotta is directly linked to social class. That is not a theory, but a fact. If you don’t believe me, ask somebody whose opinion you can respect, like a professor of something or other. Actually, the sort of person whose opinion you can respect has already said this here, but given that he’s anonymous, you can’t know. The last people you should be asking about IRkotta is working class or not are the types at the akkademja tal-Malti. They’d rather walk over hot coals than admit that they’re promoting the working-class version of Maltese or that – horrors, my God – there are different social classes in Malta. God forbid we should have survived the Mintoffian age with social classes intact.]
Nancy Mitford wrote extensively on the different usages of English depending on social class. Adopting the terms U (upper class) -English and non-U English, she cites the use of specific words or phrases (How do you do v. Pleased to meet you; vegetables v. greens) as well as pronunciation (either [the first syllable rhyming with eye] v. either [the first syllable pronounced as ‘ee’], as clear indicators of social extraction.
[Daphne – Yes, I know. And the English, of all social classes, enjoyed reading it and accepted it in a matter-of-fact way, and with interest. It’s still quoted today. Nobody accused her of being a snobby bitch who thinks she’s special and what does she know because there are no social classes and how dare she say that people who say pleased to meet you are non-U.]
@ K Caruana
Not Hal-Kirkop, but Hal Kirkop
Also, what about altar and artal?
[Daphne – Missed that one. More slippery liquid consonants. tsk tsk.]
I forgive myself. I thought you where a lawyer and a blogger.
I do not get your point though saying that a baron can’t have children, why not?
[Daphne – You forgive yourself? That’s nice. I wish I could forgive myself sometimes. Of course a baron can have children, but a baron can’t give birth or be a mother. Barons are men.]
baroness whatever, you are still trying to avoid answering me…
[Daphne – No, I’m not avoiding answering you. I just don’t agree with you. You say there are no social classes when there patently and obviously are, so much so that to this day people continue to marry within them. Why? Because marriage is complicated enough without also having to negotiate the difficulties thrown up by differences in social class which make for differences in attitude, speech, behaviour and a zillion other things. And it’s not just tal-pepe people refusing to consider a relationship with a working-class person, I can tell you. Somebody I know had his heart broken terribly by a young woman who called off their relationship because his family were too smart for her, she said, and she felt completely ill at ease.]
You can’t judge a person just based on the way the person speaks. A person can use dialect and be considered “high class”. There are a number of factors you need to consider when classifying people. The use language is not one of the factors.
You have no right to label a person on anything without even knowing them!
[Daphne – You just don’t get it, do you. Use of language is the mother of all social identifiers. One example:those who say ‘high class’ are instantly identifiable as being anything but – though not by themselves. It’s a minefield, believe me. So let’s stay out of it.]
Does the way people say irkotta/ricotta really have an effect on how comfortably you sleep at night?
[Daphne – Not at all, as long as I don’t have to sleep with somebody who says irkotta.]
So why are you up at 1:17am replying to all these comments?
[Daphne – Because if I don’t finish them tonight I’ll have to do them when I wake up, and I have a full day ahead working on a magazine. Also, I am not working-class. Only working-class people are programmed to sleep early and rise early, for reasons to do with having to be at work roughly at the crack of dawn. I say this purely to get up your nose as you are an annoying person, but it’s true. Only people who need to wake early go to bed early. When you’re free to rise at 9am, you’re free to sleep at 2am. It’s also the reason working class people eat early and non-working class people have supper at 9pm – because they go to bed at around 1am. I feel like I’m discussing alien species here. I hadn’t realised your lot actually believe that everyone else lives like you and sticks to your patterns and methods. A bit like the little rich girl who thought all little girls have personal bodyguards – but in reverse. Yes, Andrea, out here among the ghastly tal-pepe, people actually go to bed in the -hush – early hours.]
This is a very interesting subject to discuss. The evolution of languages has been debated since just about the beginnings of language itself.
I believe you are absolutely correct with your use of codeswitching. One can use “hobz bil-jam” as proper structure along with “thanks” which is used frequently instead of “grazzi”. However, we should be careful as this could lead to Maltese citizens using both languages interchangeably and not grasping either.
The Maltese language has evolved substantially over the centuries and a very interesting aspect is what is termed as “l-aglutinazzjoni tal-artiklu”.
A lot of lexis which was introduced throughout the many periods that form part of our history with examples such as “laring” , “ilma” as well as adjectives such as “lemin” all evolved accordingly. “ilma” started out as “ma” and evidence of this is the word “mishun” which was previously noted as “mashun”.
One instance in which the word “irkotta” is used constantly is naturally in our local cuisine; namely “pastizzi tal-irkotta”. The prefix “ir” associated with the word is simply there as an evolutionary result of our language just as “informazione” in Maltese is “informazzjoni”.
Furthermore “irkotta” has been used as a term before circa 1931 when Maltese was properly formulated so I believe it should form part of the Maltese language as it is.
So really we ought to truly be proud of the flexibility of our language. Ninu Cremona being a famous linguist claimed that a word can only fit within a language if it adopts the accent of the language in question.
[Daphne – Here we go again: whose accent? Mine, or the accent of somebody down at the docks? They’re both Maltese accents. One is a despised minority accent (mine) and the other is a majority working-class accent.]
But what about the grammatical aspect which I provided to you with examples? I really believe this is an interesting topic. This isn’t really a question of accent but also of structure as ricotta and irkotta are structurally different.
The Maltese language was a language of the working class and irkotta is a word which has been an intrinsic part of the language for over the past 100 years so I really need to be enlightened why it should be changed after all this time. It fits perfectly as part of Maltese grammar as I have explained earlier.
[Daphne – Not so. My family haven’t been working-class for some 300 years, and they speak Maltese, not Italian and all that nonsense. This business about Maltese being the language of the working-class is total rubbish. It patently cannot have been, given that it was the language of the Siculo-Arabs who settled here (‘the Maltese’). I very much doubt that the islands were colonised exclusively by porters and street-hawkers who just couldn’t wait to get away from Palermo.
The real Maltese working-class was formed from much later migrations from Sicily who spoke a different language – Sicilian – which is probably why great swathes of the present working-class speak such terrible Maltese: they were derived from later waves of immigration and it was not their language. Rural peasants, like the very old, very posh families, speak very correct Maltese that clearly has a far more coherent sound and structure than the ‘mash’ spoken by the urban working-class.
These groups of people – and be clear in your mind that rural peasants are not working-class but another class of people altogether – have almost certainly been speaking the language for much longer than the descendants of the 16th/17th century arrivals from Sicily. We have been misled (or politically brainwashed) into thinking that the urban working-class are the true owners of Maltese when in fact they are not. They are the Johnny-Come-Latelies who had to learn it fast and learned it badly.]
@ Daphne
May I suggest that you publish a book or magazine about these subjects because from what I can see there is plenty of confusion on our language, cultural origins etc. even at academic level. It seems that our history is still subject to gross subjectivity. Take for instance St. Paul’s Shipwreck, the French period, and so on so forth.
[Daphne – That’s another project for my ‘retirement’ years. Bit hard to take a sabbatical to do that now, what will all these bills pouring in.]
The fact that you constantly bring in class into your pathetic arguments just shows that you believe you’re above everyone else here.
[Daphne – Actually, I don’t. I’m just totally pragmatic and realistic. I wasn’t raised on all that socialist brainwashing rubbish so I can see society for what it is: exactly what it was before Mintoff left off, except that because of the changes since 1987, the working-classes now have a great deal of disposable income, much better education and the accroutements of middle-class life, and allelujah for that. But they’re still marrying each other and the tal-pepe people are still marrying each other too. How do they spot and identify each other? There you go: there are social classes. You can rail about it and gnash your teeth, but you can’t do anything about it unless you have a couple of guillotines and some Bolsheviks to hand to do with death what social engineering can’t do in the short term. Over generations, today’s working-classes-with-money-and-education will become the stolid bourgeoisie of tomorrow and so on and on. That’s the way it goes.]
Let me guess, you’re under the impression that anyone giving you a half-decent counterargument is simply ‘hamallu’.
[Daphne – Only chavs describe others as hamalli, think that tal-pepe people talk about hamalli, or believe that they are being seen as hamalli. On the rare occasions I heard that word used at home, it was to describe a particular type of behaviour in an individual, and not as a group noun for a class of people. That’s the chav interpretation. I appreciate half-decent counter-arguments. In fact, I love them. But insisting that there is no class distinction in the usage of irkotta and rikotta is not a half-decent counter-argument. It is blatant nonsense.]
Oh dear, I can speak Maltese, how shallow of me. [Daphne – Jolly good. That makes two of us.] I should start going to bed at 5am from now on lest I be classified as a ‘working class’ citizen. How embarrassing, the very thought of it is making me blush, excuse me while I set my alarm clock, I don’t want to sink into the lower class for rising an hour early!
[Daphne – That kind of chippy sarcasm is another instant class identifier, but don’t bite me for saying so. Have some style, for god’s sake. Incidentally, you’re already in the ‘lower class’ so you can’t sink into it. I can tell by the multifarious clues in the way you write and your attitude. Language communicates a hell of a lot more than you think it does. Take my advice – you’ll be a lot lighter and fly a lot faster without those chips. Chips are grotesque and they deform one’s personality.]
accroutements? accoutrements, you mean.
An excerpt from ‘Benna Dairy Products’ FAQ.
“ Is Irkotta the same as Ricotta?
Ricotta is a typical Italian cheese made primarily from whey of other cheese. The name ricotta means ‘recooked’ in Italian since this whey is heated to produce ricotta curd. The usual way of making ricotta is to heat whey with a food grade acid.
On the other hand, the main ingredient of Irkotta (as produced by MDP) is primarily milk. Its production involves the use of sea water or a sea water replacement (water and salts). The Maltese name Irkotta is a corruption of the name of the similar Italian cheese.”
The divisions among classes in the 18th Century varied by the person describing the classes. An interesting description is that by Daniel Defoe (Quoted from Porter, English Society, pp. 67-8).
1. The great, who live profusely
2. The rich, who live plentifully
3. The middle sort, who live well
4. The working trades, who labour hard, but feel no want
5. The country people, farmers, etc. who fare indifferently
6. The poor, who fare hard
7. The miserable that really pinch and suffer want.There were very few people in the highest class, the nobility. There were many more people in each of the lower classes such that the majority of the population was in the lower classes. The upper-class women on which we have focused would primarily have been of the middle and high class in this description (Leppert, 9).
And in Malta today classes are distinguished by their political affiliations and beliefs as well as to whether one says Irkotta or Rikotta .
Of all the nicer places in the world why did my parents drop me here?
[Daphne – You’d have been much worse off in the British Isles, Charles. Now that’s a social minefield. Things have become a lot more complicated since Defoe’s day. Now you can be great and live profusely while still being derided and despised for being a chav Scouser, as many a footballer’s wife has discovered.]
You forgot the arse lickers, who travel free.
Troy ,not just free but also by way of style. Accommodation-wise nothing less than five stars for which we get 50% discount. Wouldn’t you lick arses for those conditions?
[Daphne – God, Charles, you’re such a bloody chav.]
PS. We also get good discounts on theatre tickets but I don’t think that you will envy us for that.
And in Malta we get free drinks and meals whenever we like at two four-star hotels I’m sure you know which ones.
How do you feel now?
An arse licking Chav . And I keep coming back for more. HI HI HI
TROY, then there are the Great Leaders, who are tardy people, whose travel to Australia is paid for by the ALP, do their check in one hour late, and as a reward, get upgraded from economy to first class for free.
Too true
211 comments on ricotta or whatever we should call it! This is getting as hot as Miss Piggy’s pastizzi tal-haxu.
In the really interesting blog I noticed the word “NQLU” – could someone expain this, please? as I cannot decipher it – thanks.
[Daphne – Not Quite Like Us. Though I strongly suspect that after this on-line fracas, a new term is going to enter the vernacular to express this same sentiment: INR (Irkotta Not Rikotta).]
The letters INR are also used for blood tests which are carried out on people taking Warfarin.
Thanks, Daphne for the clarification. The word is “RICOTTA” because it is Italian and it should be kept that way, just like pizza and other foreign words. Why try to make foreign words our own. The present Maltese language set-up is a farce – nothing but one big farce.
Xugaman? And how about ‘ karti ta l-imsieh’ for toilet paper?
[Daphne – Xugaman would be a problem if it were to start being mispronounced as xuganam, with the liquid consonants switched. Other than that, it’s just the initial and final vowel sound which has been dropped, which is completely acceptable – with regard to the final vowel, it happens even in regional dialects of the original language, Italian. As for ‘karti tal-msieh’, nobody says that in real life. I’ve been shopping at supermarkets all over Malta for 25 years, and I’ve never heard anyone say anything other than ‘it-toilet paper’.]
Daphne what is boring me is your obsession with social class.
[Daphne – I think you will find that I am not the one who is obsessed. The ones who are obsessed are the ones who insist that there is no such thing. The rest of us just get on with it, and only rise to the bait when people come along and insist on making it the elephant in the room and the thing that dare not speak its name. I never actually think about it unless I have reason to – like discussing who says irkotta and who doesn’t.]
A language belongs to “the people”.
[Daphne – Oh god. Cue the red shirts and Astrid Vella.]
Now, if 99% of them are working class, mittlekless or chavs or whichever title (not that I consider myself a chav but I’m humoring you here) then it is they who are going to dictate how the language evolves and their speech patterns.
[Daphne – “Not that I consider myself a chav”. Here we go again. It’s not up to you to decide what social class you are. Others decide that for you. There are myriad ways of sorting these things out, and each society has its own, though there are often remarkable similarities, which is why somebody from the equivalent of Eastenders could meet and marry the equivalent from Malta and get on like a house on fire – there have been countless such marriages, in fact. There are all kinds of social signifiers which are picked up by others. It’s pointless going on about it because you’re determined to pretend that these things don’t exist.]
These are not theories I invented myself Daphne, but respected linguistic basics. Incidentally a very respected linguist who in a member of the Kunsill tal-Malti, the only authorised body when it comes to the Maltese language did write on your blog claiming the word is IRKOTTA and giving his reasons, but I presume you took him for “just another chav”.
[Daphne – Actually, he is not a chav. Chavs are working-class people who revel in the trappings of material wealth. I doubt Olvin Vella does that. But he is definitely working-class. His first name tells me that. And he’s not much of a linguist, either, or perhaps he’s just driven by the wrong motives rather than love for language, because he makes a point of not using English and when he does, it’s terrible. How hard can it be to learn some idiomatic English, for heaven’s sake? It shouldn’t be hard if you’re a real linguist, and if you’re a real linguist, you’d want to – especially if you live and work in Malta where English is part of daily life.]
insertion…..”whichever title you wish to bestow on them/us
Another thing which no one seems to have pointed out. The word if IRKOTTA noe RKOTTA. Since it comes from RICOTTA which is italian not semitic we cannot drop the ‘i’ since it is not an “i tal-lehen” but part of the “stemma”.
Some examples are inflssi not nfissi and imperattiv not mperattiv. The i at the beginning can only be dropped if the word is of semitic origin.
Daphne qalbi, rikotta, ricotta, irkotta, why worry jahasra. Issa mhux xorta tal-hanut, il-Maxims ser jifmek meta tghidlu – tuzzana pastizi ta l-irkotta (ta r-rikotta)?
[Daphne – Ah, but they don’t think THEY will be understood. Here’s an interesting thing: waiting staff at cafes (provided they are Maltese and not, say, Bulgarian) will say ‘rikotta’ to tourists and people they think are ‘posh’ and irkotta to everyone else. Fascinating.]
Joking aside, not long ago, I got a sudden uncontrollable urge to wolf down some of those killer fat-laden (but very scrumptious), pastizzi, (hsibtni pregnant, mbad ftakart li jien ragel :P).
I was near Carters supermarket in Paola and since there’s a Maxims health shop there, I told the attendant, two irkotta please.
He retorts, tnejn Arkotta?
I stammered back, Iva, zewg pastizzi tal-irkotta please – thinking, is he joking saying Arkotta? Well he was dead serious. Well I didn’t think much of it while feasting on my one-way ticket to a by-pass operation.
[Daphne – Any minute now and that nice place in Furjana is going to be called Gnien Rigotti.]
Can’t believe this topic has more comments than other far more important issues. Oh well, my take is that most mangled words come from an imprecise parroting of foreign words. My favourite is ‘spuction’. God knows how many times I tried to buy an ‘inspection box’ only to be met by a blank stare until I say ‘spuction’.
Dear all,
Kindly note that Irkotta is different from Ricotta as you are saying.
Please be informed well before publishing such stupidity.
Please refer to this website
http://www.maltadairyproducts.com/catalog/index.php?act=search&search=1&perpage=40&lfield1_match=&lfield3_keyword=cheese&sort_order=lfield9%2Cforward%2C123&button=Search
Thanks and regards,
Many a Maltese dictionary contain/ed words I would never dream of using. “Blubejbi” is one of them.
Well if Benna say it, it must be so!
This beats the lot – timesofmalta.com –
“Residents’ association objects to World Cap carcades”
I hope it’s a typo but having said that the ‘a’ is so far from the ‘u’ and I would expect a glaring typo like that to be corrected within seconds!
I have a screenshot if they change the headline by the time you see it!
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20100527/local/sra-calls-for-action-on-illegal-misuse-of-car-horns
They must have noticed, because it’s since been changed.
Well, yes, I posted a comment under the article straight away (wish I hadn’t). Needless to say they didn’t publish the comment either.
According to our local experts, difference between ricotta and irkotta is the processing methods. While in Italy, the milk is cooked for the production of cheese as the primary product, whey (xorrox) is recooked to produce the secondary product – ricotta. However in Malta, the milk is cooked for the production of irkotta as a primary product.
So, in terms to specify and to stress the difference between Ricotta and Irkotta, such works will help the clients to be more focused on the type of product, that s/he would like to buy. If s/he likes to have an imported re-cooked milk, then it is ricotta (secondary dairy product), but if s/he likes to have real irkotta (primary dairy product), then s/he knows what s/he is buying.
[Daphne – Thank you for this. To others reading here: yes, this is an official comment from the real Kirkop Local Council, not a nickname.
Oh, so I see. There’s some linguistic engineering going on here to get us to call the stuff made in Malta ‘irkotta’ and the stuff made in Italy ‘ricotta’. That’s going to be a bit of a problem, because people either say irkotta or rikotta, whatever they’re buying, for a variety of social, political, cultural and tongue-twister reasons. You can see that from this debate. Why do we always have to reinvent the wheel, anyway? We are perfectly content as we are, asking for rikotta/irkotta ta’ Malta and rikotta/irkotta ta’ barra. In any case, the people who say irkotta don’t buy the imported version, as your local supermarket will confirm. The imported version is sold to people who say rikotta anyway, which is why the market for it remains very small.]
ehh!! qed nifmhu fl-ahhar!!!
Are The Times sub-contracting to Maltastar? Here’s another glaring error:
“Thursday, 27th May 2010
Private lives in public places
The bishops have made it clear that cohabiting couples cannot receive Holy Communion but, as Kurt Sansone finds, out the debate also has a grey shade.”
Sorry but it is gnien ilgotti. My father is from Balzunetta (barcellonetta) you see.
I never realised that there was so much interest in cottage cheese…..
Here are some more official “Maltese” words:. Enjoy!
bulfajt
woxer (plural – woxers)
bullubif – and yes, bulibif too
buli
akkurat (accurate)
eskalejter
ristorant/restorant
najtdress
powster
cart (for chart)
fajl
is-sister (instead of soru)
kurtina (curtain)
buxx (bush)
blupiter (for Blue Peter – a 1970s/1980s English TV programme which nobody here seems to know about anyway)
buro’ (bureau)
panna (cream)
panil/panew (panel – presumably)
panti (women’s knickers)
[Daphne – Shouldn’t that be ‘penti’?]
pamflet (pamphlet)
pancer (puncture)
pantri (pantry)
rabesk/arabesk (for Arabescque)
raff (rough; it used to mean a storage shelf in the upper part of a room or house)
rali (with an accent on the ‘a’ – rally)
poni (with an accent on the ‘o’ – for pony)
[Daphne – Bhal Toni, mela. Toni l-poni.]
poema (for poem – instead of ‘poezija’)
Poema is NOT a poezija!
The two terms convey different concepts.
Panew is the correct term used by carpenters. Panew comes from Sicilian which comes from French – see panneau. Because of its connection with French, some linguists classify Sicilian with the Gallo-Roman languages. But it’s just a minority of linguists who do so. The French connection with Sicily dates back to the Angevins.
Ristorant is fine too – from ristorante.
What a debate!!
Tghidux cucati. Poema u poezija huma differenti.
[Daphne – Eksplejn ftit plijs.]
Daqs kemm hija differenti “poema” u “poesia” bit-Taljan. Tal-ewwel hija poeżija epika, filwaqt li poeżija hija t-terminu ġenerali għall-kitba poetika.
[Daphne – I’ve just looked it up in your beloved Aquilina. He gives ‘poema’ as ‘poem, generally of an epic nature’. This is not the same as giving the meaning as ‘epic poem’, a less-than-fine distinction which I know will not escape you.]
If you want the Italian definition (which is the same as the one in Maltese) here is the Garzanti version:
“narrazione poetica di notevole ampiezza, generalmente ripartita in canti o libri, di stile e argomento vario; il genere letterario dei poemi: poema…”
The Maltese definition, according to Oliver Friggieri, is:
“poeżija twila, aktarx bl-itwal vers tat-tradizzjoni, li tiżvolġi l-argumenti ewlenin fil-forma narrattiva.
Forget about Eurovision, cohabitation, surgeons kicking buckets ! Does the IRkotta/ricotta saga hold the record for the largest number of posts? 256 and still counting.
[Daphne – I think my post about the ‘rok opra’ Gensa had more, but I’m not sure and can’t be bothered to check.]
http://www.chef2chef.net/recipes/recipe-archive/06/043108.shtml
Kannoli ta’ l-irkotta
recipe by Helen Caruana Galizia
[Daphne – She learned the recipe off her grandmother’s cook, and probably imagines that giving it the cook’s pronunciation would make it more ‘authentic’. The thought of Helen Tomkins saying irkotta or arkotta makes me howl with (admittedly slightly malicious) laughter, though she will probably make a point of doing so in order to seem more ‘socialist’ and ‘down with the people’. Christ, how tiresome.]
Everything typically Sicilian and Italian. But they want to be different, “mitjar” instead of “ajruport” or “maqdes” instead of “Tempju”. Te inevitable byproduct of Stricklandian-Labourite idiocy which still haunts our island nowadays.
[Daphne – Stricklandjani spoke good Maltese. It was always the Nationalists who had the problem (though now there’s been an about-turn on that one) – and Labour because so many of its supporters were and still are illiterate.]
I beg to differ, the Nationalists knew Maltese themselves. Many considered it, as it was, the local dialect while national language was Italian. A paradigm common to many populations living in the Italian peninsula in those days.
[Daphne – Guess what. Those of us whose ears are finely attuned to subtle differences in usage can tell which of the older tal-pepe generation supported the Nationalist Party and which supported the Constitutional Party, purely on the basis of how they speak Maltese and their choice of vocabulary. Weird, but true. The Maltese used by the former is heavily influenced by Italian and the Maltese used by the latter is not.]
There were Nationalists like the Mifsud Bonnicis and even men like Muscat Azzopardi who were also interested and contributed to the Maltese language.
[Daphne – Here we go again: ‘the Maltese language’. It’s Maltese, fullstop.]
Dun Karm himself made the bulk of his poetry in Italian while the poetry in Maltese was the very last work he made. Their proposal was having Italian and English taught both as main languages, the “paripassu”.
The Labourites on the other hand followed word by word Keenan’s dictates to change Maltese as much as possible and destroy any connections with Italy.
On the other hand the Stricklandians helped them, not just that, but they started meddling with stupid myths as that of the Phoenician origins of the Maltese if not of the Maltese language.
[Daphne – Imagine if they had said the truth, that the language is derived from Arabic and so are we. How many votes they would have lost. How many freemasonry accusations there would have been. How many defamation suits for suggesting that The Maltese were Muslim at some point. God help us. Phoenicians – nice, safe, neutral, glamorous and above all, not Muslim.]
In Maltese history things were much more complicated than they may seem at face value. What do you think?
I know people who use “nephew and nieces” instead of grandchildren. When I bothered to correct them they had the gall to say that I was wrong, and that it was accepted in English. I was so flabbergasted, I just gave up. Next we will be teaching the English how to speak their own language, when we can hardly manage our own. I am one of those who hates stolen English words written in Maltese.
All this goes to prove that languages are “live’ they do change .
Visiting the new Tigne’ Point I noticed engraved in the original 19th century military building, the words.
Serjeants’ Mess.
[Daphne – That’s an accepted variant and is still used in some honorific titles, like serjeant-at-arms.]
Loghba ohra bil-konsonanti fil-Malti hija “infagar” (“nosebleed”), fejn l-gherq huwa f-g-r. Kulhadd jghid “infarag”, bl-gherq “f-r-g”, li allura tigi minn “farag”, fis-sens ta’ “wens” u “empathy”.
[Daphne – Kulhadd? In my family we say ‘infagar’, and believe me I should know, because there is a hereditary predisposition to spontaneous nose bleeds, so this is a word we heard a lot of. I’ve never actually heard ‘infarag’.]
U milli jidher Ghardex jghidu kif suppost, “infgart” mhux “infragt”.
Do your homework Daphne. I am not here to teach you elementary terms to use in basic poetry crit. You should have covered that back in sixth form.
[Daphne – Ah, so you don’t know, then. Poem is ‘poezija’. And ‘poema’ is? That’s right – also a poem. You people, honestly.]
I also remember an ‘ghamara’ and ‘mobbli’ battle.
And I still vividly remember a deejay (radio) telling us how a listener called him up to correct him by telling him “Ghalies qed tghid Air ConditionER? Il- kelma hija ‘Er Kondixxin’ Mela ma tafx bil Malti xi ksuhhat”
Equally ghastly, many think that the English word IS in fact “air condition”.
[Daphne – Yes, and a drive is a drive-in.]
Take a look at this blog post by an American linguist specialising in Semitic languages:
http://armoryparkutterologist.blogspot.com/2010/05/wrapping-up-in-malta.html
Adam has spent the last four weeks in Malta, researching the Maltese language and holding experiments in Maltese psycholinguistics. Notice that he mentions that, together with a local publisher, he’s working on an electronic dictionary of Maltese.
It’s also because of people like Dr Ussishkin that I’m proud of my language, irrespective of the trials and tribulations people like you try to put it through.
[Daphne – Errrmmmm, what does pride have to do with it? Or are you bending over backwards to illustrate my point that when people champion Maltese their primary motivation is not a love of language (which tends to be general rather than fixated on a single language) but political (nothing to do with partisanship, but lots to do with national pride and issues of cultural identity)? Besides, I really find it difficult to have any sort of serious discussion with people – I don’t know about you, but it’s certainly a widespread problem – who can’t even get themselves to admit that Maltese is derived from Arabic. Oh god forbid, no – because that would really turn our myths about cultural identity upside down.]
So there was once a poor ignorant idiot who could not quite pronounce ‘ricotta’ (the Italian word, not the corruptly spelled rikotta) and came up with ‘Irkotta’. Most Maltese followed suit. Logically that makes most of us Maltese poor ignorant idiots. Right?
Well what about the even more ignorant idiot who, before the word was corrupted, could not come up with a new name for the Maltese fresh cheese, and because of the physical similarity to the Italian ricotta, called it ‘rikotta’ (or should that be that be Rikotta?).
He must have been incredibly ignorant because he did not know that ricotta meant recooked, as Daphne defines so clearly above, when the Maltese cheese was not recooked in any way. Does that make all the people who still say ricotta the educated elite or are they an even more ignorant bunch then the whole lot?
[Daphne – We don’t know how ricotta was originally made in Malta. It might have been made in exactly the same way as Sicilian ricotta and probably was. The method could have changed while the name was retained. The same ‘mystery’ surrounds one of our traditional dishes: kusksu. The name is obviously couscous and it is impossible to believe that despite the Siculo-Arab influence we did not produce that dish here (it is still THE dish in Palermo). So, did we at some point stop making it with the original ingredient and started taking the easy way out by using pasta beads instead? Or did we always use pasta beads?]
Does anybody know why a shotgun is called a ‘senter’ in Maltese? I often wondered!
Because it uses center-fire cartridges as opposed to rim-fire cartridges.
Then I suppose that in the same way ‘private bus’ became just ‘private’ the shotgun that uses centre-fire cartridges became called just ‘center’ which in Moltijz is of course spelled ‘senter’.
Thanks for that!
gerwiela is a gear wheel
Dear Daphe or Ghaziza Defni,
I would like to ask ta injurant li jien. Tahseb li ricotta is of Sicilian Origin? Find out fuq Lucullus that was a great Roman general u tini risposta.
Grazzi or thanks or Grazie or Mercie
[Daphne – I think you mean Apicius. And the first vowel-sound in Daphne does not exist in Maltese, which is why so few non tal-pepe people can pronounce my name, so don’t try to replicate it amusingly with an ‘e’, because it isn’t that.]
Għal min jimpurtah, dawn huma ftit mill-kliem li l-ilsien Ingliż ħa mill-Għarbi u addatta għalih
Alcohol (al kohl)
Admiral (amir al bihar)
Algebra (al gabr)
Almanac (al manakh)
Ammonia (amun)
Arthichoke ( al xurshuf)
Assassin (hashshashin)
Checkmate (shah mat)
Chemistry (alkimija)
Divan (diwan)
Giraffe (zarafa)
cafe (qahwa)
Magazine (makhazin)
Mummy (mumijja)
Orange (narang)
Safari ( safar)
Sofa (suffa)
sugar (suffar)
Tariff (taqrifa)
Zero (sifr)
Tgħid l-Ingliżi injoranti u ta’ klassi baxxa wkoll? Għalfejn dejjem naqbdu mal-Malti?
[Daphne – Madonna santa. Yes, at the time those words were incorporated into the language in that form, it was the result of ignorance and mispronunciation among the working-class and the illiterate. But now they are part of the language and everybody uses them. With the possible exception of sofa and mummy, they are class-neutral. Irkotta has not yet eclipsed rikotta (original pronunciation, as apparently ‘correct’ pronunciation is fraught). The two coexist in the present. Rikotta is used by one class of people and irkotta is used by other classes of people: those who are working-class and those who are within one or at most two generations away from the working-class. That’s all. Why the blinking fuss? The problems only begin when those who say irkotta insist that it is the only way, the true way, or the correct way, while the rest of us – who are patently right because the literate classes preserve words closer to the original for as long as they humanly can – are wrong. Or that we should say things like Irkottafest and pastizzi tal-irkotta. We don’t have to, and we won’t.]
Try your best again and find about Lucullus again Daphne.
[Daphne – Why don’t you just put me out of my misery? I have a horrible feeling this discussion is about to go off at a tangent.]
Most of all Medittereanean cuisine is thanks to Arab influence believe or not ? The Arabs were the elite in those days.
[Daphne – The Arabs? What – you mean as distinct from the Maltese, those curious people who spoke Arabic without actually being ‘Arabs’?]
Serendipity!
Read Bresc’s Ebrei di Religione, Arabi di Lingua. It might turn out to be very eye-opening.
I apologize: the name of the Italian translation of the book is “Arabi per lingua, Ebrei per religione”.
It was published in 2001.
The author is the highly-respected French Professor Henri Bresc.
(BRESK not BRESH, please.)
[Daphne – I don’t read Italian. I’m fluent enough in English to read by scanning and word recognition, or whatever it’s called when you see the word as a symbol with meaning rather than reading it out syllable by syllable, so when I have to read anything else that requires concentration on each line and word and blessed syllable, I lose patience and couldn’t be bothered. I will only do it when I have to and certainly not for fun. It would take me forever to get through a book in Italian and I would die of boredom meanwhile. It’s not a language I ever thought to bother with – my loss, but there you go.]
OK I get your point.
Unfortunately, there seems to be no translation of the book in English.
In a nutshell, what Bresc is saying is that the Jews of Sicily spoke Arabic.
So the Maltese (or some of them) could really be the descendants of Jews who spoke Arabic.
[Daphne – There’s lots of published work about what The Maltese were, already, but the published research doesn’t get much exposure outside academic circles because it doesn’t fit with the myths. In a nutshell, it’s this. We’re the descendants of Arabic-speaking Muslims from Sicily (the descendants in turn of people from Tunisia – Professor Albert Borg has identified the form of Arabic spoken in Tunisia as the form closest to Maltese), much bulked out by further significant waves of migration from Sicily and southern Italy after the 15th century. There were clearly enough of those Arabic-speaking Muslims to retain control of the language as otherwise we would be speaking Sicilian today. At some point and for some reason about which there has been a great deal of speculation but no documented explanation, those Arabic-speaking Muslims converted to Christianity. We continue to retain the terminology of Islam for Chistian rites and festivals – Allah, Randan, Gimgha il-Kbira, genna, Mulej and so on. Malta always had its Jews, and they were Maltese Jews. No doubt there were some Arabic-speaking Jews from Sicily in the mix, but they were not predominant. If they were, we would have retained something of their terminology in religious rites at least.]
We derived the ftira from fatra and so on . Not just the Maltese ignorants but most of the Countries in European Gastronomy derived from the Arab World such as coffee , sorbet and a thousnad others. That why we have a semetic language or lingwa
[Daphne – Ho hum]
And yes if i had to pronounce daphne I will pronounce as dafni.
Thank def
[Daphne – That ‘a’ can be pronounced in many ways, and only one of them is correct. It’s a sound that doesn’t exist in Maltese, so going on the basis of how you write, I’m guessing that if a vowel sound doesn’t exist in Maltese then you can’t pronounce it. It’s the same vowel sound in ‘cat’, which is why very few Maltese can pronounce that word, despite it being one of the first words children are taught (badly). Bad – that’s another one. The distinction between ‘bad’ and ‘bed’ – a terrible tangle for the Irkotta Classes. And you’ve guessed right – I’m really enjoying this.]
You never answered as to as you say ricotta or how it is pronounced the Sicilian way is REALLY of a SIcilian Origin?
When the going gets tough.
[Daphne – Do we care? Is it relevant? The important point is that it’s where we got it from, or the idea of it.]
again DAPHNE it is pronounced ar IRkotta and different process to ricotta is used.
Għal min jimpurtah, dawn huma ftit mill-kliem li l-ilsien Ingliż ħa mill-Għarbi u addatta għalih:
Alcohol (al kohl), Admiral (amir al bihar), Algebra (al gabr),
Almanac (al manakh), Ammonia (amun), Arthichoke ( al xurshuf), Assassin (hashshashin), Checkmate (shah mat)
Chemistry (alkimija), Divan (diwan), Giraffe (zarafa), cake (kak), cafe (qahwa), Magazine (makhazin), Mummy (mumijja)
Orange (narang), Safari ( safar), Sofa (suffa), sugar (sukkar), Tariff (taqrifa), Traffic (tafriq), Zero (sifr)…….
Tgħid l-Ingliżi injoranti u ta’ klassi baxxa wkoll għax ikkorrompew dawn il-kliem? Għalfejn dejjem naqbdu mal-Malti?
Why are you repeating the same thing over and over again?
What you fail to point out is that there is no direct Arabic-English nexus.
English got those words from other languages.
Add “gazelle” to the list.
bl-istess ragunament nistaw nejdlu li l-ebda lingwa ta fuq wicc id-dinja m’hu korrett. Misna ahna l-Maltin ghadna nitkelmu bl-gharbi mux bil-Malti. Mela l-iktar nazzjon injurant hu l-poplu ingliz, li ha hafna mil-klim tijaw min pajjizi ohrajn u dawarhom kif ried hu. Wahda min dawn il-kliem hi l-kelma father li gejja mil-kelma Latina pader. DIN TURI LI L-MALTI HI LINGWA HAJJA.
[Daphne – You had better learn how to write it properly, then. It’s one of the best ways of showing your appreciation.]
it seems you have hit rock bottom maybe fejn ix-xalet tas-sliema daphne or dafni. Grazzi pero ma ghadix more time to waist. pero zgur li some people tawk hafna importance , mghix me. good night qalbi or that is very oofffensive bil-Malti?
Sorry Daphne but your ‘We don’t know how ricotta was originally made in Malta’ is ignorance, even if it is a general local ignorance and not just yours. That a ricotta was made in Malta in the past is just your assumption, probably based solely on the similarity of the word we use for the local fresh cheese (corrupted or not). There are no records or evidence to indicate that a true ricotta was ever produced in any economic quantity.
On the contrary the present IRkotta recipes that are found in various localities in Malta indicate that this is always a milk based fresh cheese and not a whey cheese. If there had ever been a whey based cheese, why has it not survived somewhere in Malta? Especially considering that whey is a by-product of cheese and therefore much cheaper than milk? It is very difficult to believe that anyone stop using such a cheap ingredient to make ricotta as you suggest.
Given that we Maltese have never had the cheese making culture and industry of our Northern neighbours there could never had been enough whey production to make a viable quantity of a true ricotta.
So why then did anyone call it ricotta in the first place? you may ask. Is it inconceivable that in the times when our lords and masters were mostly Italian, some enterprising Maltese peasant produced a fresh milk based cheese and sold it to those pompous fools as a would-be ricotta, which they happily paid for since it was so hard to import their beloved whey cheese? (Many Maltese still treat tourists in a similar fashion). Given that the ways of these foreigners was readily accepted by many Maltese, especially those with a self-grandiose image it would have been little wonder that the would-be ricotta caught on.
Even if you continue to argue that this is also conjecture, and that in some remote past a ricotta was made in Malta, it still does not give anyone who still calls the present milk based cheese ‘rikotta’ the excuse to believe that they are any more educated then those who say Irkotta.
[Daphne – I’m not arguing anything of the sort, particularly not given that food is my particular area of knowledge. I’m just pointing out that the name is clearly a corruption of the Italian ricotta and that the meaning of the name in Italian needn’t ever have had anything to do with the way the cheese is made in Malta. In Italian it’s a description, but in Maltese it’s just a name – obviously so, because the people who actually made that ricotta wouldn’t have had a clue what in God’s name the word meant. It looked like the Italian product, so it got the same name. End of story. Any attempt to link the meaning of the Italian name to the Maltese product is doomed to failure because there can be no such link – not unless we assume that the people who made it knew Italian. They wouldn’t have done. The Italian name was clearly used because the product LOOKS the same, not because it is made the same way. Any attempt to convince that irkotta is a different word because the method of making the cheese is different to that of ricotta is patently ridiculous. So where did the word irkotta come from then – did it just drop down from the sky or what? If you really want my considered opinion, here it is: that ricotta entered Maltese life when the Sicilian confectioners who settled here in the 19th century and opened up for business in Valletta needed it, because it is an essential ingredient in Sicilian confectionery. Ricotta has got to be very fresh, so it had to be made here and couldn’t be brought from Sicily. Whether you get a rough approximation or the real thing becomes irrelevant in that situation – beggars can’t be choosers, etc. Anyway, rikotta would never have been the big part of Maltese life before WWII that it is now, for the simple reason that there were no herds of cows to provide the milk for it. People got their milk from goats or sheep. Cows were introduced after WWII in a planned programme to wean people off their dependency on dangerous goats’ milk. Cow-herding was so alien to Maltese culture 70 years ago that many of the cows died because the herders hadn’t a clue how to look after them. But then obviously herds of cows would be alien to Malta as there’s no pasture – so without bought feed you can’t keep them.]
Piccolo Padre has (had?) a framed newspaper clipping hanging in the stairwell with a piece written by Sir Temi Zammit (if I recall correctly) telling the Maltese not to use cow’s milk because they could get consumption (TB) which was endemic in other western countries.
I don’t remember the date but it seemed like around/after? WWI. According to the article, cows were introduced because they were more efficient milk producers per hectare. We seem to digest goat’s milk better though. Anybody knows where you can order roast goat here?
Regarding the production process, I thought it was irrelevant to the word’s actual spelling. On the other hand if you consider the current movement towards DOC certification, wouldn’t it be convenient to distinguish the Maltese soft cheese from Italian rikotta?
[Daphne – Yes, I think that’s why it’s being done.]
Indeed, I cannot understand how the Maltese government hasn’t registered the product yet…
http://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/quality/door/list.html;jsessionid=pL0hLqqLXhNmFQyFl1b24mY3t9dJQPflg3xbL2YphGT4k6zdWn34!-370879141?&recordStart=0&filter.dossierNumber=&filter.comboName=ricotta&filterMin.milestone__mask=&filterMin.milestone=&filterMax.milestone__mask=&filterMax.milestone=&filter.country=IT&filter.category=&filter.type=&filter.status=
Ehh Bilhaq jien mis -south u jekk tried that you learn something about gastronomy minnflokk hafna mistakes jew kif issejhilhom inti ignorants , bastrads , low class, qabel you speak we say in Maltese – kliem ix-xih zomm fih
Grazzi again I will say grazzi ghax jien Malti u Xejn iktar
Anzi you should never speak hekk. Xi Hadd related to you kiteb or wrote a book fuq ikel Maltese fuq information that zgur li wasn’t aquired from Tas-Sliema nahseb or I think from true Maltese Villages . Do you call sliema now a days a being a mirror of Maltese Culture. You must be joking Daphne if you still think so.
[Daphne – Champion tal-injoranza: and I’m expected to speak the sort of Maltese you do, because it’s ‘real’. By the same token, I should immediately begin speaking the sort of English I hear on Little Britain. If you think that Helen Tomkins – who wrote the book to which you refer – trawled through the villages of Malta asking peasants how they cooked their minestra, you’re mistaken. She consulted her grandmother’s cook (working out of one of the largest houses on Sliema’s Tower Road – a less rahal-like environment, it is hard to imagine), my mother-in-law, and some other ladies with cooks. And from what I understand, at that point she hadn’t actually done much cooking herself, either.]
I agree that many times people are loose with words and end up muddling their argument with imprecise language but this is not the case. I cannot understand your contempt for common culture.
[Daphne – Contempt? I am merely refusing to be bullied into accepting that the words I use are wrong whiule the words the recently illiterate classes use are right. I have just been told bossily that ‘nofs ratal rikotta’ is wrong and that the correct form is ‘nofs artal irkotta’. Like hell it is: half an altar of Irkotta indeed.]
The English language is replete with malappropriations from more sophisticated languages, including Urdu, a people the little-britons like to despise. I’m astounded at your lashing out as you know these things better than me. Maybe your family’s use of Maltese is heavily influenced by close links to Italian culture that doesn’t necessarily mean they are right. I find it hilarious that some old survivors still insist on pronouncing dqid as dkik…
[Daphne – If you knew anything about my family you would know that they are not even remotely influenced by anything Italian because it was the political and socio-cultural Other.]
Thank goodness Maltese as a language is fluid and so alive. It’s nice to have these debates but it does you no favours to argue from the position of class either *tal-pepe* or *tar-raħal*.
[Daphne – That’s the only position from which it can be argued, because the distinction in usage is class-based. X class says irkotta and X class says rikotta, and the only people who can’t acknowledge this fact are those who say irkotta. Those who say rikotta can see it clearly. I’m beginning to think that those who say irkotta are actually embarrassed of something, which is why they’re getting so defensive about it. The social anthropologist Mark Anthony Falzon (he has a column in The Sunday Times) has just popped in here to say that yes, the distinction IS class based and yes, it IS obvious – but apparently even he is wrong.]
Maltese is still waiting for its Shakespeare/Dante to capture and articulate the language for the rest of us. In the mean time let’s argue with respect…
You seem to rely too much on epistemology. That only works when you want to describe dead things…
why *tal-pepe’* not “tal-pepe'”?
this too falls within the ambit of sociolinguists?!
No. I assumed that since daphne uses wordpress, the comments could be styles with markdown. Sorry for the technobabble…
regarding contempt: I was referring to the abrasive nature of your comments on certain groups of people. I take it as sarcasm but it can be offensive and insensitive as well. I have to admit that I say ‘rkotta’ and ‘l-irkotta’ but I use Maltese almost exclusively in conversation so I don’t know how I would have written it!
[Daphne – It’s a clash of cultures. I’m mainly influenced and shaped by British culture, to which the tortuous, roundabout way of saying things, which most Maltese and Italians tend to prefer, is completely alien.]
It’s not only a mediterranean thing though. Atheists are getting branded as arrogant because they try to give honest relies…
I suspect that for some nations, the enlightenment captured the soul of the whole nation whilst for others it passed by touching only some intellectuals…
In Italy and Malta, status still trounces intellect in a debate.
Agreed…watching Hitchins/Dawkins/Harris debate some religionist is a great time-waster. Their trying to answer with cogent replies the hair-brained arguments often raised is hilarious and sometimes awe inspiring.
Hitchins especially is a great debater. He always goes for the jugular with well researched arguments. I don’t agree with him always, especially when he espouses military intervention in 3rd world countries…
Interesting discussion and amusing too so I hope it does on for a bit longer.
I agree that the correct way to use a loaned word is unaltered, except for possibly necessary (minor) changes in spelling as was done with ricotta that became rikotta.
I still remember those silly years where there was a attempt to force Arabic derived words down our collective throat, mitjar instead of airport comes to mind.
I see no problem with anyone using language in the way they feel most comfortable, as long as they are understood, but despair when the media and academics promote the misuse of Maltese, or any other language for that matter.
Besides the difference in use and pronunciation resulting from social class, I always had the impression that even in tiny Malta there are a number of dialectic differences.
Insomma, il-Profes-Sur Olvin Vella ma qal xejn ta’ sustanza.
Apparti n-nozzjoni assolutament irrelevanti li l-pastizzi tal-irkotta huma popolari (u tal-pizelli le, allura?) ma qalilna xejn.
Wiehed kien jistenna li jaghtina sommarju tal-qofol tad-dibattitu bejn id-dijakroniku u s-sinkroniku. Wiehed kien jistenna li jittanta jipperswadina ghaliex l-approcc lejn il-lingwa ghandu jkun DESKRITTIV u mhux PRESKRITTIV. Daphne qed tiehu l-pozizzjoni favur il-Preskrittiv (kif jigri f’hafna mill-pajjizi kontinentali); mentri d-Dipartiment tal-Malti “fi hdan” l-Universita’ ta’ Malta jghallem id-Deskrittiv. Ghaliex tat-tieni tinghata preferenza fuq tal-ewwel? Ghaliex l-etimologija ma ghadhiex importanti? Wiehed kien jistenna li jaghtina panoramika fuq dal-punti tant ta’ siwi.
Dan il-lekcerer (sic) li dahal jghallem b’Ferst Dikri (sic – kemm ghall-ortografija kemm ghall-fatt innifsu), dan il-faktotum (sic) tal-Akkademja tal-Malti, tal-Ghaqda tal-Malti (Universita’), tal-Kunsill tal-Malti, tal-Ghaqda tal-Ghalliema tal-Malti, tal-Ghaqdiet kollha tal-Malti Miktub, Mithaddet, Mghallem u Mghawweg, dan l-ajjutant tal-Prof Wettinger, MA QALILNA ASSOLUTAMENT XEJN li jista’ jitfa’ ftit dawl fuq it-tahdita ferm interessanti li kien hawn. MA GHAMEL XEJN biex forsi jaqta’ ftit mill-ghatx li l-Maltin ghandhom dwar ilsienhom.
Xejn. Skiet li jtarrax. Jew – b’rispett lejn il-memorja tal-Mizzjani – silenzju assordanti.
I purposely did not mention the erudite discussion on hamburgers.
I mean, isn’t it infra dig to come up with such examples when you are a university lecturer?
Are those the examples an academic comes up with?
Ghaziz Overestimated Shakespeare etc etc, l-argument tal-lingwistica Preskrittiva vs Deskrittiva diga semmejtu jien. Naqbel mieghek li jista jigi interpretat minn aspett ta Sinkroniku vs Dijakroniku.
Daphne tidher li mhix midhla ta’ dawn l-argumenti ghaliex tinsisti li tintepreta kollox minn aspett socjo-lingiwstiku biss. U hawnhekk inhoss li qed tizloq fin-niexef.
[Daphne – Yawn.]
Is there a fleeting chance that some enterprising bookworm finds old transcripts of judicial proceedings in Maltese that happen to include this word?
I fail to imagine a scenario where rikotta would end up in a court of law though!
[Daphne – Weren’t judicial proceedings in Italian?]
Fil-fatt, SPTT kont qieghed nirreferi ghalik (Pres vs Desk).
Kont nistenna, imma, li Olvin Vella jaghtina delucidazzjoni intellettwalment stimolanti tal-qofol tad-diskors kollu, jigifieri ghaliex l-approcc deskrittiv hu ahjar minn dak preskrittiv.
Minflok illimita ruhu jghidilna l-hmerijiet dwar il-popolarita’ tal-pastizzi tal-irkotta u l-etimologija tal-kelma “hamburger”.
Nixtieq ma narahx daqshekk limitat lil Olvin Vella. Wara kollox biex issir lekcerer (sic) b’Ferst Dikri (sic) trid tkun stilla. U l-istilel ma jghixux bil-pastizzi (tal-irkotta) u l-hamburgers biss.
Joe A Borg
Up to the 30s/40s, you’ll find that “problema” was still masculine. So the research you’re suggesting won’t be too helpful.
[Daphne – My husband’s favourite bug-bear. He still insists on treating it as masculine, because he says it’s a crass demonstration of ignorance to treat it as feminine just because it ends in a – and to treat radju as masculine because it ends in u. Apparently, Manwel Mallia is another lawyer who makes (made?) a point of treating problema as masculine. But that’s what happens when the Irkotta classes take over – they don’t know about Greek roots and why it’s la radio in Italian despite that final ‘o’.]
I agree 100%. Problema should be masculine, like pjaneta, idjota, emblema, etc etc.
But, there are Semitic words which end in -a and should be masculine but are becoming feminine! My God! Biza’; sema; hela.
And then there is a tendency to treat xaghar as if it were feminine!
It won’t be long before the Kunsill tal-Malti tell us that xaghru safra is fine.
X’ugigh ta’ ras KBIR! (The ugigh is kbir, not the ras. Unless it’s some “ras kbira”!)
Prosit siehbi…..min jahseb li jaf hafna malajr jizloq fin-nixef
in gozo ‘smontra’ means ‘fidda’ (aluminium foil) and ‘ghakierex or aghkierex?’ mean bebbux;
which one is correct ‘suffarina’ jew ‘sulfarina’?
tiskanta kif ghadna niftehmu…!!
Daphne
I am curious about your thought processes.
When you read a comment, what do you say?
Ara dac-ce / dic-ce (skont il-kaz), ghandu ragun!
or
Ara dan ukoll, kemm hu injurant!
or
Il-lajs, well-said.
What goes on in your mind while reading these comments?
[Daphne: I never say either ‘il-lajs’ or ‘well said’. So I never think them, either. It depends on whether the thought is best formed in English or in Maltese and also on whether what I’m reacting to is in English or Maltese. I’ve noticed that I tend to get angry, irritated or annoyed in Maltese, for example. I garden in Maltese and when I sewed it was in Maltese. But this is almost certainly because it’s how I acquired the knowledge – in Maltese. I’ve noticed that I drive in Maltese, too – probably for the same reason.]
What can I say? You’re an interesting (if not intriguing) woman!
[Daphne – That’s what they all say.To which I invariably reply: Yes, I know. But then look at the competition, for God’s sake. Baxxter described it perfectly. So now I’ve decided that I’m going to become a recluse between flights and work.]
And you know what intrigues me most?
That you are not in the least annoyed by the fact that you are “conversing” with complete strangers. For instance, you surely realize the email I gave you is fake, and still you keep the “conversation.” This fact intrigues me…
[Daphne – Why? It’s not like anything dangerous, criminal or immoral is going on here. Not knowing who a person is is actually better, because then you can respond purely to the argument rather than being conditioned by who the person is. I wouldn’t carry on an exchange with an anonymous person who clearly has an agenda, though. When a person has an agenda, you need to know why.]
You’re right.
The agenda of this self-confessed fake Shakespeare Nostradamus Avatar bloke seems clear enough to me.
X’għamillek Olvin Vella biex ma taħmlux pinġut, kif jidher ċar mill-mod kif qed tpinġih, Shakespeare, eċċ? Jaqaw kellek xi “diżgwid” mal-Akkademja tal-Malti, jew mal-Kunsill Nazzjonali tal-Malti? Jew forsi mad-Dipartiment tal-Malti tal-Università, int jew xi ħadd jiġi ferm mill-qrib minnek?
While I pride myself in posting semi-anonymously, I likewise never even consider giving a fake email address to this blog’s host. Shakespeare, my foot!
Dear demi-anonymous JoeM
Anzi, Ghaziz Nofs-Anonimu JoeM
Mad-Dipartiment tal-Malti “fi hdan” l-Universita’ m’ghandi xejn x’naqsam, u personalment – la lili u lanqas lil hadd minn qrabati – Olvin Vella m’ghamlilna assolutament xejn.
Pero’, li nara nies tal-kalibru intellettwali baxx ta’ Olvin Vella jokkupa post fl-Universita’ li jista’ jokkupah haddiehor ahjar, nirrita ruhi. Dan ir-ragel mexa ‘l quddiem ghax arrivista, ghax gharaf jilghab il-loghba “politika” – mhux PN-PL imma l-loghba tal-fewdi ego-kastali li hemm f’xi whud mid-Dipartimenti tal-Universita’.
Ha nkun car mieghek. La jien involut fil-Malti u lanqas ma jien involut fl-Universita’. Kulma jien, taxpayer li jhobb jgharbel x’inhu ghaddej madwaru.
Fuq dal-blog ikkritikajt lil haddiehor bl-istess mod bhalma kkritikajt lil Olvin Vella: lil Anglu Farrugia (minghajr ma jien involut fil-PL), lil Consuelo Scerri Herrera (minghajr ma jien involuta fil-Qrati), u lil ohrajn. Qatt ma ddejjaqt noffri kritika gusta u sinciera. Jidhirli li Anglu Farrugia jkun ta’ periklu ghal Malta bhala Vici Prim Ministru; u Consuelo Scerri Herrera idem jekk tibqa’ Magistrat. L-istess jidhirli li Olvin Vella hu ta’ “periklu” (ta’ natura ohra, ovvjament) fl-ambjent atenew, ghax il-medjokrita’ tal-intellett tieghu taghti ezempju hazin lill-istudenti.
Naturalment, dan pajjiz fejn TAPARSI jikbru l-fjuri tal-liberta’ tal-espressjoni u allura, ghax ghandi l-mara u t-tfal, irrid noqghod b’seba’ ghajnejn. Meta xi darba jwarrdu l-fjuri, allura mbaghad ninqeda b’ismi veru.
Sadattant, Olvin Vella, fil-fehma tieghi, m’ghandux in-necessarju (il-wherewithal) intellettwali biex jghallem f’livell terzjarju. U ladarba l-Universita’ hija mhallsa mill-fondi pubblici – jigifieri mit-taxxi tieghi u tieghek – jien jidhirli li ghandi dritt sagrosant nikkritikah pubblikament lil Olvin Vella, minghajr ma nesponi ruhi ghal xi ritaljazzjoni minn ma-nafx-min.
Aktar u aktar, ghax Olvin Vella huwa impjegat ma’ entita’ li l-finanzjament taghha gej mit-taxxi tal-poplu.
Jien konvint li hemm ohrajn – b’Dottorati u PhDs – li ghandhom ferm aktar spessur u profondita’ intellettwali minn Olvin Vella, u li Olvin Vella – ghax politikament aktar stuz minnhom – qieghed jehdilhom posthom.
Il-Malti f’livell terzjarju hu mghallem biss fl-Universita’ ta’ Malta. Nistenna li jkunu l-ahjar nies fil-qasam li jghallmuh, u mhux esperti tal-popolarita’ tal-pastizzi (tal-irkotta) u l-konsistenza alimentari tal-veggie burgers.
Jekk jidhirlek li m’ghandix inlehhen il-fehma tieghi dwar l-abilitajiet – jew nuqqas taghhom – ta’ xi hadd imhallas mill-fondi pubblici, jekk joghgbok ghidli car u tond. Halli mbaghad wara nghidlek li inti, ghaziz JoeM, ma temminx fil-liberta’ ta’ kull cittadin li jesprimi l-fehma tieghu dwar l-affarijiet pubblici.
Il-Faxxisti kienu jridu jsoddu halq id-dissidenti.
(U l-Komunisti.)
X’għamillek Olvin Vella biex ma taħmlux pinġut, kif jidher ċar mill-mod kif qed tpinġih, Shakespeare, eċċ? Jaqaw kellek xi “diżgwid” mal-Akkademja tal-Malti, jew mal-Kunsill Nazzjonali tal-Malti? Jew forsi mad-Dipartiment tal-Malti tal-Università, int jew xi ħadd jiġi ferm mill-qrib minnek?
What a strange comment by JoeM!
How come this country doesn’t tolerate objective criticism and has to reduce it to something personal all the time?
JP Bonello
“How come this country doesn’t tolerate objective criticism and has to reduce it to something personal all the time?”
First of all I think that your “this country” is a bit of an exaggeration since you’re responding to just one person.
Secondly, reducing criticism to “something personal” seems to me to be just what Shakespeare is doing with regards to Olvin Vella. Elsewhere on this page I have asked whether Shakespeare is a frustrated PhD holder who teaches at the Junior College – on second thoughts it might be his daughter/son rather than him.
I have absolutely no idea who OSNA could be. May be you are right. Don’t know.
But with regard to the other comment, your attitude seems to me widespread. Many people think that if you criticise someone there must be something personal instigating that criticism.
Do you mean to say that if praise is showered on someone, then there is also something personal?
Cannot praise and criticism be impersonal?
Perhaps the Maltese think like this, because this is a small country.
When foreigners criticise public figures, more often than not they do not know them. And yet they criticise them, and harshly too. So harshly, that it is not the first time that politicians and other holders of public office have had to resign.
Probably, Malta’s insular mentality breeds such defective thinking.
Actually, JP Bonello, you are right!
Using Antoine Vella’s logic, it follows that David Agius Muscat, who wrote in a comment congratulating Olvin Vella for his research and teaching abilities (see further down), did so because he is Olvin’s friend!
Antoine Vella logic tells us that David Agius Muscat’s comment is not objective. His congratulations to Olvin are vacuous and hollow because he is his friend, they are therefore personal and consequently worthless.
Is it a coincidence that both Antoine and Olvin are Vella? Are they relatives? Is Antoine’s defence of Olvin inspired by “something personal”?
It goes without saying that I could ask the same things about myself. What the hell am I doing, at 2:19 (or whatever) in the morning, writing comments on Malta’s most popular blog hiding behind the veil of anonymity?
It makes me wonder.
All the people who gather here, even at these unholy hours of the night, want to exchange ideas, want to engage their brains, want to have someone intelligent to listen to and who listens to them. This virtual community in this virtual court embraced by a peristyle, is made up of some people who show their face and others shrouded in the shadows between the columns – but they all want to participate.
The intellectual thirst that this virtual community feels, which it tries to quench with exchanges of views, goes to show the paucity of venues in the physical world which allow such intelligent discussions to go on.
Or is there more to all this than meets the eye?
Jiena student tal-Università u ġieli attendejt xi lezzjonijiet ta’ Olvin. B’wicci minn quddiem nista’ ngħid li hu wieħed mill-aqwa għalliema (fejn jidħol il-qasam tiegħu) u naħseb hu wieħed mill-aħjar għalliema li jifhem l-istudent. Dejjem lest li jgħinhom f’kull problema li jkollhom.
Issa jekk illejla ma tistax torqod, aħjar tmur tħabbat rasek ma xi ħajt u tiġi f’tiegħek u torqod kuntent fil-paċi. U bilħaqq, l-argumenti ibnihom bis-sens u bi provi, u mhux dak li jiġik f’moħħok. Qabek tikteb aħseb ħabib.
Il-lejl it-tajjeb.
Provi, habib?
Halli naghtik il-provi, forsi nwebblek li t-ton ta’ kondixxendenza li tikteb bih ma tergax tuzah.
1. Kemm-il sagg kiteb Olvin Vella? Tigix issemmili t-taparsi-sagg li kiteb dwar ma nafx liema frazi jew kelma fil-Kantilena li mar jistaqsi dwarha lil dawk li jqattghu l-gebel mill-barrieri. Qieghed nitkellem dwar saggi serji (tat-tip li jiktbu Oliver Friggieri, Joseph M Brincat, u ohrajn) mhux teftif. Ara naqra Oliver Friggieri kemm-il bicca xoghol kiteb; idem JM Brincat; idem Manwel MIfsud; idem dawk bil-PhD li qeghdin il-Junior College. Issa qabbel dawk ic-cifri ma’ x’kiteb Olvin Vella. Ir-rizultat jigi…?
2. Kemm-il ktieb hareg Olvin Vella? Miniex nirreferi ghall-kotba li editja mal-Ghaqda tal-Malti (Universita’), imma ghal kotba miktubin minnu ex novo, li jkun fihom jew analizi kritika ta’ dak li ntqal sal-mument tal-pubblikazzjoni dwar suggett partikolari jew li jkun fihom proposti godda dwar xi aspett tal-istudju tal-lingwa u/jew il-letteratura. Verament ghen lil Wettinger bid-Dizzjunarju tal-Kliem Antik. Imma xoghol tieghu proprju, x’hemm?
3. Kemm-il paper ipprezenta Olvin Vella, f’konferenzi f’kemm Malta kemm barra?
4. Kemm-il kontribut siewi ta Olvin Vella ghall-gharfien tal-Malti, kemm mil-lat ta’ letteratura kemm mil-lat lingwistiku? (Apparti l-iskoperta straordinarjament irrelevanti li Mikiel Anton Vassalli kien qarghi, jigifieri?)
Ir-riposta ghal kull wahda minn dawn il-mistoqsijiet x’aktarx hija: ZERO, XEJN.
Olvin Vella ma ta l-ebda kontribut serju lill-istudju tal-Malti, hlief:
i. li frazi uzata minn Caxaru fil-Kantilena ghadha kurrenti fis-sengha tal-bini; u
ii. li Mikiel Anton Vassalli kien qarghi.
Jidhirlek li oggettivament dawn huma kontributi ta’ xi hadd jghallem f’Universita’?
Jidhirlek int, ghax Student tal-Universita’, li l-fatt li Vassalli kien qarghi ghandu xi tip ta’ effett fuq l-istudju tal-ideat ta’ Vassalli u tal-Lexicon u x-xoghlijiet l-ohrajn?
Jekk tghidli “iva”, tkun qed tikkonferma dak li ghedt jien: li l-livell medjokri ta’ Olvin Vella hu ta’ ezempju hazin ghall-istudenti, li jahsbu li l-assenza ta’ xaghar fuq il-qurriegha ta’ ras Vassalli affettwat il-prodott ta’ dak li hemm tahtha.
Jien qieghed naghtik il-provi li l-livell ta’ Olvin Vella m’huwiex ta’ wiehed li jmissu qieghed jghallem l-Universita’. Hu livell ta’ ghalliem tas-sekondarja.
U oqghod attent, habib. Jien miniex sejjer ma naqbilx mieghek li hu ghalliem tajjeb, imma qieghed nikkwalifika dan l-istatement billi nghid li hu ghalliem tajjeb ghal-livell sekondarju. Hemm postu: fis-sekondarji.
Il-kontenzjoni tieghi hi li mhux ghalliem tajjeb ghal-livell terzjarju. U hemm haddiehor – bil-PhD – li hu ferm ahjar minnu (akkademikament).
Dan jidher ukoll mill-fatt li Olvin biex gab il-Master’s, bata. Ahseb u ara biex forsi xi darba jgib PhD.
Issa sta ghalik, “Student tal-Universita'” li ggib il-provi u tibni argument bis-sens li Olvin Vella huwa akkademiku universitarju.
Nixtieq nistaqsik ukoll: inti b’liema titolu attendejt “xi lezzjonijiet ta’ Olvin”? Inti student tal-BA? Jew student peripatetiku li biex jimla l-hin dahal ghal “xi lezzjonijiet ta’ Olvin”? Ghaliex ghazilt ta’ Olvin u mhux ta’ Manwel Mifsud jew ta’ Oliver Friggieri, perezempju?
U Olvin “jifhem l-istudent”, kif? Xoghol ghalliem hu li l-istudent jifhem lilu, mhux vici versa! Huwa xoghol min jaghti l-counselling li jifhem l-istudenti u “jghinhom f’kull problema li jkollhom.”
U nghid jien, dan l-ahhar kumment (“jghinhom f’kull problema li jkollhom”) ifisser li lecturers ohrajn ma jaghmlux l-istess? Mhux kull lecturer ghandu d-dmir jghin lill-istudenti? Jigifieri, Olvin tajjeb ghax jaghmel dak li suppost jaghmel? Jew tajjeb ghax l-ohra hziena?
Ha nhallik, ghax ma rridekx ma torqodx “kuntent fil-paci”, habib.
Sahha u sliem.
Shakespeare
“. . . idem dawk bil-PhD li qeghdin il-Junior College.”
Methinks you’re one of them. Is this the source of your resentment towards Olvin?
No, Antoine. I do not have a PhD, I do not teach at the Junior College, and I have no ambition with regard to the Department of Maltese.
Also, I have no resentment against Olvin Vella. I just can’t stand the situation – not the person. Had it been Father Christmas who did the same thing as Olvin – that is, allowed a distorted self-image have the upper hand on real abilities, as demonstrated by the lack of quality research – I would have posted the same comments.
It is the principle, not the person.
However, Antoine, thank you for thinking that my comments are of the same level as those that a PhD-holder would write.
‘or is there more than meets the eye?’
You can become addicted to intellectual stimulation.
I speak and write perfect Maltese and perfect English and am fluent in several other languages, and I say “nofs kilo rkotta”. In Italian it’s ricotta; ri-cotta, re-cooked. In Maltese it’s “rkotta”, prefixed with an “i-” when the need arises, as we do for words like “rdum”, “rkant”, etc.
We also say “irkada” from ri-cadere, not “irrikada”, and “irkada” isn’t considered to be a mispronunciation; but then we say “irrikorra” and not “irkorra”, and “irremetta” and not “irmetta”; so whether the “i” in “ri-” is dropped or not is actually quite arbitrary… definitely not a solid basis for social class distinctions, which are nevertheless pointless.
The Italians say “pagina” and “possibilità”, whereas we say “paġna” and “possibiltà”. Rather than being a matter of whether you’re educated or not, it’s a matter of which language you’re speaking.
[Daphne – Looks like you’ve missed out on a huge chunk of the debate here. It’s not about whether those who say irkotta now are themselves educated but about how far removed they are in generations from the illiterate working-class. Irkotta is definitely linked to the working-class, whether in the present or at a remove of one or two generations. The longer a person’s family has been linked to literacy, the less likely they are to say irkotta. The two versions coexist in the present, so this is easy to detect. Nobody, and I mean nobody, who is from that class of people despised as tal-pepe says ‘irkotta’, and it’s not because Maltese isn’t their mother tongue.]
The bottom line is that society and language are dynamic, ricotta is “irkotta”, and for all we know, in half a century’s time Daphne’s descendants will be battling it out on some blog in favour of “pirmli”.
[Daphne – If my descendants are in Malta at all.]
I am aware of where the debate has gone; what interests me most is tackling the original question you pose, of whether “we are going to carry on enshrining the mistakes of the poorly educated in the official version of the language”.
What I am challenging in my previous comment is the manner in which you have presented “RIkotta” as having had the positions of its “r” and “i” switched in the same way the positions of the “l” and “r” are switched in “petlor”. What I am saying is that such a switch never took place, and the manner by which the general Maltese-speaking public has dropped the “i” from “ricotta” yielding “rkotta” concords with how similar vowels have been dropped from numerous other words, both by “authentic” tal-pepè ladies and gentlemen and by peasants alike.
I wouldn’t enjoy seeing the official words for pill, petrol and blackboard become “pirmla”, “petlor” and “blekbort” (I’d stick to “pillola” and “petrol”, and go for “blackboard”, or at most “blakbord”). What I’m saying is that the word “rkotta” is in a different class altogether, and is therefore ill-suited for illustrating your point.
[Daphne – Not at all. Even the Benna website points out that irkotta is a corruption of ricotta. http://www.maltadairyproducts.com/question/is-irkotta-the-same-as-ricotta – Cached
Words are corrupted when people are unable to pronounce them properly. Trouble with pronunciation of this nature is directly linked to illiteracy. When people know how a word is written, they are hyper-aware of its ‘shape’, and their speech reflects this. Literate people who knew how to write ricotta would not have pronounced it ‘irkotta’. Think of all the new mispronunciations we encounter on a daily basis (largely of English words incorporated into Maltese).
Those mispronunciations are all without exception made by people who are ‘illiterate’ in English – they don’t know how the word is written; they are unaware of its ‘shape’. It’s easy to see how this would happen: I don’t know about you, but if I were presented with a word in, say, German, I would get it wrong until I had written it down, looked at its ‘shape’, taken note of where the vowels and consonants are, and repeated it several times. You might well express horror at the thought of petlor becoming part of the language – but have you ever wondered why we all now say ‘artal’ for altar, rather than ‘altar’? It’s because the mispronunciation has wiped out correct pronunciation completely, even though Aquilina lists both ‘altar’ and ‘artal’. It just happens to be a much older word than ‘ricotta’.
One would have hoped that widespread literacy and increased knowledge of the languages from which we obtain loan-words (Italian, English) would have halted this process of mispronunciation – but instead it has increased, and with the encouragement of the official bodies. It is truly a free-for-all and it is actually hindering literacy. The spelling of English loan-words using Maltese phonetics and bad pronunciation is a disaster for literacy – because these are direct loan words from a language being used in parallel in the same country and encountered all the time. So children at school are expected to switch – for example – from blackboard in English to blekbort in Maltese.
This creates confusion in spelling and more so, confusion in pronunciation. What are children expected to do – switch pronunciation? Children who speak good English are expected to pronounce ‘blekbort’ badly in the pretence that they are speaking Maltese; and children who never learned good English are led to believe that ‘blekbort’ is how it is pronounced in English. And they will never understand why it is spelled ‘blackboard’. Those who think I am nitpicking, and who talk about the beauty of a freely developing language, cannot see that what we actually have is a deterioration of language leading directly to a deterioration in literacy, with all the negative consequences associated with it. People in Malta – and this across all social classes, incidentally – have extremely poor thinking and information-assimilation skills. Bits of information are gathered for their own sake – nothing is actually done with them. They are not the spur to thought. Rational thought, the development of ideas – all of this is affected by poor literacy.]
People are still bombarding you about such ignorance. Please refer to the book which is called THE FOOD AND COOKERY OF MALTA which was written by Helen and Anne CARUANA GALIZIA. On page 190 there is listed a recipe – TORTA TA L-IRKOTTA….so?!?! Answer please!!
[Daphne – I’ve already answered this one. The thought of Helen TOMKINS and her sister Anne PARNIS saying ‘torta tal-irkotta’ is beyond amusing. For a start, it was my mother-in-law who gave them the recipe, and she calls it ‘torta tar-rikotta’. Most of the rest of the recipes were obtained from her grandmother’s cook, and others from ladies who would laugh at the thought of saying ‘irkotta’. I think you’ll find that in the original edition of the recipe book, that’s how it was spelled. The ‘irkotta’ is either the input of some overzealous editor, or – far more likely – it’s that Helen, who speaks English as a first language, trying to be ‘democratic’ again. D’you see now? This is exactly what I mean. Helen and Anne are both the sort of people who say ‘rikotta’, but there you go – under pressure to say it the ‘democratic’ way.]
ghidt li trid..Irkotta tibqa irkotta u gib provi kemm trid ghax jien li min kellimt l-istess bhali jghid… saqsi lil ITS, Benna u lid-diversi nies li kienu is-seminar ta SME week fl-ITS stess il-bierah!!
Yes Mario,
You have really quoted gods here, ITS, Benna – well if they say so …
You said it yourself – “gib PROVI kemm trid ghax jien li min kellimt l-istess bhali jghid”
Injorant kont, u injorant tibqa`
But why did this whole debate start?
WHO said IRkotta in the first place?
What prompted all this hullaballoo?
ghax daphne mohha maghluq u minghalija trid timpressjona… hallin anghixu ta!!
David, turiex min hu l-injorant u pastas….
Why, don’t you like the exposure?
This is becoming more and more interesting. I am reminded of a conversation among friends including the late Jimmy Farrugia.
He was a son of Tarxien, if ever there was one, and an erudite and cultured gentleman of the old school.
The patron saint of his birthplace was one of his pet subjects. The feast is due soon. Il-Lunzjata or illunzjata.
He would have parted with his right hand to hear his Madonna referred to as ANNUNZJATA. When he built his house at the top of the hill opposite il-perit’s he plastered the name in big letters across the facade: ANNUNZJATA.
What a grand name, he would say. The one to whom the greatest event ever was announced. He suffered in silence the Maltese penchant for destroying lovely words.
There you are.
[Daphne – That’s the trouble. The educated suffered in silence while ignorance took over, with the result that their grandchildren now have to say ARTAL for that thing in church – just because 90% of the population was illiterate and couldn’t stick the L and R in the right place. Can you imagine the scene in a classroom: Right, children. Maltese: A-R-T-A-L. English: A-L-T-A-R. Aquilina gives them both, but ‘altar’ has long since died out.
Look at the way people are mocking me for saying that the correct way to say it is ‘nofs ratal rikotta’. Nofs ratal? hahahaha! It’s nofs artal! That’s right – half an altar. Mistakes are fine. Mistakes incorporated into the language – well, that’s language. But you have to be really bloody-minded indeed to insist that corruptions of words are not the result of mispronunciation due to illiteracy and ignorance.
They all are, in every language across time. But in the age of mass illiteracy this was understandable. People shift liquid consonants around in a word only when they don’t know how to write it. When you know how to write a word, you don’t shift the letters around. If that were not the case, the shifting would be continuous. The word would never ‘lock’ into a format. People would be moving from, say, altar to artal and back again indefinitely.
The shift ‘locks’ permanently when it is written, and that’s why there’s been a noticeable increase in the use of the word ‘irkotta’ over the last few years. I actually remember irkotta as the exception not the rule – but now it’s become the rule, because it is being written down and advertised.
The only shifting of liquid consonants which takes place now is – again – linked to illiteracy. The shifting is taking place only in words that people don’t know how to write: English words, medical terms, that kind of thing. Is it possible to spell aluminium while still pronouncing it ‘allumilju’? No, it is not – because if you can spell it, then you know where the L and Ms go.]
Annunziato becomes Lonzu.
In Corsica this is the lonzu:
http://www.facthouz.com/galerie/exa785ofa0c/charcuterie-corse-le-lonzu_o03c2.jpg
kimm ghendkom pepe qziezati u nejk.
Ehne r-rehel Arkotta nghejdewla
Aluminium
I remember reading somewhere that the English spell this word wrongly, in order to make it look like barium, sodium and the like. The “correct” English spelling, I found out, should be “aluminum”, without the i.
But who am I to tell Daphne and the English what’s wrong and what’s right, say I?
[Daphne – Never one to let a chip get out of the way of the facts, eh, Joe? Why is aluminium the ‘wrong’ spelling? Humphry Davy – an Englishman in England, incidentally – isolated aluminium and named it ‘aluminum’, but within a few years it was ‘aluminium’. Davy also isolated and named potassium, sodium, magnesium, calcium and strontium. There is no scientific reason for the omission of the second i in aluminum. It was just a matter of personal fancy. Hence, there is no wrong or right in including it or excluding it.
However, British English uses only ‘aluminium’ and American English uses only ‘aluminum’. The two do not coexist in the same version of the language. The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry – the body which has the final say on the official spelling of the names of elements, if you wish to put it that way – made a decision in 1990 in favour of aluminium as the standard international name. Then a few years later, it cracked – all that US pressure – and adopted aluminum strictly as a variant. So really, the ‘wrong’ spelling – for a time, at least – was actually aluminum. And in chemistry, the name is still aluminium.]
But in chemistry, aluminum is an accepted variant.
The whole “irkotta-rikotta” question all boils down to this: the acceptance of variant spellings in language.
[Daphne – ‘Accepted variant’ is not the same thing as ‘standard name’. You’d have to be a very bloody-minded American chemist to insist on using ‘aluminum’ on the international chemistry circuit. Your comparison of aluminium to irkotta just doesn’t wash. Aluminium is the name – the equivalent of a proper name for a town or person, if you wish – coined for a recently isolated element. This is like when you find a dog, take it home and invent a name for it. Nobody sat down, invented ricotta, and thought ‘bingo! I’ll call it ricotta, because I’ve cooked it twice!’.]
It does not seem to be the pattern. SkonD and skonT were variants. Skond was unceremoniously eliminated.
PS
Actually, skonD is closer to seconDo, than is skonT (which would be closer to sconTo). But the latter was preferred to the former.
The same is happening with rikotta and (i)rkotta. The former is akin to skond, the latter to skont.
Daphne, please correct me if I’m wrong. Your argument here is that since the original word coming from Italian is “ricotta” and therefore it should stay as is, and thus whoever pronounces the word “irkotta” is wrong.
However, all languages borrow words from other languages and change their spelling. For example “to descend” in the English language is derived from French “descendre” which is in turn derived from Latin “descendere”.
See http://www.myetymology.com/english/descend.html
Obviously this borrowing from one language to another happened a long time ago, but languages keep evolving and this sort of thing keeps on happening to this very day.
So my question here is: If it is OK for the English language to borrow words from other languages and change “descendere” into descend, why is it not OK for Maltese to borrow the word “ricotta” from Italian and change it to “irkotta”?
[Daphne – If you were to have the patience to scroll through all the comments here and under the other Irkotta post, you’ll see that this argument has been made, and answered, several times over. When you are borrowing words in the age of literacy and mass written communication, and more so, borrowing them directly from a language which is in parallel written use on a daily basis (English) and to which we are regularly exposed (Italian), there is no excuse for corruption. The English who borrowed from alien tongues in the age of illiteracy had an excuse. We don’t. We make a virtue out of ignorance.]
Good point (sorry if I didn’t go through all the comments… too many to read and am a busy person you know) ;-)
I’m not sure if that argument is factual… I mean, the word irkotta has been used by the Maltese for quite a long time. I remember my mother using it since I was born (30 years ago) and she probably got it from her mother – thus we are going into the age of illiteracy here.
And ever heard of the English word “spitchered” coined by the British soldiers in Malta in WWII? Unfortunately the word is not in use anymore and thus it does not feature in the Oxford dictionary but when it did it was defined as: “to blot out”, “erase”, “destroy”, “leave few traces of”” (source: http://www.century-of-flight.net/Aviation%20history/WW2/aces/Robert%20Wendell%20McNair.htm) Well you may have guessed it – the word “spitchered” was derived from the Maltese “spicca” and was probably coined at approximately the same times when “irkotta” was coined.
HAWN TANT PROBLEMI FUQ XIEX NINKWETAW GHAMILTU GHAGEB FUQ KELMA LI GHALIJA MA TAGHMILLIEX DIFFERENZA. L-AQWA LI HAL KIRKOP GHAMEL SUCCESS U GEW HAFNA NIES. NARAWKOM SENA OHRA.
PROSIT RITA…NIES BHALEK IRRIDU U MHUX MIN JAHSEB LI HU XI HAGA :)
What a load of —- . We really have nothing else to do.
Resending comment sent last Wednesday:
@K Caruana
“Hal-Kirkop” is written wrong…should be “Hal Kirkop”
…and what about ‘altar’ or ‘artal’ ?
RICOTTA IS IN ITALIAN, SO WE MUST WRITE IT RIKOTTA TO BE IN MALESE.DAPHNE RUHI STAJT GHAMILT XI HAGA IKTAR TA GID MILLI TPARLA FIL VOJT U TURI KEMM MINGHALIK INT BRAVA. GHAX MA TMURX TALLEM IL-MALTI. I WILL BE THE FIRST TO COME.
Rita ħi,
ħa nkun l-arjurant li jigħidielek: meta tikteb b’ittri kapitali fuq l-internet tkun qed tghajjat.
Waqt li kont qed naqqra l-kummenti tiegħek kont qed nimmaġina ċerċura tghajjat b’ħanġra daqsxiex waqt li tfajjar mossi oxxeni għal gost tal-ispettatur.
Kull ma’ kien jonqosni kien pakkett popkorn u Kinnie ekstra larġ.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Jien-irkotta-nghid-mhux-rikotta/126196440738433
Oh no they didn’t.
Min jaf lil Olvin Vella jaf il-professjonalità tiegħu fix-xogħol li jagħmel, kemm bħala riċerkatur kif ukoll bħala għalliem. Nifraħlu għax-xogħol li jwettaq bħala lettur fl-università, fit-taħriġ li jagħti lill-għalliema u fl-għaqdiet li huwa membru fihom.
Le, ta, David Agius Muscat. Anzi, bil-kontra. Min jaf lil Olvin Vella jaf il-faqar ta’ ricerka tieghu! Bhala ghalliem forsi mat-tfal ta’ 18-il sena jinzel tajjeb. Ghax ghadhom hergin mill-mentalita’ sekondarja.
Imma fid-dinja tal-adulti, Olvin Vella x’il-marelli jiswa akkademikament?
Sahansitra l-Professur Wettinger raddlu hajr ghall-entuzjazmu zaghzugh tieghu fid-dahla ghad-dizzjunarju tal-kliem antik. Ghall-entuzjazmu zaghzugh, mhux ghall-kontribut intellettwali!
Wettinger jaghtina c-cavetta biex nifhmu lil Olvin.
Olvin ghandu hafna entuzjazmu, hrara, hegga, sejhilha li trid. L-istess attributi dawn, li wassluh biex jimxi ‘l quddiem, bhala karrjerista. U l-istess attributi li jaghmluh popolari ma’ certu tip ta’ studenti.
Imma bhala intellettwali, barra l-qargha ta’ Vassalli, xi skopra Vella?
“Olvin Vella: Dak li Kixef il-Qargha ta’ Missier l-Ilsien Malti.”
La jmut hekk se jiktbulu fuq l-irhama tal-qabar.
Hallina, David, tridx!
Shakespeare, etc
You have posted several comments attacking Olvin Vella personally. Is there something between you two that you’re not telling? It can’t be just love of Maltese that is motivating such vehemence.
Dear Antoine
Your criticism boils down to my being subjective, rather than objective.
I shall try to convince you that I am being objective. Of course, you may disagree with me. But, please, first read what I have to say.
You are right: it is not love of Maltese which motivates me to criticize publicly a publicly-paid person. The reason is that I am a strict believer in Meritocracy.
In fact, I have taken up “Overestimated Shakespeare” from a comment posted on this blog some time back which said that Shakespeare is overestimated. That comment was based on an idea of meritocracy which is the mirror image of mine. According to this comment, Shakespeare does not deserve all the recognition he gets. Of course, I disagreed. But the comment to me was interesting because whoever posted it started from the my same premise (that is, meritocracy) but ended with the diametrically opposite conclusion, namely that Shakespeare is overestimated. To me, including the comment in my nickname was an intellectual somersault.
Now, to get back to the point. So far, I have applied the meritocracy yardstick to four people mentioned on this blog.
1. Sharon Ellul Bonici.
I am of the opinion (and luckily this seems to be shared by the electorate) that Ms Ellul Bonici does not have the savvy to be an MEP. I base my opinion on one small detail which put Sharon in a completely new light. She opened her eve-of-the-election speech at the Upper Barracca with the notorious – if not infamous – phrase, “Miniex Nostradamus, imma jekk hemm haga li naf hi kif tahdem l-Unjoni Ewropea.” That small incipit – “I am not Nostradamus” – betrays Sharon’s inapt handling of the subject-matter. Had the speech begun with “Jekk hemm haga li naf”, I would have had nothing to say. But the clarification that she is not Nostradamus gave her true cultural level away. For two reasons: i. because Nostradamus has objectively nothing to do with the EU and ii. because people of a certain level do not quote Nostradamus unless they’re discussing astrology. I do not think astrology has anything to do with the EU, despite the golden stars on the blue background of the flag!
I saw this as such a glaring example of the mismatch between one’s self-image and one’s real abilities, that I added the Nostradamus to my nickname on this blog.
Bottom line: Ms Ellul Bonici does not deserve to be an MEP, because of her inherent qualities (or lack thereof).
2. Consuelo Scerri Herrera.
Dr Scerri Herrera has shown she lacks what it takes to make a good magistrate, namely good judgment. She has shown she is not judicious in her actions, lacks the sobreity which befits a member of the judiciary, lacks the gravitas which someone who administers justice should have in all circumstances, and all in all fails to understand the nuances of the unwritten law which our ancestors called mores. As Horace said, quid leges sine moribus vanae proficiunt?
I subscribed so much to the criticism meted out to Dr Scerri Herrera that, inspired by Sharon’s Nostradamus gaffe, I wrote literally scores of quartrains criticizing the magistrate and they were all published on this blog.
Bottom line: Dr Scerri Herrera does not deserve to be on the bench, because of her inherent qualities (of lack thereof).
3. Anglu Farrugia.
I am of the opinion that Dr Farrugia lacks the wherewithal to be Deputy Leader of the PL and possibly Deputy Prime Minister of Malta. Not only because of the – to put it mildly – ethically controversial qualities he displayed when still a Police Inspector (see Daphne’s account thereof), or because of the crassness shown on his website, but also because of his obvious lack of savoir faire and other subtleties in his forma mentis, Weltanschauung, etc etc. I said this over and over again on this blog, almost ad nauseam.
Bottom line: Dr Farrugia does not deserve to be Deputy Leader of the PL and possibly Deputy Prime Minister of Malta, because of his inherent qualities (or lack thereof).
4. Olvin Vella
It follows that even with Mr Vella, I had to resort to the same evaluation process. Mr Vella has never published any research paper of quality. The only research he did, which I am aware of at least, relates to Vassalli’s baldness and an idiom used in Caxaru’s Cantilena which adds very little to the discussion on the “first poem in Maltese.” It has taken him very long to finish his Master’s, which makes him a bad example for undergraduates.
Bottom line: Olvin does not deserve to be a University lecturer, because of his inherent qualities (or lack thereof).
As you can see, Antoine, I have treated the objects of my criticism equally and fairly. I have tried to used my understanding of deconstructionist theory to reveal what lies behind appearances.
Do you still doubt my objectivity?
I will add only one other point.
When Patrick Vella was handed down his prison sentence, I remember people saying, “Iddispjacieni ghalih.”
I was incredulous. This man got bribed to reduce a drug dealer’s sentence, and people feel sorry for him! Incredible! But true. I really heard people expressing such thoughts.
One hopes the same misguided sentimentality does not creep here too.
Olvin Vella is not competent to be a University lecturer. Why does saying the obvious seem to be implying that one has an axe to grind?
So according to her highness the academic board for the Maltese language is epically mistaken by having Maltese primary students read from a book called ‘Id- Denfil’, as opposed to it supposedly being ‘Id- Delfin’???
Issa Daphne tista tghidli kif il-klassi tar-rikotta jghidu “tuzzana ravjul”?
Nistenna twegiba.
[Daphne – Tuzzana ravjul, jekk joghgbok.]
Skond il-klassi tar-rikotta suppost tghid “dozzina ravioli” ghax il-kelma “tuzzana” gejja minn “dozzina” u “ravjul” gejja minn “ravioli”.
Il-“jekk joghgbok” hija barra mill kuntest f’dan il-kaz. M’hux se tghidli: “kilt tuzzana ravjul jekk joghgbok”, nahseb!
[Daphne – Rubbish, John. You obviously haven’t picked up much from this debate. Mistakes in pronunciation are fed into the language from the illiterate classes upwards (the majority dominates). Over time, these mistakes become embedded in the language and replace the correct pronunciation. Once they are embedded, they are used across all classes – a case in point being ARTAL, my pet hate.
There is always a period during which mistaken pronunciation and correct pronunciation coexist before mistaken pronunciation eradicates correct pronunciation. This is the case with irkotta and rikotta. During that period of coexistence, which is temporary as with all things, you are able to observe quite clearly which class of people uses one word and which class of people (or their immediate descendants) uses the other. That’s all. Dozzina has long been nonexistent, and the same with ravioli in Maltese. However, the rikotta classes, when speaking English, don’t say ravjul but ravioli.]
Ravioli can have a variety of fillings, like pumpkin, cheese, and beef. On the other hand ravjul is always filled with irkotta or gbejniet with eggs and some parsley.
[Daphne – No, John. Just because nobody in Malta thought to fill ravioli with anything other than ricotta, it doesn’t follow that ravjul are always filled with ricotta but ravioli have different fillings. They’re all ravioli and they’re all ravjul. Ravjul bis-salamun, for instance, not ravioli bis-salamun.]
So the ricotta classes when speaking English should say ‘ravjul’ or at least ‘ricotta filled ravioli’.
I bet that when ricotta people order two ‘pastizzi tal-pizelli’ they ask for two pea stuffed cheese cakes!
[Daphne – No, John. I feel like I’m beating my head against a brick wall here, as you clearly haven’t understood the difference between tal-pepe and chavs with money. Nobody who is truly tal-pepe would say ‘pea-stuffed cheese cakes’ because tal-pepe people tend to have had a decent education, and the really tal-pepe ones – at least of the older generation, but in my case my generation too – speak proper, correct Maltese and NEVER speak English when Maltese is required – or vice versa.]
Daphne, I doubt ‘ricotta’ was borrowed during the age of mass written communications — by which I assume you mean the 1920s onwards, when global mass-media started taking hold.
[Daphne – Malta entered the age of mass written communication post 1987, not post 1920s. There was mass illiteracy until just a generation ago. I would say that the majority of today’s Maltese adults had (have?) grandparents who were illiterate. Living in my Sliema cocoon in 1986, a cocoon in which everyone and his/her grandparents could read and write fluently, I was gobsmacked to find myself at Karin Grech Hospital, on the post-delivery ward, with around 20 other women who were very curious to see me reading, and who discussed this phenomenon among themselves. She can read! They also wanted to know about my Coco Pops at breakfast (dak x’ inhu? dak biex tipporga?). THIS WAS 1986! Because I was somebody who could read and who ate strange stuff, I was regarded as an exotic Outlander, and they surrounded me at close quarters while discussing me within earshot. It was so weird. Breakfast cereal and women with books were alien in the world of those 20 women. And remember that in 1986 a maternity ward was almost wholly representative of Maltese society – because it was the only place you could give birth, if you didn’t want to do gymnastics underwater in Haz-Zabbar.]
It also does not have a global standards board which enforces its spelling and pronunciation. The English have a lot of words which are purer in their Italian, Arabic, or Greek form, and none of those languages are dead.
Frankly, I don’t think your argument is as solid as you think it is.
“….if you didn’t want to do gymnastics underwater in Haz-Zabbar”.
You could have opted for home birth, or ‘normal’ birth at the said Zabbar clinic. In those circles you would have found people who read in the waiting-room and ate corn flakes at home.
[Daphne – Home births were very irkotta, and still are. Births at the clinic in question, whether underwater or not, were rikotta, but then largely because only rikotta people could pay for them. But the way I reasoned (and still do) was this: that the whole point of giving birth in a medical environment is to have everything possible on hand should anything go wrong for mother or baby. I could never see the sense in giving birth in a private clinic, where all you get is a bed, a nurse and if you’re lucky a doctor. You might as well give birth at home.]
Home births are more relaxing, but that’s up to the mother to decide. Home births cost nearly the same as those in the clinic. You forgot to mention the childbirth educator (“blow, blow, pant pant”). So if we could afford three home births we should be classified as rikotta.
What a relief, I’m rikotta!
[Daphne – How can a birth ever be considered relaxing – let alone more relaxing? Only a man would say that. Besides, one of the reasons most women prefer to give birth in hospital is precisely NOT to be at home with all the chaos that entails. A couple of days in hospital are a relief. Our lucky mothers got to stay for a week. And in my time, the Karin Grech nurses kept the babies and took care of them in that big room full of cots, so that the new mothers could rest and sleep. They only woke a mother when her baby was howling so much that they couldn’t keep it quiet and it woke the other babies. God bless them. Now apparently they shove the baby at you even after 24 hours of labour. Unbelievable.]
That’s how you reason things out: others preferred the comfort of their home for births.
[Daphne – It’s now how almost everyone reasons, John, not least because sensible women giving birth over the age of 30 – especially when it’s a first birth (elderly primagravida) – are wise enough to do so in a medical environment. And women in their 20s think ‘hospital’ anyway. Of course, way back when everybody gave birth at home, and it wasn’t pretty – for the mother or the baby. My grandmother’s sister died in childbirth, with her third child – not her 15th or her first. She would have been saved today. And we’re only talking 65-odd years ago.]
My children are the same age as yours. It was not common practice to have births at home. Your approach is that a woman about to give birth is a patient and babies were a burden.
[Daphne – As is the case, indeed. In nature, childbirth is extremely dangerous. If everything were left to nature, women and babies would be dying like flies, as they did in the days before surgical intervention and general medical care. We are unique among mammals in this respect – the result of the foetus being too large for the pelvis, evolution having screwed up royally here. Another right royal screw-up: that it is possible for women to conceive for anything up to 20 years beyond the age at which they can have a low-risk delivery and a healthy baby.]
Now the argument is on FB
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Jien-irkotta-nghid-mhux-rikotta/126196440738433?ref=search&sid=UiD85k88UKr6ejyiqlvuyg.1779562043..1
viva l-IRKOTTA!!!! ghandi aptit zewg pastizzi tal-irkotta bhalissa, oh sorry I had to say tar-rikotta oops….give me a break
If we ever were to meet and the subject discussed is haberdashery you would classify me in one category as I do not say lasktu (or, shudder, lasktuwa) but lastiku (not even lastku).
[Daphne – Let me surprise you. Lastku is the correct order of consonants. E-L-A-S-T-I-C. Lasktu is wrong.]
However, you would label me as working class if we met at the pastizzar, because I always believed that irkotta was the mere result of an addition of a vokali tal-lehen and not a corruption of the word ricotta. The corruption (and what, to me, screams lower class) would be arkotta. I always remember my mother’s raised eyebrows at the sound of that. (And at the sound of Dahster and doiler… but I digress).
Ideally (sigh) I would still use my parents’ bicca tat-tfarfir and magna tal-hasil (NEVER Il-Maxijn!)… but of course that would mean that they themselves (no, their parents or grandparents before them) shouldn’t have stopped using the moxt replacing it with pettne (do the ricotta brigade still use pett- I-ne? I remember that too…).
[Daphne – Errrm, bicca tat-tfarfir and magna tal-hasil are tal-pepe. Daahsterrr and maaaahsheeen are working class. I believe that moxt fell out of favour because of the sound between the m and t. And yes, we do still say pettine.]
I think there is a distinction to be made between what is corrupted and that which is given some sort of more recognisable grammatical form, and yet another distinction between that and being downright affected.
Now, as to my actual class… I am a professional, with professional parents who were Maltese speaking but raised us as bilingual (my own children are English speaking).
[Daphne – For the umpteenth screaming time, because I’m beginning to think I’m living in Pakistan now. Professionals are not a class of people and qualifying as a doctor or a lawyer does not move a person up into a different social class. It is possible to be a working class doctor just as it is possible to be a middle class doctor or a an aristocratic doctor or whatever. I know that the big thing in Malta is for mothers to push their children to become doctors and lawyers as an overnight rise in status, but really, this isn’t how things work. And whether your children are English-speaking or not has nothing to do with it. You’ll find that the ultra tal-pepe families tend to speak Maltese.]
One set of grandparents was straightforward working class, the other set was probably also working class but of a more skilled sort (my grandfather) and genteel background (piano playing and embroidering grandmother of direct Italian descent… we are talking turn of the 20th century).
So, did I skew the results or confirm the theory? Oh well, I suppose neither… it doesn’t really matter either way…
[Daphne – You confirmed the theory. A ricotta person – oh, I love this definition; it’s so easy – would never regard a professional qualification as status, nor the fact of ‘English-speaking children’.]
And that’s also possibly because class on the basis of what one does/did for a living or his/her level of education is one thing… but then there is also the question of where one was raised; whether in a city (Valletta and pre-war Birgu, Bormla, Isla… in all cases, of course, depending on which area in the city) or whether in the more rural villages.
My point in all these ramblings? I suppose it was merely to question the validity of the rkotta/ricotta yardstick as a valid measure of class background.
[Daphne – Oh right. Then how do you explain the fact that people who say irkotta are immediately marked out by those who say ricotta – and vice versa? Or the other fact that it’s only people who say irkotta who don’t think it’s a class-based thing?]
Sa fejn naf jien il-grupp konsonantali STK (kif qieghda tghid int f'”lastku*) ma jezistix.
[Daphne – Ovvja li le, ghaliex il-kelma gejja mit-Taljan (jew mill-Ingliz).]
Why should I be surprised? I have just said that. Lastiku is right. Of course lasktu is wrong. I didn’t invert them, did I?
I also said that my parents used bicca tat-tfarfir and magna tal-hasil. Still do. But that doesn’t make us tal-pepe surely because we still say irkotta.
And that’s what the whole point of my comment was (why did I even bother?): to try and show that you can’t use the rikotta/rkotta measure as a gauge though you can, probably, use other words as an indication.
I don’t regard ricotta as tal-pepe… I merely see it as being somewhat affected, like hawnhekka.
[Daphne – You mean why do I bother? Not all loan words are linked to class, but some of them are, and irkotta is definitely one of them. You may find plenty of working-class (or recently working-class) families who say rikotta, but you won’t find one tal-pepe family who say irkotta, unless they’re doing it deliberately and consciously because of this recent EU-special-status-for-food thing. Now apply the principles of logic to that.]
Similarly I would never pronounce tieghu as tijaw or tiju but tijow, believing it to be the correct version.
[Daphne – There you go then: another one.]
And you really jumped in too quickly on my mention of the professional status like it was some sort of claim (and as if only the traditional professions exist today, how quaint).
[Daphne – Professions usually come with a warrant, Maryanne. That’s the distinction.]
t was just the first piece of the mosaic that tried to give a more complete picture, if that’s ever possible, of what sort of class background I am talking about.
We are a mixture of four generations ranging from the solely Maltese speaking, to the bilingual and English-speaking and my grandparents were certainly working class (I spelt that out at the outset so that you don’t have to take my use of irkotta as the benchmark) and yet we still don’t say lakstu or dahster or maxijn.
So if you were keeping a score it would be one point for working class vocabulary and three for tal-pepe…(or does the rkotta criterion carry more weighting?).
[Daphne – Madonna, Maryanne, honestly. I’m going to repeat myself: this is about little more than VERY SIMPLE logic. No one from the older tal-pepe families says irkotta – no one. It’s unheard of, something associated with servants. Meanwhile, in the rest of Maltese society, there is a commingling of irkotta and rikotta. Both are used, but irkotta is far, far more prevalent. Conclusion (using logic): not everyone who says rikotta is tal-pepe, but all those who say irkotta are not tal-pepe. I’m afraid that if you were to try arguing with that you would have problems. You know, I don’t really care as much about this irkotta/rikotta thing as I do about the apparent widespread inability to think rationally and to allow emotions – Of course I’m not working class! How dare you! – get in the way. I have no problem with saying I’m tal-pepe, even though it’s actually a disparagement.]
But the truth is that I am neither. Probably lower middle class with a relatively good convent and tertiary education from the inner harbour area. The fact that my parents are in their eighties and also have tertiary-level education, however is not quite the mothers-pushing-their-children and nowadays-everyone-is-a-lawyer phenomenon.
And the fact that my children speak English is only because they can’t be bothered with Maltese, because they only ever read and watch anything in English and because somehow the fact that my husband and I both speak Maltese nearly all of the time seems to have affected them not the slightest. So no, they didn’t slip into chav english because it wasn’t that sort of environment… we’re not trying to climb anywhere as we really can’t be bothered with faking anything.
Our income level is certainly on the low side, and by some innate inverted snobbery we tend to dismiss people with money as being ‘tal-business’.
[Daphne – There you go, then: yet another one. A really lousy attitude to pass on to your children, might I add. But I don’t blame you, in particular, given that it’s so prevalent in Malta and leads to the belief that taps with money are turned on in secret locations. You shouldn’t do it, because the more options your children have, the better.]
We also have a healthy (quanto basta) dose of respect and admiration for people with breeding, acknowledge that our lineage is far removed from that, but still feel that our upbringing and manners are nonetheless better than average, for all that matters nowadays.
The only time I feel some spark of class intolerance is when I hear parroted comments, unfortunately seemingly irrevocably ingrained in the ‘popolin’ that are remnants of the 70s when the idea of improving the conditions of the lower classes meant trying to denigrate and bring down (they could never annihilate) the upper-middle and upper classes through sheer persecution. That I still cannot stomach.
[Daphne – Well, I’m with you on that one. And that’s a positive attitude to pass on to your children, so they’re lucky to have you.]
As to your last comment – well, yes, I think the people who say ricotta mark out the ones who say irkotta, but when I, on the other hand, hear someone say ricotta I don’t think tal-pepe, I rather think purist Italian, slightly affected, like saying karrozza instead of karozza.
[Daphne – That’s interesting. Another one to think about, like I finally worked out why I grew up saying Valetta. I also grew up saying karrozza, and still do. I wondered why it’s spelled with a single R. I didn’t really notice that lots of people pronounce it that way. It’s not something I’d think about – like I never wonder why some say tieghAW and some say tieghEW.]
And I explained that some of us who say irkotta don’t see it as a class thing not because we are in denial but because we find it is to have been given a ‘more acceptable grammatical context’ in the local idiom by the introduction of the vokali tal-lehen and not because it’s an uneducated corrupted form like nikbu (nibku) or niefqu (nieqfu) would be.
For that reason we would probably use ricotta when speaking English, which has no need for vokali tal-lehen and because there is no English word for it. So kannoli tal-irkotta would be ricotta cannoli in an English sentence. Whether you agree or not is another matter but since this shift happened a couple of lifetimes ago, I tend to worry more about the more recent butchering and corruption of words, a trend that is fast gaining ground because it is propagated in the media as well as by teachers who spread it among their pupils… now that’s a linguistic pandemic if there ever was one.
May I? Just a couple of points and only, because, like you I’m fascinated with words.
re professionals: I know they’re the ones with warrants, yes, but that includes teachers, accountants and psychologists nowadays… so that’s what I meant by my comment.
Secondly, I’m glad you said that not all loan words are linked to class, because that explains part of why I was getting so het up. In my case it would mean I was one mixed-up person seeing I only seem to ‘fall foul’ of the rkotta criterion, while likewise I know that I could never ever pass for a pepe person just because of the way I say countless other words (though, for me, my pet hate is the lastiku vs lasktu thing and think that that would be more of an indicator… but anyway, that’s just me).
Maybe some people feel offended by your inference. I am comfortable enough with who I am and where I come from to accept that by no stretch of the imagination could I be pepe, but I just thought the argument was flawed, that’s all. I see your point and I accept it is the direct result of observing who says what, but I just kept thinking there must be more to that than meets the eye.
Re business people, you are of course right. Heaven forbid we all reason this way or our economy would be doomed. But I still think I shouldn’t encourage any offspring with my genes to go into business, if the only example they have to learn from is the way I dismally try to balance the household budget with .. hrrmph… not exactly business acumen.
Seriously, deep down I admire business-minded people’s willingness to take risks, and I admire success stories but I suppose it’s easier to focus on the wheelers and dealers and disassociate oneself from the world of money-making as if money were a dirty word.
I do get a twinge of ‘get real’ when I realise the semi-literate people we call in to do odd jobs run circles round us when it comes to the way they manage a business, but I would still idiotically enough more readily romantically idealise the image of the starving artist than dream of emulating the successful shop owner. Books, words, people, poetry… fascinating. Money? Panic.
There I go, on and on and taking up all this space when I said I’d just come back with a few points. I don’t think I’m ever going to be able to order anything with irkotta again without your image before my eyes. It’s going to be my personal mission to stick to rkotta, the way I valiantly ask for zunnarija at the greengrocer’s, no matter how bemused they seem to be by that.
[Daphne – Buy your veg where I live. Everyone says zunnarija here. It is where I learned the word. I hadn’t known it before.]
But thanks for the debate… heartily enjoyed it (what’s wrong with me?!)
Maryanne, if I may, I think you are placing way too much stock on ‘good-breeding’. ‘Good-breeding’ never got the human race anywhere. In fact, it more or less kept it back for centuries.
Will power and entrepreneurship are the only attributes which truly keep us going forward. They are neither learned, nor genetically in-built (Well not completely at least). They are part and parcel of what it means to be human. They emerge in their host naturally as he/she reaches adulthood, and more promptly so if their host is facing a difficult situation.
ma jezistix fil-Malti ridt ghid.
Question Daphne:
If your definition of a social class has nothing to do with the following classical objective measures:
* Legal privilege.
* Wealth.
* Occupation.
* Education.
* Land.
Then how do you define a social class?
[Daphne – Tough one. I’ve thought about it a lot, but it’s bloody difficult to work out.]
From your work, I get the feeling that when you’re talking about social class, you’re more or less referring to the company you choose to keep as opposed to the company other people keep. In my opinion, that would be a social circle, not a social class.
[Daphne – Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong. 1. I don’t have a social circle because I’m not the type and because that sort of thing makes me feel even more claustrophobic than life Malta generally does already. 2. Just as I have a wide variety of interests, then so do I have a wide variety of acquaintances, friends, ‘friends’, etc.]
Social classes are objectively hierarchical in nature. A social class exists because it is objectively better than one class, and objectively worse than another — based on a clearly observable measure.
Predatory classes in the liberal tradition are people with government-sponsored privileges. Bourgeoisie in the socialist tradition are people who own the means of production. In both these cases it can be clearly observed that these people have more of something than the class below them.
A social circle may believe itself to be above all other social circles –which it usually does, all social circles have this belief or a similar belief that they are entitled to more– but this cannot be objectively proven.
Although I get the feeling that you’re just trying to rub a few insecure people the wrong way :P.
“Then how do you define a social class?
[Daphne – Tough one. I’ve thought about it a lot, but it’s bloody difficult to work out.]”
Assuming they exist, social classes should be characterised by objectively measurable ‘class markers’. Theoretically, you could start off by compiling a list of candidate markers which can then be checked individually for relevance using statistical and computational means. My guess is that you won’t find many suitable markers, making the argument for social classes (as you propose them) a rather weak one.
[Daphne – Try telling that to the academics who have made a lifetime’s study out of social classes and what they signify for….society.]
OK, so what’s so problematic about the academic definition of ‘social class’?
May I point out a few facts before you continue in your belligerent quest to define what is ‘Maltese’?
1) If you truly speak Maltese at home and so do your friends, and if you are disgusted by the ‘bastardization’ of a word such as ricotta into irkotta, I wonder if you every realized that essentially Maltese is ALL a bastardization of Arab. As a semitic language we technically mixed romantic elements with Arabic but essentially we speak a form of Arabic.
2) If you wish to discuss Maltese, I hope you consulted some people who really know their way about these things. First off, I wish to enlighten you about on of the oldest purely ‘Maltese’ texts, having medieval origins – Il-Kantaliena ta’ Pietro Caxaro… this way you might be in a better position to understand the origins of your language
3) You are mistaken to claim that tal-‘pepe’ people hail from Valletta then transfered to Sliema. If by ‘pepe’ you understand some sort of Maltese blue-blood families then I’m sorry to inform you that demographically speaking, original, truly old families lived in Mdina, the Castello Gozo, Isla and Birgu.
[Daphne – Turi kemm ma taf xejn. Tal-pepe refers SPECIFICALLY to people from Stella Maris parish, Sliema – the oldest part of the town, where the first houses were the summer homes of Valletta families. Tal-pepe does not mean upper-middle-class. All tal-pepe people are upper middle-class, but not all upper middle-class people are tal-pepe. Are we clear on this now? ]
These were the main centers inhabited in 1530 upon the arrival of the Knights (you should check Jean Quintin’s book written in 1530, published 1536 at Lyon) Valletta was built later and urbanization started in 1571 when the Knights settled in. At first only a few people were allowed there. The landed families, who were rich and were administering their lands, already had their big houses so they didn’t feel the need to go to Valletta.
The settlers of Valletta were predominately the middle-classes and the poorer classes who sought to work with the Knights on galleys etc… Thus people hailing from the South (which you seem to despise) and that are now middle class (by your standards) may have even older origins then yours.
[Daphne – Older origins? Come again? There is no such thing. We all date back to Eve in Africa. What counts is the retention or improvement of status.]
A language does not mark your social class… and I thought such ideas to be disrespectful and quite out-dated. I know very ‘uneducated’ people from Sliema who are tal-‘pepe’ and their uneducatation lies in the field of manners not of language which is worse.
[Daphne – B-o-r-i-n-g. My parents speak to each other in Maltese. Their parents spoke to each other in Maltese. But they were tal-pepe. Well, my father’s parents weren’t, because they always lived in Valletta, never Sliema, but you get my drift. They were certainly what would be called upper middle class today. I never said language – English v. Maltese – marks your social class, but rather the opposite. This discussion is about vocabulary, not language.]
4) If you think you know Maltese so well, I challenge you to discern the meaning and origin of the word ‘issorgi’. It is an old Maltese word which only a few people still use, people such as myself that come from old landed families, whose late-father was a dockyard worker (because my mother was not so narrow minded like the tal-‘pepe’ people not to marry him because of lower class standing), who is still 20 and I am graduating.
[Daphne – OK, because you’re just 20 I’ll forgive you. You obviously don’t know many people outside your age group and immediate circles. Please be informed that I do indeed know the meaning of issorgi. You people insist on ignoring me – or thinking that I am exaggerating greatly – when I say that I was raised in a Maltese-speaking household by Maltese-speaking parents who speak REAL Maltese as opposed to a working-class dialect or uneducated mishmash. Given that, over and above this, one of those parents grew up in the Grand Harbour at a time when it actually functioned as a busy port, it would be even odder still were I not to know the Maltese verb for ‘to moor’, used specifically for ships or large vessels. How do I know it? We use it. For smaller vessels, sailing-boats, etc: rabat mal-moll. I’ll bet you anything every single one of your father’s dockyard mates uses it too, and not one of them has a wife from a ‘landed family’. It’s the maritime connection that’s at work here, not the land or the social class.]
Using ‘Maltese’ forms of words such as irkotta is not a matter of ‘class’ as you inaptly put it. Unless you’ll propose that people like me should be sent off to another university built for middle-class people to leave your tal-‘pepe’ alone so that God-forbid should one of you get mixed with us like your ‘poor’ friend who you denounced of having said ‘irkotta’ at the Grocery store (yes you denounced her online as if this blog was an inquisitorial place).
5) I think you need to differentiate between mis-pronunciation of words / evolution of a language (which shows that it is still living) or simply ignorance.
6) You don’t call people uneducated because I don’t think you are educated yourself. Educated people don’t carry a banner saying so. They should be ‘above’ the rest by being tolerant and using their knowledge for the good of others. Besides I don’t know your own credentials. If all it takes to be ‘educated’ is to write a blog and be called an ‘opinionist’ then I can be one too.
[Daphne – As I’ve said already, I’ll let this go because you’re 20. God knows what I thought or believed at 20. I can’t even remember.]
‘retention or improvement of status’ clearly i dont know how ‘tal-pepe’ may be seen as an improvement of status. besides, today the majority of the people want to improve their status, but we do that by studying.
What is real Maltese and unreal ? you must be joking ‘dialect or uneducated mishmash’. you must really be joking…..
You must really have a good sense of humour..age is just a number..people may be genious at 20 yet be still uneducated at 40.
I guess you are not a linguist Mrs Caruana Galizia. ;)
Your opinion on this argument is wrong. If you want I can tell you why.
A lively debate in which a prescriptive view of language comes out strong.
Language variation and change is a very normal thing – we wouldn’t have had languages like Italian, Spanish, French, and Portuguese if Latin hadn’t “degenerated”.
Perhaps the only languages which do not experience change are dead languages.
My observation from all of the above – tal-pepe tend to sway towards the Italianised Maltese and the rest tend to sway towards a more pure Arabic Maltese – take moxt and pettine as an example. It is much more than an argument about social distinctons. It is also about identity and neo colonialism – and here is where the politics comes in – If you read about the history of the language question in Malta you may be able to deduce that the educated spoke Maltese well because they were more interested in Maltese and Italian for purley political reasons.
Remember that Italian was the official language and the language of the law courts for a long number of years and also during the early years of British rule. By maintaining Maltese and Italian the educated classes were hoping to avoid the coming prominence of English. Because of their strong interest in Italian this tended to Italianise their version of Maltese.
I think it would be resonable to argue that because the educated clasees which included tal pepe (what a horrible word) spoke fluent Italian this could have had an impact on how they spoke Maltese.
Hence the iriciotta and ricotta question. Irricotta seems more attune to the Maltese grammatical rules than ricotta – but Ricotta is also an Italian word.
Incidentally if you dig around the history of the upper middle class and upper class in Malta you may find that the majority are descendants of the highly educated who all had an affinity with Italian culture and spoke Italian fluently. Surely this must have influenced how they spoke Maltese.
Another observation comes to mind – but this could be stretching it and I expect you will react – here it goes anyway – you could argue that the generations of uneducated Maltese who may not have had the benefit of either Italian or English to influence their Maltese are the true inheritors of pure Maltese.
[Daphne – That is in fact the case. But they are not working-class. They are rural peasants, isolated for generations from contact with the urban centre. Some of the most isolated of all were those in the area where I live(no longer the case, though – not at all). When the older people speak among themselves, the tone and cadence are as close to Arabic as you can get. The working-class is by default urban, and so was heavily exposed to English, not least because it grew in the 19th and early 20th centuries in direct response to the demand for labour created by a heavy military/colonial presence here. I remember reading a letter in The Malta Independent on Sunday written by a linguist (Ray Fabri?) who pointed out that people here only began to roll the Rs in English words (a pronunciation error in Standard English) when increased literacy meant they actually saw an R in the word and assumed it had to be ‘acted upon’. Before literacy, the R tended not to be acted upon, because people learned their words directly from hearing English people speak, particularly in a naval/military context. That is why – and this is so amusing – the Maltese word for ‘schooner’ reflects almost exactly 19th-century English officer-class pronunciation: SKOO-NAH. The irony? We now use perfect English (well, posh, really) pronunciation for the Maltese word, but terrible pronunciation for the English word: SKOO-NERRRRRR.]
The Maltese dictionary says rkotta, the majority of Maltese people say rkotta, and people learning Maltese as a foreign language (yes, there are some who bother) learn to say rkotta.
Sure the word stems from ricotta and some people may bemoan this uncouth departure from the original but what can you do? I’m sure that some eyebrows were raised when those pesky plebs started referring to Medina as Mdina and it is highly likely that both names were used concurrently at some point. Maybe they started calling it Citta Notabile to break a lingual stalemate…
If I had to raise my eyebrows every time I heard the word ‘arrange’ used when someone meant to say ‘fix’ or the word ‘cut’ used instead of ‘hung up’, I would be better off stapling them to my hairline. But again, what can you do?
well said
Give me Maltese ricotta only when made from free-range cows not battery cows which is the case today!
Just go for the original Italian product and don’t bother with the local s… .
If I may, I have a question for the self-appointed experts on this blog. My grandmother was a source of great linguistic fascination for me. She would say Kindergarten instead of Kindergarden, moxt instead of pettine and ninkorla instead of nirrabja. Correct me if I’m wrong but don’t both words derive from Italian? When later in life I studied German, I wondered where she may have learnt the German Kinder -child, Garten – garden.
I’ve also concluded that since obtaining my “A” level in Maltese in 1989, I can’t write Maltese properly anymore because I refuse to write futbol or blekbort. I’ve been taught to write loan words in inverted commas in their original language. In adulthood, I now feel somewhat redundant. Why do the rules for Maltese have to keep changing somewhat unnecessarily? I find it harder to read futbol than football.
Ever heard of il-vokali tal-lehen?
IL-KLIEM LI DIEĦEL FIL-MALTI MILL-INGLIŻ
Ara: http://www.kunsilltalmalti.gov.mt u aghtu l-opinjoni taghkom.
What I would give to be able to buy Ricotta – The Maltese Ricotta….. Why do we Maltese have to knock anything made in Malta – in the UK we can only purchase the Italian equivalent of Ricotta – and what a poor substitute it is.
Well done for pointing out the grammatical error – too right – we should stand up and be counted!!!
Study Sociolinguistics in Malta and you will get to know, that some words have two variations which are both accepted in Malta. It is just how one may be used to say something – does not mean that is a ‘grammatical error’. I say IRKOTTA not RIKOTTA, nontheless I don’t say ‘pirmli’, or ‘pitlolju’ (or whatever), and please note, Rkotta is also known as ‘ħaxu’, but as I may assume, that word is ‘the mistake(s) of the poorly educated’! Moreover, I know more than one person who is born and raised in Sliema and says ‘Irkotta’, which reduces the whole argument to nothing.
Besides, if attempting to right RICOTTA in Maltese, please do write it with a ‘k’, that is ‘rikotta’ . Need I not repeat what others said about the ‘vokali tal-leħen’ before the ‘R’.
For instance, ‘pathologist’ – how would you translate it? Patoloġista / Patologu are both accepted! So is the pronunciation of ‘tiegħi’ as [tiji] in the Cottonera area, it is today also accepted.
And by the way, if we are trying to correct how to write Maltese, the village should be referred to ‘Ħal-Kirkop’ not Kirkop, just like Ħaż-Żebbug, Tas-Sliema and the rest. Otherwise it is wrong and this is written in the ‘Decizjonijiet’.
PS I know I have reached this comment quite late, my apologies for that.
You can say irkotta, arkotta u rikotta. They are all variations of the same word.
[Daphne – I’ve just heard some very interesting and barely comprehensible Manchester accents on the BBC (those riots) and I don’t think anyone would say they are all acceptable variations of the same words.]
Ask any Maltese professor, Daphne. Or consult Aquilina’s dictionary. He will tell you the same thing.
Do not forget: it’s neither you (an excellent journalist) nor me (a Maltese author) who makes the language. Common people decide the language. That’s why it’s krips or krisps, and irkotta or rikotta or arkotta.
Every language has its peculiarities and these tend to increase over time.
For those of you who said Italians do not change the spelling for loan words you’re wrong. You’re also mistaken when you say that they do not use colloquialisms with different meanings in their official language even if they do not exist or have a different meaning in another language … golfino, basket, volley, mister, etc. It occurs in all or many languages not only Maltese.
Apart from this, I really believe in a Maltese saying “l-ispizjar milli jkollu jtik” (to be polite). As I said, all languages have peculiarities and irregularities INCLUDING English (if not the language par excellence with most irregularities). Yet it is widely spoken and undoubtedly has evolved, is evolving and will evolve and there is nothing ‘korrett’ or ‘skorrett/zbaljat’ about it.
Just get on with it and if you feel astonished or in dismay about it go along using your ‘correct’ Maltese and try convincing the population by writing in Maltese for a change and not classifying it as a ‘straightjacket’ without even trying … you might be surprised and influence much more people as a journalist and perhaps really help the language and your country … rather than going for the usual satire and criticism which is very easy to thrive on in Malta instead of offering true insights and plausible solutions in your stories.