Loud and proud
Kleavon, Byon, Quinton, ejjew il-qahbec l-hawn qabel ma nsabbatkom ma' gh*xx Alla!
This was my column in The Malta Independent yesterday.
In response to a survey by SOS Malta and the UNHCR, one African refugee said he used to think of the Maltese as rude people, but now understands that ‘they don’t know anything about migration’ and this accounts for certain bad behaviour.
I don’t think I agree with that.
Whether people in Malta know anything about migration is irrelevant. The real point at issue is whether we know anything about the people we think of as The Other, and the fact is that we don’t.
We don’t care why those who are black, North African or Muslim have left their homes and countries, and it makes no difference to us to know how much they have suffered getting here.
We only know and care that they are different and represent a threat.
And the only reason I use ‘we’ in this context is that being Maltese, I feel odd using ‘they’ even though I do not in any way share these views.
That Maltese social culture tends towards the abrupt, brusque, ill-mannered, loud and rude is beyond dispute. Even supposedly well-brought-up people think nothing of asking very personal questions of people they barely know, and then take offence when the other person pretends not to have heard them.
People of all sorts of backgrounds talk over each other and interrupt as a matter of course.
Those who should know better speak of black people, North Africans, Muslims and even women in the sort of derogatory tone that is straight out of another decade.
In shops and over counters, people make their requests with caveman grunts and are met with an equally sloppy and rude response.
‘Dik’ and ‘dak’ are thought to be acceptable and normal ways of referring to people, even by the leader of the Opposition who is talking about his wife. Imagine Ed Miliband pointing at his wife and saying ‘That one’. And no, it isn’t different. It’s exactly the same.
It’s just that we Maltese are so very uncouth that we don’t even know how uncouth we are. If even the leader of the Opposition refers to his wife as ‘that one’, just imagine how somebody digging up the streets is going to speak about a passing African.
And everywhere you go, there is noise and shouting. People hold conversations across a table at the sound-level of a foghorn. Instead of walking up to a person who is some distance away, to say something to him, the common practice is to raise your voice further still and shout it out across the way.
A Maltese sandy beach in the summer is one of the most nerve-wracking places you can be, as everybody seems to be shouting at once. A hundred Maltese people sound like two thousand drunken Germans, pipped to the post in the grating-sound stakes only by southern Italians.
Being on a plane full of Sicilians or Italians from south of Rome is worse than being on a beach full of Maltese extended families.
The other day I had a compressed but perfect example of just how loud and rude and obnoxious Maltese people are. I swam out to sea and from that vantage point had a clear view, with sound effects, of a smart lido immediately adjacent to a small strip of public beach. Both were packed with people.
Voices carry loud and clear over water, but I couldn’t hear a single voice from the lido. The babble from the public beach, though, was horrendous. It was a solid wall of loud voices and shrieks, a real babble.
There can’t have been more than 80 people there but they sounded like a mass meeting after the beer had been passed round. The strangest bit is that I’d never really noticed it until I swam out and noticed the huge difference between the near-perfect silence on one side and the wall of noise on the other.
Since then I’ve seen that many Maltese literally can’t speak quietly even if they want to and it’s pointed out to them that they’re bawling. Their voices have been pitched from toddlerhood at such a loud level that talking at a normal pitch is now out of the question.
Look at all that shouting on television discussion panels, for instance. You’d think they were calling to somebody who lives across the bay.
To everybody who comes from outside Maltese culture, the sound of all this shouting, the tone of these voices, is frightening and seems rude and aggressive. Let’s face it, it is rude. And yes, it is aggressive, even if we are talking to friends.
The sound of Maltese people having a conversation is, to the uninitiated, the sound of an escalating row.
That’s another public information campaign we need: one that tells people to tone it down by a few decibels, and reminds them that their conversation need not be broadcast to the entire beach.
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I was once told by German friends visiting that we sound our horns a lot. I never really noticed this (and compared to African countries – well, there really is no comparison) but once I was made aware, well, yes, it’s true. I could visit any number of European countries and never hear the sound of a horn for the duration of my stay.
In Stockholm the absence of horns is audible. Over here we expect the horn to give us the right of way when we do not have it.
Then you have never been to Athens. It’s much worse there.
But you’re right when compared to Switzerland, Germany…
Tal-Gas igennen triq bil-horn. Tal-hobz l-istess iqazzek bil-horn u biex tkompli taghqad l-gharus tal-gara kien idoqq horn tal-arja li kellu fit-trakk tal-haxix biex jghidilha li wasal.
Probabbli la kellu dan it-tip ta’ horn fit-truck tal-haxix jigifieri li meta kien imur ibiegh kien javza lil klijenti li wasal.
X’taqlieh ta’ kultura.
I once tried explaining to a neighbour’s boyfriend that his car-horn is not a substitute for her doorbell. He got physical.
The fact that we sound so much the horn comes from the driving schools. At least that’s what my driving instructor always told me to catch the attention of the other drivers by sounding the horn as soon as I notice distruction.
In fact my husband who is not Maltese rarely sounds the horn while driving unless we’re on a motorway and someone is driving literally in the middle of the road.
The average Maltese female is a cercura (bit-tikka). The average Maltese male is a cercur (bit-tikka). Collectively they are criecer (also bit-tikka) also known as plebalja.
Remember the one about “ja mara hazina…”
I just found out that somebody even posted a remix without telling me.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qw4lYKAefw4
The average Maltese answer to your comment will be cercura (bit-tikka) ommok.
Also known as “hamalli”; I think this is derived from the Turkish “hamal” which means “port worker” and was the lowest in the Constantinople pecking order.
Ergo, if one is soft spoken, one is below average; if one constantly shares his outspoken views with the rest of the beach population one is above average.
Also, plebalja or marmalja or bla malja?
I don’t understand a word of this loud babble and I can drift off into my own world even in the most crowded place. One of the perks.
Some years ago working at the Marsa power station I developed a really loud voice. Once inside, deafness was the norm in a Dante’s inferno of heat, noise and a continuous dull vibration.
I ended up needing a TV or radio on to try and sleep because the stillness and quiet of night seemed unnatural. After leaving it took a good 6 months to get back to normal. Part time evening bar work (very busy and very noisy) had the same effect.
The only difference was that getting to sleep was awful because the brain did not turn itself off. It went into a sort of limbo work dream sleep mode.
Its not rude it is culture. Other people culture does not include shouting, our does. In the east the handshake is not so much used as in the west. does that makes them more rude?
I loved you choice of children’s names in the caption beneath the picture.
DAPHNE, IS THIS AN ARTICLE ABOUT MALTESE SHOUTING?
I think the image caption should read ‘l hawn not l-hawn.
KG, do you think that makes any difference to the “cercura” in the pic? Jekk tmur tghidilha hekk, issabbat lilek.
*sigh*
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTvtGSPjECI
I’ve watched this video. Tal-biza.
Anyway smajt il-kelma “veru rapiti”. U ma nafx xi tfisser.
Rapiti? Either some strange variant of ‘rapist’ (a borrowed word from English like Hepi Berdej) or the Italian word ‘stolen’.
Mad people usually muck up their sentances and wording making them incoherent.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqL02HSPjUM
KLEJTINNNNNNNNN! A bicca ta mgherri bhal-missierek! Ittajjarx ramel fuq dik il-mara – ghax infarraklek snienek!
Din kienet xi haga li dejjem impressjonatni f’dan il-pajjiz, li certu genituri juzaw kliem agressiv mat-tfal anke ta’ eta’ zghira hafna bhal li kieku kienet xi glieda qalila bejn zewg irgiel fis-sakra. M’hemmx differenza.
I’m not really bothered myself, but I think your little blasphemous phrase under the picture is a rather over the top and will upset some people who you don’t wish to upset. Not Kleavon or Byon or Quinton, but decent folk who otherwise enjoy your writing. Thanks.
[Daphne – It’s factual reportage. I consider myself an expert on Maltese swearing, but this is a new one I learned some days ago when one of my sisters had words with a taxi driver who scraped her car, and he yelled at her “Aqtaghha ghax insabbtek ma’ gh*xx Alla.” At the time, she was most preoccupied with the gender confusion. Please note that this was said in a very loud voice outside a busy Sliema stationery packed with people buying their newspapers on a Sunday morning.]
[Stephen – …but I think your little blasphemous phrase under the picture is a rather over the top]
If you think that’s over the top, you should live in my street. A neighbour of mine shouts expletives and swears at her children every single day…and sometimes its actually worse.
Ah! I too collect Maltese expressions as a hobby. Perhaps you’d like to have a look at these. I’ve had them in my collection since last summer:
Inkahhallek wiccek mar-Redentur.
Indeffislek blandun f’sormok.
Naghmel zobbi mohriet u nibaghtu jaghzaq f’ghoxx ommok.
And the pièce de résistance:
Naghtik daqqa ta’ ponn nerga’ ngibek liba.
What about another needed public information campaign regarding driving on the left lane/ overtaking on the right and keeping your right arm in the car while driving.
And keeping your fingers in the car while driving, too.
Last weekend I got the exact same feeling whilst at the same lido. The difference between the two zones is impressive.
You forgot to mention the atrocious swearing.
Ah, spotted the subtle reference in the photo caption…
If you want a good cross-section of the Maltese people, spend a few hours waiting at the Outpatients section of the Mater Dei Hospital.
Practically everybody is moaning about something – about the waiting, about the heat, about the doctors, about the electricity bills, about the Government, and so on and so forth.
The over-talking, to make their point, the gestures and the low-brow babbling doesn’t stop until, as you said, it seems like a PL corner meeting.
Even people talking to each other on adjacent chairs have to make their comment known across the hall – especially if it is clearly of a political nature.
They all know they are there for quite some time but does anybody bother to get a book, or paper to while away the time. Ma tarax!
Not to mention the rubbish they leave behind on beaches and other public places.
Amusing but so true. And we are so racist.
One thing I’ll never get used to is having to step off a pavement to make way for the morons who insist on strutting down the middle as if I were invisible.
What I find fascinating is how by avoiding eye contact, they do away with having to accomplish interaction.
It’s as if they’re wary of not being up to it, their hesitance forcing the choice to pretend I’m not there.
I don’t know if you want to publish this comment as it is not relevant to the thread.
I have just noticed that Nikita’s blog has disappeared from the home page links in http://www.timesofmalta.com
Any ideas or am I mistaken?
You’re spot on that we are loud – I am definitely one of the culprits. My wife (not Maltese) has told me countless times (in private) to tone it down – but I get the sensation that in this blessed country, if you’re not on the offensive from the word go, nothing gets done and nobody pays any attention to you at all. Anyone else ever get this feeling?
The Spanish can take on anybody when it comes to loud. We Maltese hold our own in the field of queue-jumping.
I disagree. I think it’s self-evident that everyone else in the world is far too soft spoken and that we Maltese are right, as usual.
I find soft-spokenness, with its connotations of faux-humility and echoes of servility, deeply offensive, and always expect guests to holler at my dinner table, because I am a civilized man.
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=260681267275461&set=o.114306255590&type=1&ref=nf
Daphne, please note that you’re desperately attempting to destroy our D.O.C. Maltese identity.
If you take noise away from us, what will be left of our highly-regarded cultural heritage?
First the gavermint, with the complicity of the darned Uropa, wanted to take away our kaċċa, then some country villa-dwellers are striving to extinguish our colourful but noisy murtali tal-festa, and now you come up with a nefarious plan to force us to lower the volume of our trademark cacophonic babble.
U l-folla qamet f’daqqa u GĦAJTET: “Jien Maltija!”
A Maltese crowd couldn’t have whispered it, could it?
This is not about criecer. The way we speak and the way we use our hands is part of our culture. We live in a small hot island. Our neighbours are our family. It is our culture and there is nothing to be ashamed of or that we should try to change.
The reserved Swiss and Germans might be called snobbish and unfriendly but that is their culture and they don’t try to change it. Thank god for that. Otherwise all the people in the world would be one big nation and I would stay here for my summer holidays.
[Daphne – You miss the point. Quiet and reserved behaviour does not annoy others. Loudness and shouting do. Culture be damned. It’s just appalling manners. That’s why the people doing the shouting are all of a certain sort. ]
This is why I can’t stand sandy beaches, or rather, crowded beaches, or beer festivals, or free concerts . . . call me a misanthrope if you must but the maxim “manners maketh man” is so true.
I find that there are looudmouths in every country.
I have got used to being round a certain type of German / Austrian and I really got to like these sort of people.
Their politeness is different from that of the English as there is less beating round the bush.
However I was stunned when I visited, for a couple of days, an island popular with Germans for its sun, sea and booze. I suddenly saw a completely different class of Germans which I had no idea existed. They were worse than the worst Maltese hamallu that I had ever seen.
BTW the word ‘hamallu’ is from the Arabic root ‘H-M-L’ which means somebody who carries stuff, usualy a port worker who caries sacks on his shoulders.
By the way, the dog owners in the picture are breaking two rules. The dog is on a sandy beach, and without a leash.
http://maltatoday.com.mt/news/national/blogger-loses-times-of-malta-spot-over-ft-plagiarism
Tell us what you think about this, Daphne.
When I step in a restaurant and I hear all that babble I simply leave. I wouldn’t resist a moment.
Anyone for some heavy petting:
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20110812/local/ta-qali-national-park-to-be-upgraded-and-extended.379955
“A butterfly house is to installed in the formal area and an application has already been submitted to create a petting farm in the crafts’ village site.”
Great article had it not been for that caption… Priva di gusto.
From timesof malta.com
“Experts do not predict a riot
Vincent Bezzina
Today, 13:40
May i also remind my fellow bloggers that in Malta we had for example food riots and in particular the British opened fire on the crowd. We celebrated them as heroes till very recently at least. What ever happened to that monument by the way? ”
If this guy (not blogger !) is referring to the Sette Giugno riots, these rioters were involved in robbery, arson and trashing private houses and were no better than the yobs seen on the streets of London and other UK cities this week. With the passage of time and for political expediencies these thugs have been elevated to national “heroes” and should be candidates for sainthood by now. We seem to have quite a knack for rewriting history as for example with the 1958 riots which in the PL/MLP’s eyes are the peak of pseudo patriotic zeal.
As for the monument, sell it for scrap or scuttle it at Cirkewwa !
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/aug/12/lebanon-women-clear-cluster-bombs
http://maltatoday.com.mt/news/national/blogger-loses-times-of-malta-spot-over-ft-plagiarism
Hey Daphne. Have you taken a look at the blog contributors list on timesofmalta today? Someone’s missing!
Daphne you mean Quintin not Quinton.
[Daphne – No, I mean Quinton. There’s somebody of that name at Super One.]
I am sure the Maltese lady on the beach named her son after that quintessential Tory, the Baron Hailsham of St Marylebone.
I had an amusing experience a few days ago.
While sitting in a WIFI free area, having a beer and emailing on my IPhone, a little old Maltese couple came in.
They proudly took out and fired up their net book, logged on to Skype and began screaming into the screen.
They were sharing the ear plugs, one each, and had their happy faces about two inches from the screen.
They were conversing with relatives who lived in Australia. Guess they thought they had to shout to be heard.
I assume their relatives were shouting back. Kinda cute, but hey, culture is culture. The rock will endure.
“Blogger loses Times of Malta spot over FT plagiarism
Allied Newspapers have removed blogger Nikita Alamango over her alleged plagiarisation of an article in the Financial Times.
The blogger and Independent on Sunday columnist Jacques Rene Zammit outlined the artless copy-and-paste job in his blog Akkuza where he showed how Alamango’s blog, Global markets – a ‘toxic cocktail [blog removed] was “uncannily similar to an article in the Financial Times by Gillian Tett (Eurozone crisis resembles US turmoil in 2008).”
Alamango’s blog was removed almost immediately after, as Zammit posted in his blog later on in the day.
“You think it is a coincidence? nah. The whole story on the FT is a series of bullets and all Nikita does is paraphrase the whole shebang, thesaurus in hand to replace words like ‘wobble’ with ‘quiver’…” Zammit wrote in his first blogpost.
Alamango is a member of the Labour national executive, the international secretary of the Labour youth forum, and the dpeuty secretary-general of the National Youth Council.”
One for the Maltese racists: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2025490/Liz-Jones-Somalian-refugee-camp-The-tiny-girl-scrapes-teeth-twig-make-pretty-A-tooth-falls-hand-Her-makes-mockery-world-I-come-from.html
http://www.akkuza.com/2011/08/12/times-to-vanish/
I do not know if you are talking about Ghadira, in particular: because if that is the case, you must have been missing the Hymns sung during Masses being celebrated on unconsecrated and illegally occupied grounds.
The cleric should pluck up courage and tell the congregation that the proper venue for mass would be Mellieha’s parish church, a couple of minutes away on foot.
It seems that most in that shanty-town define themselves as subjects living ‘f’xiefer tal-faqar’. However, their cars, air-conditioning units and satellite dishes prove that many are wise enough to keep at a safe distance from the fatal fall.
I agree that in Maltese the words “dak” and “dik” are used oftenly as no one had a name.
What I dislike also in Maltese is “ir-ragel tieghi” or “il-mara tieghi” when we have the words “zewgi” and “marti”. The first two phrases are part of our language but both subjects are treated as objects. Too much possession.
I’ve never heard an Italian or an English person say my woman or mia donna as everyday language.
[Daphne – Once more, that’s common talk entering the ‘official language’. Even when you fill in official forms and documents, you’re asked for ‘isem ir-ragel’ and not ‘isem zewgek’. The correct word for spouse, as in Arabic, is ‘zewg’. There is no specific word for husband or wife, quite simply because there was no need: if it was a man talking, then it was obvious that the spouse was a woman/wife. The use of ‘my man’ and ‘my woman’ would have grown out of a situation where plenty of people among the lower social orders lived together without a church blessing – so it was literally ‘my man’ and ‘my woman’ in the same way that people today say ‘my partner’.]
Interesting observation of yours. Man sagt auch ‘mein Mann oder meine Frau’ auf deutsch. You- commonly – also say ‘my man or my woman’ in German, though you can also say ‘mein/e Ehemann/Ehefrau’, ‘Ehe’ being marriage, i.e. my marriage man, marriage woman. Next time I fill in (or, interestingly enough, fill out) an official form in German I must check what it says.
German is a rather clear and practical language, usually. Its nouns are often compound and give a very down to earth explanation of what the word describes, e.g. ‘Zahnfleisch’ (toothmeat = gums), ‘Staubsauger’ (dustsucker = vacuum cleaner) and ‘Wasserkocher’ (waterboiler = kettle). I love them.
Many immigrants are Christian, not that it makes much difference to racists who think of themselves as white.
I was going up the stairs in a block of flats as the lift was broken and I noticed that most of the residents left shoes and slippers out on their door step. Disgusting appearance.
(Imma l-aqwa li niddiskriminaw lill-gharab).