Does he chet to people online? Yas, he does.
Published:
March 24, 2012 at 11:18pm
The absence from the Maltese language of the flat A sound in cat, bat, chat and Daphne – the reason why they end up pronounced cet, bet, chet and Dephne – has found itself into the language, sorry, lenguage.
Children are being given an official leaflet at school, to help them improve their internet safety skills: Be Smart Online.
STEFAN QED JICCETTJA MA NIES LI MA JAFHOMX.
Sigh.
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At least they didn’t write ‘computer’ in Maltese – or any other word that will look so aberrant it will make you want to rip your eyes out.
If you have been abroad (Malaysia?) you would find KOMPJUTER acceptable, they write taxi like we should write it TAKSI , in Poland they write STRAJK like we now use and we should accept and write KOMPJUTER .
Jiccettjaw is being accepted , I would have used the better word jitħadtu.
[Daphne – Don’t make odious comparisons, John. You speak of lands which are culturally alien to English, whereas English is Malta’s other official language and people here are exposed to it all the time, know the correct spelling of ‘chat’ and should somehow learn how to pronounce that damned ‘a’ too, even if they die trying. Secondly, Italy and France, which have many flaws but none of which include a lack of self-respect, use English words intact, spelling and all, even when the spelling and sounds are alien to their own language. I have Italian magazines here with cover-lines made up mainly of English words. They are not spelled ‘in Italian’, however badly the Italians themselves might pronounce them.]
It doesn’t look good but what, then, is the alternative?
How have other languages dealt with loan words? How do the Italians and the French pronounce English loan words?
[Daphne – They pronounce them badly, Pat, but they leave the spelling intact, even when they ‘lose’ the meaning (e.g. calling a dinner jacket a ‘smoking’). They are excused the poor pronunciation because they were not British colonies for 200 years and English is not their official language. Something is going badly wrong here.]
Could it be that we are reacting to this because it is new for us – that perhaps future generations will take it in their stride?
[Daphne – That is my big fear: that they will take it in their stride. One or two words here and there – kitla, fajjar – are fine. But an entire language made up of corrupted English loan-words? I don’t think so. That becomes a kind of patois. And if you look at the comments on Facebook walls or read the text messages scrolling across the screen on television discussion shows, you’ll see what I mean. ‘Il-lajs kemm int smart Joe. U dak il-vera najs men.’]
I am bilingual and I find that I pronounce ‘chatting’ differently depending on whether I am speaking English or Maltese. I give the ‘a’ its correct sound value in English and clip it in Maltese. To give it its English sound value when speaking Ma;ltese sounds ridiculous – the equivalent of Laurel and Hardy dubbed into Italian – if anyone remembers what I mean.
[Daphne – It doesn’t sound ridiculous at all, Pat. You’ve been brainwashed into speaking ‘the politically correct’ way. I would no more change the way I pronounce ‘chat’ to reflect the way my interlocutors say ‘chet’ than I would say tee-ey just because they’re doing so. I’ve actually been in situations where people have pretended not to understand me when I said ‘tee-eye’, and I simply repeated it more clearly. Of course, the temptation to say ‘Mela ma tifhimx bil-Malti?’ is particularly strong in these circumstances, but I never succumb.]
Pat, take other examples like sandwich and jam. Surely we don’t pronounce them as sangwich and gamm, when speaking in Maltese. What holds for these two words should be good for all others.
[Daphne – You’re expected to say ‘sent-witch’ and ‘jumm’. But in those situations I just ask for hobz bil-perzut u gobon, and forget the strawberry jam.]
Pedant. It’s now sengic bil-hemencis.
Daphne, it is a fact that Maltese does not have the flat a in cat, but it is also a fact that many words derived directly from English have found themselves in the Maltese language and these words do need to be written down somehow.
After all, one can hardly write down “jiccattja” because it would have a different meaning altogether. This happens in all languages – the Italians say cattare, which is frankly even uglier.
[Daphne – I doubt that the Italians say that. Shouldn’t there be an ‘i’ or two in there?]
I think the problem with the Maltese pronunciation of English is fundamentally the lack of instruction children are given during their early years at school when they start learning English.
Unfortunately there seems to be a severe lack of primary teachers who are suitably qualified in English.
They’ve taken up ‘ciattare’ lately, which would require different spelling to ‘chat’, hence the same confusion we’re having.
I managed to put a smile on a desk officer’s face at the poste when enquiring where was it possible to skin a photo.
Maybe jiccettja could mean blabbing like a Cetta.
Yep. Ciattare it is. And they do say it. As they do “clikkare” or “fare clic”.
And when they realised that jogging could be misundertood as doing yoga, they invented footing.
Yes but it’s “cliccare”. As for jogging, we use it alongside with footing, but we don’t pronounce it “yogging”.
Actually we say that, although the spelling is chattare. We also use postare, twittare, taggare…
I suggest you to go through my seven-year-old’s Maltese books. I cringe when we come across words like “flett” or “hendowt”.
@ il-bonn – Oh but they do in other official government documents!
http://www.gov.mt/pdf/Malti_kompjuter.pdf
(Please note other words like ‘Manwal’ for Manual.)
‘Manwal’ is correct it is derived from the Italian word “manuale”.
Manwal also means a labourer generally in the building trade.
Italian and English have a lot of words which derived from Latin.
I can’t understand why it is seen as aberrant today when it was perfectly correct and normal yesterday when our language was developing and enriching itself (thus our language as it is today, richer than it was 200 years ago). It still is to this day, not unlike any other language, including, if you please, English, the language against which many constantly measure our language and “find it lacking and wanting” and in the same breath argue against and resist its development, the very same process that made English the rich language that it is today.
No need to go through endless lists of examples, so I’ll just list one:
“Karozza” (car)
Derived from the Italian “carrozza” (carriage). Not only was the spelling transposed to the Maltese orthography, but also the meaning has changed over time. We use this word daily without feeling the urge to organise protest marches and to chain ourselves to railings, canons, and door knobs.
If you go below the surface and only briefly delve into the etymology of any language, you’ll find the same live process of development and enrichment.
So why this resistance in the case of our very own Maltese language, pray tell?
I put it to you that it makes more sense to spell “kompjuter” rather than “computer” in Maltese. Consider a foreigner, say German, learning our language. When presented with the word “computer”, they are bound to point out that firstly the letter “c” does not exist in Maltese, the closest being “ċ” which is pronounced entirely different to the English “c”, and the pronunciation of the whole word “computer” – if one were to overlook the “c” problem – would be “komputer” (English “compooter”). So you certainly need the Maltese “j”.
I’m not arguing that this should be the case so that foreigners find it easier to learn our language – I’m using this example simply because a foreigner learning Maltese would find it easier to point out inconsistencies like these.
It makes perfect logical sense to transpose borrowed words into the Maltese orthography, unless one were to prefer introducing an exception with every borrowed word, which frankly does not help at all in simplifying the language – something that people seem only too happy to point out the lack of when faced with words containing “h” and “għ”. Then again, these last two follow simple and fast rules with few exceptions, and the fact that people seem to prefer to try and remember the spelling of each and every word rather than bothering to learn a few simple rules that regulate the spelling of thousands of words is illogical, unnatural, and an exercise in time and resource wasting.
I suspect the ‘ma nies li ma jafhomx’ is also grammatically incorrect, although heard frequently – . …with people whom he does not know them’.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20120325/local/Schiavone-urged-to-pull-out.412543
Is Franco that coward to be afraid of this Schiavone , whom he attacked from his privileged position in parliament?
That sound is called a schwa. It is missing in our language and to be perfectly honest, I do not see too much cause for concern. There are similar instances in any language.
English-speaking people are unable to hear and pronounce double consonants, for example, and this has spilt amongst a few who attempt to speak English in favour of Maltese, even when they are uncertain of the correct use of either language
Thus whilst for instance a few of us insist on saying Valeta, the true pronunciation, in all languages, is Valletta.
A keen ear and the ability to distinguish one from the other is a sign lf good command of a language.
[Daphne – You are not right about Valletta. The correct pronunciation is Va-letTa, and that’s how I grew up saying it. Later, I noticed that most people pronounced it Vall-etta, to reflect the spelling (or did the spelling reflect their pronunciation?), and assumed that it was my pronunciation that was wrong. Then I realised that the majority were wrong and the minority were actually right, because the pronunciation should reflect that of ‘Valette’, so I switched back and now say ‘Va-letta’ again, even if others don’t like it. As for the proper spelling – Valetta – even The Times have given up on that after a long and heroic struggle.]
In my school days it was said that Valletta is in Maltese and with a single L is in English. This has always given me the impression that it is a general grammar rule.
This is rikotta Mk. III or IV or whatever, so I’ll just comment on a side-issue here.
It’s “La Valette”, not bloody “de Valette”. Whoever came up with that should be shot. Just like we say “La Fontaine” when we want to shorten “Jean de La Fontaine”. It’s the “de” that’s dropped, not the definite article on the placename.
I believe it is Vanni Bonello who insists on him being called ‘de Valette’.
He is wrong. WRONG! Wrong, d’you hear?
Agreed, Daphne.
‘Blekbord’ has to be the worst one.
[Daphne – Yes, and it’s pronounced ‘blekbort’, apparently.]
Blackboards have long been phased out. It’s interektivwajtbort now.
My youngster has been asked to write 1,500 words on the history of the Maltese language.
The nightmare is that children are being taught words like “qorq” for sandal which for all intents and purposes is as dead as a Latin word whilst simultaneously the driving seat of the Maltese language is occupied by DJs and TV hosts. Who is setting the standards?
children now absolutely dread Maltese lessons and exams.
[Daphne – My pet hate with DJs and TV show hosts: GEWWWA L-ITALJA, GEWWA FRANZA. You know, because Italy and France are boxes or crates or cupboards. ‘Gewwa’ means ‘inside’: they should pin this up in every studio. FL-ITALJA, FI FRANZA. Honestly. I think I remember Enzo Gusman pointing this out in a fit of irritation on some radio show years ago, but his words fell on deaf ears, even among his colleagues. It started with a couple of PO Box Ghaxra type DJs on Xandir Malta a generation or so back, and has now become official radio and TV speak. Fortunately, though, you don’t get many people running around telling you that they’re going on holiday ‘gewwa Londra’.]
I also remember Kilin preaching against this ‘gewwa Londra’. But nobody seemed to take notice.
What is the difference between “ġewwa/ġo” and “fi”?
If “ġewwa” means inside, what’s with the boxes and crates and cupboards? Inside a box? Inside a crate? Inside a cupboard? What’s wrong with in a box, in a crate, in a cupboard?
I think I need to go back to school.
[Daphne – Do you mean to say that you don’t know the difference between ‘in’ and ‘inside’? ‘Inside’ (the Maltese ‘gewwa’) is used to signify containment and is generally used for objects, and for people only in exceptional situations. ‘In’ (the Maltese ‘fi’) can be used for that kind of situation too, but it’s also the word to be used for the street, Italy, etc, and is more generally used for people. A person would be standing in the street, but a ring would be inside a jewellery box (fit-triq, gewwa l-kaxxa). A man would be in a car, even though he is contained and strictly speaking ‘inside’ it. You would be in Germany, not inside Germany.]
No. I don’t mean to say that.
I mean to say exactly what I wrote.
And that is (see first line) that I see no difference between “ġewwa” and “fi”, and not between “in” and “inside”.
[Daphne – ‘Gewwa’ is ‘inside’. ‘Fi’ is ‘in’. That’s the difference, if the meaning is clearer to you in English. Use ‘fi’ as you would use ‘in’ in English, and use ‘gewwa’ as you would ‘inside’ in English. Simple. Hence, fil-karozza or gol-karozza, but only fit-triq and never got-triq. Then, when you need to say ‘into’, it’s ‘ghal gol/ghal gewwa l-.]
I know I should not say or write “inside Malta”.
My argument was simply this: if one can equally write “in a box” as “inside a box”, and if “in” is “fi” and “inside” is “ġewwa”, how can one argue that being “in France”, with France not being a box, one cannot say “ġewwa Franza”?
[Daphne – Right. Let’s start again. You can use ‘in’ for situations of containment AND non-containment. But you can use ‘inside’ only for situations of containment. So you can be INSIDE a car (used only for very specific situations, as it is clumsy – like hiding inside a disused car or similar) or IN a car, but you can only be IN Italy or IN a street and never INSIDE Italy or INSIDE a street. Inside, like ‘gewwa’, is actually very specific and quite rarely used. Even for situations of containment, in most cases you would use, idiomatically, ‘fi’ and ‘in’, not ‘gewwa’ or ‘inside’. ‘It’s in my pocket’; ‘It’s in her bag’ (fil-but/fil-baskett).]
Gieżu Ġież.
Right.
Let’s start again …
“You know, because Italy and France are boxes or crates or cupboards.”
What was the significance of that line in relation to the use of “ġewwa Franza”? Be specific. Don’t drift and side-track.
[Daphne – Gewwa = inside. No in. You can be inside a crate or a box or a cupboard but not inside a country. So, it follows that you can’t be gewwa Franza though you can be gewwa kaxxa. If you don’t believe me, or you can’t understand this simple concept, ring the Department of Maltese and ask a professor, who’ll tell you the same thing: it’s fi Franza and not gewwa Franza. Just as it’s in Italy and not inside Italy.]
It would have been even worse had they written ‘jiċċattja” (he flattens). It’s the obsession with transforming eveything into Maltese or, more likely, Maltenglish.
Shouldn’t MA be MA’ ?
Not at all – ma’ – preoposition ‘with’, ma – used for negative (as in this case)
Exactly, so MA’ NIES LI MA JAFHOMX.
Students are often given such ‘hendawts’ at school. The sad thing is that the vast majority of educators see nothing wrong with writing ‘hendawt’ and have no clue as to the difference between the ‘e’ and the ‘a’ sound in English.
The verb “jiċċettja” is grammatically correct, and “kompjuter” is orthographically correct as well.
All languages, and not only Maltese, are influenced by other languages and adapt words and make them theirs. This has been happening for years.
[Daphne – Adrian, THAT IS NOT THE POINT. In Malta, contrary to most other cultures, Maltese CO-EXISTS WITH ENGLISH. You cannot teach a child that the English word is ‘chat’ (pronounced ‘chat’) and the Maltese word is ‘cett’ (pronounced ‘chet’). This ambiguity is at the root of most Maltese people’s utter and complete failure to learn either language, with English being the main victim. Children are being taught that the Maltese word for ‘blackboard’ is ‘blekbort’, which means that they are being taught two different spellings – one bastardised – and two different pronunciations for what is effectively the exact same word. The result is confusion, compounded by the fact that children raised in households where English is spoken and written properly will not be allowed, by their parents, to say ‘blekbort’ or even to spell it that way, moving them into conflict with teachers.]
The same happened when we lost certain emphatic sounds in the transition from Arabic to Maltese. That is why for example we have “sajf” and “sejf”, which in Arabic are written and pronounced with a different “s”.
In Arabic there are 2 while in Maltese we have only 1 “s”. Besides, certain words are made up from different roots. Ex. “kejkijiet” – cake + ijiet. Also, certain verbs such as “ikkowċja”. These examples and others are reason enough why we write these so called “new words” using Maltese orthography. We’ve done this with Arabic words, with Italian (ġigġifogu is typical!) and more recently with English words.
[Daphne – Adrian, Maltese did not ‘incorporate’ Arabic words. Maltese WAS Arabic and became corrupted through isolation from the Arabic word into something else, eventually forming a new language. This is my point exactly: that the sudden onslaught of freakily spelled and freakily pronounced bastardised English words – the incorporation is neither slow nor gradual but has been tremendous, and literally overnight, has literally changed Maltese into something else. Think of it this way: if there were a colony of Maltese, isolated from Malta on some remote island just as the people of Malta were isolated from North Africa at a certain point, they would, within a couple of generations, no longer recognise our language. I have noticed recently that I no longer speak the same language as those a generation younger than I am and from a different socio-economic group. Which of us is speaking/writing the language properly? Using your argument, the official spelling of ‘tghid’ should now be ‘tajt’ and of ‘tieghi’, ‘tijaj’, because that is how ‘the real Maltese’ (you know, because people like me are not real Maltese but imposters) now spell them.]
Dear Daphne I am very much aware that Maltese was an Arabic dialect (I have an Honours degree in Maltese but that is besides the point). The thing is that these “new” words are becoming Maltese in the same manner that many Italian and Sicilian words became Maltese. On the other hand I do agree with certain comments here that the media is doing a lot of harm to our language, because unfortunately when people are bombarded with certain terminology they start to use it. One of the worst examples is “xelta” (thanks to Romina Bonaci & others) when the Maltese word is “għażla”.
As for the “għ” we cannot do without it. First of all that would mean the break up of the triliteral system on which Semitic languages are based. Also, because the “għ” is not a always a silent consonant as some people think.
I honestly think that this age-old argument that Maltese can do without the “h” and the “għ” is silly and without and solid argument to back it up.
I do not have the academic knowledge to argue technically, but I would ask: can English do without the numerous different spellings of the same sounds?
Just one example, silly as it is:
An Englishman asked an American: Why don’t you pronounce schedule “shedule”? The American responds: I have never been to shool.
Sigh not. ‘Jiccettja’ is a colloquialism that has been de facto incorporated in the language – which, unlike Latin, is not dead. It is spelt in Maltese, of course, as no one gives a dead monkey about flat ‘A’s unless it’s a holed up paleo-agony aunt with plenty of time and nothing to do.
Feel free to edit. But if you’re to footnote the comment spare us the cliches.
[Daphne – It’s all right, Kevin. I suppose your attitude comes from being married to ‘Sherin’, sister to ‘Endy’. Let’s hope for your sake they don’t call you ‘Kavin’.]
I guess you’d spell it ‘jiccattja’, Deffney, being catta and all…
[Daphne – Mank kont catta, Kevin, how much easier life would be. I wouldn’t use the word in the first place, so I would have no need to spell it. I would no more say ‘nichatja’ than I would ‘niddressja’.]
You haven’t solved the problem. What would you say… had you not been neither here, nor there?
[Daphne – Sorry, I can’t follow your train of thought.]
Being ‘neither here nor there’ in this case would mean that you cannot be classified as an English or Maltese speaker. In Russian they say ‘neither meat, nor fish’. So, had you been a Maltese speaker, what would you say? ‘Inpacpac fuq l-internet’?
[Daphne – Yes, or nitkellem. But let’s start off from the fact that I’m not the sort to say ‘chatting on the internet’, either. This isn’t only about the correctness of words and their meaning, but about personal preferences. As for not being classified as either an English or Maltese speaker – ahem. I am properly bilingual, Kevin, and my irritation with people who mangle languages – the worst culprits, incidentally, are those who speak only Maltese, who tend to have a very low level of education to begin with, which is why it happens – tends to be the subject-matter of most of my ‘language’ blog-posts. But I begin, always, from a love of language.]
That’s a good one! I once worked with a woman who would probably say “chet”, rather than “chat. We also had a colleague named Kevin.
The poor woman could never pronounce Kevin’s name properly, which really used to irk him. One day, she told him “KAv, have you got the file of Big BAn?”
He had hilariously (for the onlookers) flown into a rage and told her “My name is “Kevin”, not “KAv”, and no, I do not have the file of Big BEn!”
The silence after that was almost deafening.
I can’t stand the Air Malta pre-recorded message upon landing – Welcome “teou” Malta …. and make sure that items in the overhead compartments do not “follonyou”.
[Daphne – Follonyew: I love that. It recalls a whole procession of teachers we mocked at St Dorothy’s Convent.]
Oh and WTF is a “bajsikil” – Jeez, we have used “rota” for eons, only idiots while speaking Maltese refer to one as a “bicycle”, there is no need to legitimise such nonsense.
Not only in Malta of course – the Brits use apostrophes (apostrophe’s…) to indicate a plural and the latest pukeworthy term is “could of” “should of” etc in lieu of “could’ve – could have” and the like. And “draw” instead of “drawer”, “fort” instead of “thought”, and so on… Yeeeuck.
“Make sure the seetbeck is in the upright position….”
And thank you for you koperaxin.
Sounds change when a language adopt words from other languages, and this happens in all languages.
One example amongst many: The French word “langage” became the English word “language” changing the ending sound, and that way it’s written.
And you can bet your bottom dollar that the name “Daphne” had a completely different pronounciation in the original ancient Greek. Should the English pronounciation have kept closer to that original pronounciation?
The problem with such complaints as these is that one thinks that a particular language at a particular point in time is some default which didn’t and doesn’t change. In fact, all language adopt words from foreign vocabularies, and make them completely theirs, with their own sounds and spelling.
BTW, when speaking in English, we should keep as closely as possible to English pronounciation.
When English words are adopted into Maltese, then they should be written completely in Maltese.
Two completely different cases which mustn’t be confused.
Agree perfectly.
The concern about our children getting confused when learning both, with their distinct spellings and pronunciation, is totally misplaced and uncalled for.
English: cake
Maltese: kejk
English: chair
Maltese: siġġu
WHAT is the difference? Nothing!
[Daphne – The difference, FP, is that those children KNOW that the ‘Maltese’ word ‘kejk’ is actually the English word ‘cake’, spelled differently. They are learning both languages simultaneously. When I was growing up, ‘cake’ was used by people when speaking Maltese to describe a particular sort of confection that came straight from British cuisine, as distinct from the very different Italian-inspired ‘torta’. But it was clearly used as an English word. Nobody thought ‘kejk’ the Maltese word.]
Two instances of translation from English to Maltese, with one where the words in both languages sound very similar but are have different spellings.
Elementary.
Why the fuss?
I still don’t get your point.
Are you arguing for fossilising our language and not allow even meanings of words to change over time?
Why?
It happens in English. It happens in any language. Languages are alive.
What’s so special about Maltese?
[Daphne – What’s so special about Maltese? You tell me, because I’m flummoxed. So far, I have worked out that the ‘special’ element comes from being one of the few languages in which the correct form is developed by the uneducated. I take exception, and rightly so, to being told how to pronounce ‘chat’ and ‘blackboard’ by people who don’t know how to pronounce them, and then being told that the wrong way is actually the right way in Maltese. I take even greater exception to being treated like a freak when I ask at the shop for ‘pilloli’, because apparently I am expected to say ‘pirmli’, or when I am looked at as though I am crazy for saying that I can’t find my phone – because it’s right there, connected to the wall by a wire. ‘Eeeeeeeh, trid tghid il-mobajl!’ Ma, xi dwejjaq.]
I think you’ll find that everyday conversation rarely has anything to do with the written language.
[Daphne – Really? What sort of people do you know? My everyday conversation is no different to my writing. I write as I speak. This is exactly why the writing of so many Maltese people – whether in English or Maltese – sounds stilted and false. They have a different voice, vocabulary and grammar for writing than they do for ‘everyday conversation’. Yes, I sometimes slip into the mangled patois we all use when I feel like it, but I remain very aware that I am doing it and it is not my default mode. This in Maltese AND English, incidentally. As I said in an earlier response to your comment: the root cause of all these difficulties is ignorance and poor education. Lots of people here in Malta think of the correct form of the language as the ‘written form’ only, which will be observed, corrected, noted and marked in examinations and by editors. They separate this mentally from the spoken form, about which they need have no such concerns. But the whole point of language education is to teach/learn the language correctly, with no distinction between the spoken and written forms. Observe, for instance, the very primitive manner in which Maltese people – even those who hold quite important positions – speak in televised debates. Their sentences are imprecise, poorly constructed, with very limited use of vocabulary. Now observe similar debates on the British news channels and on RAI. There is simply no comparison. Maltese people speak like peasants, even when they are not. Why? Because they tend to believe that there’s no need to construct proper sentences when you are speaking, but only when you are writing. And then when they write, because the written form is a different animal to them, they use words nobody ever uses in speech anymore, like ‘thus’. Painful.]
Would anyone from any town or village feel awkward when speaking with their unique native accent or in their unique dialect simply because it is not written or because it is not formalised? Of course not.
[Daphne – That’s completely different, FP. You’re speaking of the difference between the Queen’s English and a Mancunian dialect, to use an example that will cause offence to nobody here in Malta, given that people are so touchy about village accents. I am speaking about the difference between the Queen’s English and sloppy speech. To take an example from Malta: people think it’s all right to say ‘You went?’ as long as, when writing, they put it down as ‘Have you gone?’]
You may insist on the correct English pronunciation of English words when speaking Maltese, and you are free to choose to say “pilloli” instead of “pirmli”, as long as you make yourself understood.
[Daphne – Actually, FP, that’s not how it works. I think we can all understand what’s being said in East End gangster films, but you’re not going to have an accent like that and get far outside show business, unless you’re Philip Green. The second you’ve opened your mouth and said ‘pirmli’ in company that would never dream of using the word, you might as well have walked in wearing leopard-print cycling-shorts and a T-shirt that says GIORGIO ARMANI in large letters on the front. Words communicate a whole lot more than they specifically mean, and that’s the real reason people here become so hysterically upset and defensive about their pirmli and their irkotta.]
You will also find that common sense is not always THAT common, so you have to excuse people for not being as logical as yourself.
The written language, however, has to be standardised. And it should make no difference whether the rule says one thing or the other, as long as the rule is observed.
[Daphne – You are confusing the standardisation of words with uniformity of spelling. They are not the same thing. In standard English, we all accept that ‘language’ is spelled ‘language’ and that ‘brown’ is spelled ‘brown’. But English spelling cannot be less uniform than it is. It is a spectacular example, in fact, of how non-uniformity in spelling will make a language richer and more expressive. The problems now being experienced with Maltese are the direct result of a whole flood of words entering common usage en masse (an example of English incorporating French loan words intact). The language police are struggling and panicking to ‘standardise’ them through uniform spelling, when what they should do is allow their incorporation intact, letting nature, so to speak, take its course. It is the spelling rules that are killing Maltese more than anything else. The language would be so much better for being allowed to develop as English did. What in heaven’s name is wrong with writing ‘Kilt bicca cake’? The only problem is caused by the fake alphabet, which was concocted – such is the trouble with ‘invented’ orthography – on the preposterous assumption that Maltese people are too stupid to read without putting their finger under each syllable and leaving their mouths hanging open and their tongue sticking out. English people can work out the different pronunciation of through, though and thorough, but Maltese people must have a dot on their g to tell them that this is a jebla and not a gebla. Unbelievable. Now look at the mess: we can’t incorporate words wholesale from the European languages which have most influence on our own, because the stupid letters concocted by some damn-fool know-it-alls generations ago are different.]
And let us NOT say that some rules in Maltese are not logical, so we should free to choose to disregard them. Such illogical rules exist in all languages, some more than others, and there is no “pure” language to speak of, so please, let Maltese live.
[Daphne – Written Maltese was strangled at birth by its alphabet, FP.]
Is English strangled by its alphabet?
[Daphne – I think you’re being deliberately obtuse, FP. Maltese is a follower, absorbing words NOW from leader-languages. So it needs to use the same alphabet, not the other way round. English absorbed the vast majority of its words from languages which share the same Roman alphabet. It does not absorb words from, say, Russian or Chinese. Maltese is now completely dependent on loan words from a language with a largely alien alphabet, and we can see the bastardisation happening – something we could not do when we took an Arabic dialect and invented a sort-of-but-not-quite Roman alphabet to put it down in writing. Yes, of course Maltese is strangled by its alphabet. It’s not as though we’re borrowing lots of words from languages which cross their aitches and put dots on their Gs.]
Do the British pronounce imported French words using French pronunciation, German words using German pronunciation, Nordic words using Nordic pronunciation, Spanish words using Spanish pronunciation, Latin words using Latin pronunciation?
[Daphne – Most of the time, yes. When Latin words have long since become Anglicised – a case in point being ‘via’ – then you are expected to use the Anglicised version. But foreign words which have been incorporated into the language more recently are pronounced as close to the native pronunciation as possible, as with our previous example of en masse. Of course, the trick is in doing this without coming across as an overly affected prat. The reason is that today there is no excuse for not knowing how loan words are pronounced, as there was 200 years ago when means of communication and exposure to foreign tongues were limited. Nobody can say any longer that they don’t know how zeitgeist is pronounced by Germans, so we are all expected to give a good approximation of it.]
Whould any language be a distinct language if it had to cater for all possible orthography and pronunciation of all the languages that it might import words from?
[Daphne – That’s a fatuous question, FP. People borrow loan words only from their neighbours or those with whom they have close contact. This means that they invariably share the same alphabet, except for Malta which has to make a point of being difficult, in having an alphabet which it shares with nobody, still less the Arabic-speakers 100 miles to the south or the romance alphabet sixty miles to the north. When languages borrow from truly alien tongues, it is generally an exception to describe a traded item, like – historically – saffron from the word pronounced ‘zafran’.]
What = Would
i’m sorry I can’t agree.
I think you’re being very biased and unjust.
You seem to have every excuse in the book when it comes to defending innumerable exceptions and peculiarities of any language other than Maltese, and every accusation in the book when it comes to Maltese.
[Daphne – I’ll just count to 10, FP. That’s just what I am arguing FOR: that Maltese should have peculiarities, just as every other language does, and not insist that every loan word be bashed and squashed to fit the ‘rules’ made up by some self-appointed experts within living memory. That’s just what I said: that there is nothing wrong with writing ‘se niehu bicca cake’. It’s writing ‘se niehu bicca kejk’ that’s bloody obviously wrong. I’m fighting for the right of Maltese to be as idiosyncratic as every last loan word it pulls in.]
I don’t need to list these myself – you can do a quick search and see for yourself that you’re being VERY capricious when arguing particularly for the English language, case in point is when you say that English does not absorb words from Russian or Chinese.
[Daphne – I didn’t say English does not. I said that those are by far the exception, and generally the result of trade or its more contemporary equivalent. English loan words – indeed, the entire language – come from the country’s neighbours and successive waves of settlers. This is no different to the situation in Malta: the core language of the original Arabic-speaking inhabitants with loan words from the neighbours, overlaid by the language of the coloniser. We’re not borrowing from China or Russia, either.]
English, like EVERY language, absorbs words from ANY language when the need arises, and this is not limited to some period or other.
[Daphne – This is becoming teeth-grittingly irritating, FP. No, words are not absorbed necessarily ‘when the need arises’. There are a variety of reasons why and how words enter a language. One of the wonderful peculiarities of English, for example, is that the words for the key meats – mutton, pork, beef – are French, but the words for the creatures from which those meats come are Anglo-Saxon: sheep, pig, cow. There is a sociological reason for this: those who kept the animals were peasants of Anglo-Saxon extraction. Those who actually ate the meat were a ruling class of Francophone/Norman extraction. Just now I heard Silvio Parnis say on Super One television, to describe supporters of the two political parties: ‘m’hemmx homor u BLUNI’. Bluni? I’ve heard it several times: ‘Tini dik, dik il-bluna!’ You can see what they’ve done here: ahmar/blu, mela allura hamra/bluna. In reality, blu stays blu because it’s not Arabic but ‘Italian’.]
And in the process, these words are transposed onto the language’s orthography and pronunciation is changed as required. And people are not expected to know Russian or Chinese alphabet, spelling and pronunciation when using these words.
[Daphne – FP, you really are being deliberately obtuse. Loan words from Chinese and Russian are few and far between in English. They do not compare in terms of numbers to loan words from, say, French. Words incorporated into English from the French were, before spelling was formalised, spelled any old how and then standardised (the aforementioned mutton and beef, for instance). Words incorporated into English from the French were, after the standardisation of spelling in both languages and the spread of literacy, kept intact. And yes, people were and still are expected to spell them that way and even to give a good approximation of the original French pronunciation. That’s the reason why, in English as in French, a man is blond but a woman is blonde. Another woman might be a brunette, not a brunet, and people like Joseph and Michelle would be arrivistes or nouveaux-riches, not erriveests or navow-rishes.]
OK Daphne.
We’re going round in circles. I’m pointing out the inconsistencies in your arguments, and you just disregard, deny, and switch to different things.
I’ve said enough, probably more.
[Daphne – I’m actually extremely consistent. It’s one of my myriad failings. Listen to a Caribbean patois for a while and you’ll see where this kind of Maltese is heading. And it’s certainly not a language. Languages need rules, that’s for certain – but one of the most fundamental rules is respect for language in general. That means not butchering loan words which come from a language with which you are also very familiar, and even, where possible, those which come from the classical languages. Maltese is the only European language which has ‘radio’ down as masculine (because of the final vowel), with total disregard to its Greek (feminine) origin. This is because our resident ‘esperti’ want to stick to The Rules without exception. And if the rules say that if it ends with o or u then it must be masculine, so be it. Meanwhile, the Italians, proud of their long-standing cultural literacy, say ‘la radio’.]
If I had to summarise all that you’ve written here, Daphne, I can come up with a long list of inconsistencies, but you’ll simply deny them. So there’s no point.
And here you go again.
The British don’t give a hoot about the origin of the word radio and it’s gender, because there’s no way on this earth that they’re going to give it any sex.
[Daphne – Gosh, you’re a trying man. English nouns don’t have genders (unless they actually do, as in creatures or human beings), so it’s irrelevant. Maltese nouns have genders, so if we’re going to borrow a word like ‘radio’, the least we could do is not display ignorance by saying ‘it ends in ‘o’ therefore it must be masculine’.]
But what the British do is OK. Because English is a leading language. It doesn’t matter if it breaks every rule that you throw at the Maltese language.
[Daphne – As I said earlier, you are deliberately obtuse. It is you who wishes to have cast-iron rules for Maltese, whereas my argument is that those rules are not possible, because they were devised for a Semitic language and all our loan words are now from European languages, which means that the rules – which, after all, were invented only a couple of generations ago and so can be reinvented again – are no longer fit for purpose. English developed organically over centuries in which there were no rules. Now that it has more or less set and hardened, with grammar rules and such-like, all loan words are taken in AS THEY ARE IN THEIR ORIGINAL FORM. I speak here not of the exceptional loan word from Chinese, an alien language, but of the streams of loan words from neighbouring France, for example, a language with which the British are very familiar. Maltese does not borrow the occasional word from English, but is now raiding that language wholesale. Also, Maltese people are not just familiar with English but are expected to speak and write it as a compulsory requirement at school and in the workplace. Just as with English and French, so it should be with English and Maltese, if for no other reason than that teaching children an English word and then perverting the spelling and pronunciation and calling it the Maltese word for the same thing has resulted in a linguistic and educational tragedy of no mean proportions.]
I’m sure you’ll come back and say that this yours is not an inconsistency, after which I’ll humbly bow out and leave the discussion.
And yet again …
English and French can standardise their spelling…
but we Maltese have no right to standardise OUR spelling, in OUR orthography, using OUR pronunciation.
[Daphne – English and French are not in the process of taking most of another language, twisting the spelling and calling it their own language, FP. In what way is this sentence a Maltese sentence with English loan words? ‘Il-bierah kont il-vera hepi ghax xtrajt par bwiez u meta ppruvajthom ma’ dak ix-xorz pink ta’ oht id-deddi kienu l-vera najs u se nilbishom ghal wikent meta nohrog mal-bojfrent.’ For Christ’s sake.]
No matter how much you insist, English DOES NOT use the French alphabet. The formal English alphabet uses 26 letters the last time I counted.
[Daphne – One letter here and there does not make for insurmountable differences, FP, which is why English incorporates French words intact.
Inconsistencies galore.
[Daphne – Quite the contrary. The inconsistency is all yours. You insist that Maltese should chew up English loan words and spit them out in barely recognisable form, but then, I imagine, you won’t be insisting on your right or obligation to spell the French loan word as atelyer rather than atelier on the grounds that you’re using English not French. I, on the other hand, am consistent. I visit the artist in her atelier. U niekol bicca cake. I do not visit the artist in her atelyer or niekol bicca kejk.]
If the English were legitimate in transcribing and or translating Française into French, bleu into blue, why oh why is it objectionable for the Maltese to say and write bluna?
[Daphne – 1. Blue and bleu are the same word. Blu and bluna are quite patently not. 2. Blue came from bleu at a point in history when spelling was freeform and all but a tiny percentage – clerks, scribes and monks – of the population were literate. That is not the case today. That is precisely why, and I repeat for the umpteenth time, French loan words taken into English are now incorporated intact. The days when they were ‘Anglicised’ or had differentiated spelling are long gone, by centuries not decades. Without meaning to do so, you have put your finger on the root cause of the problem with Maltese: ignorance and semi-literacy. We are mangling English words now for roughly the same reason the English mangled French words hundreds of years ago – except that our illiteracy and ignorance are, in the present, completely inexcusable. Haven’t you bothered to ask yourself why all the mangling, without exception, is being done exclusively by people from certain sorts of background who, because they make up the majority of the population, think that they are right? Who says ‘bluna’? People like me, or people like Silvio Parnis? Who says ‘chet’? Who says ‘bwiez’ for boots? Who, for that matter, is now spelling ‘tieghi’ as ‘tijaj’ and ‘tghid’ as ‘tajt’ and calling it the new language of Facebook?]
The British did not feel constrained to stick to the original spelling and pronunciation for their own reasons.
[Daphne – See explanation, above.]
We Maltese have our own reasons for writing and saying bluna – my guess is that we needed a consonant for the feminine adjective, but then I’m no academic. The fact is that there’s a reason, just as the British had their reasons.
Are British reasons legiitimate, and Maltese not?
Is that the basis for all these arguments?
[Daphne – Do I perceive a chip there? I’ve given you the explanation you need. It’s all to do with a language’s stage of development. English is much, much older than Maltese, and it went through the wholesale incorporation of loan words hundreds of years ago when people were illiterate and spelling was very loose and a free-for-all (see above). Maltese, a much younger language, is going through that stage now, when people are semi-literate but in a wider context of literacy, and when spelling is NOT free-form but standardised (which does not mean what you think it means – all words spelled phonetically according to rules – but an established way of spelling words).]
The “aj” instead of “għi” is a completely different issue. That is ignorance of the proper spelling of a Maltese word, and not a misspelling of an adopted word. So please leave that out.
In that same piece, you’re all over the place and confusing and mangling arguments about who says and writes what.
Maltese is inherently a phonetic language. How can you come here and say the Maltese orthographic standard is not “all words spelled phonetically according to rules”?
“Y” in Maltese? Tsk, tsk.
Obviously, the only conclusion, according to you, can only be one:
Whatever Daphne says and does is the right thing.
I believe you’re right about many things, but definitely not about the way Maltese should be written and pronounced.
There I conclude.
[Daphne – All languages are phonetic, FP, because they’re made up of sounds. Whether I am right or wrong about how English words – they are not, for heaven’s sake ‘Maltese’ words – should be spelled when incorporated into Maltese sentences is irrelevant. You only have to look at the disastrous consequences of this system. I am not wrong about the pronunciation of Maltese words, or about their mangling. Tee-eye is correct. So is tee-ey. But they reflect different social backgrounds and any attempt at imposing tee-ey on those who say tee-eye is wrong and misguided. This about accent, not pronunciation. Erroneous pronunciation due to sheer utter ignorance comes into it with talk of pirmli and the like.]
FP
I do not think that Daphne is being inconsistent. She, like several others including myself, advocates a purer method of correctness in speaking and writing.
I’ve been to restaurants and heard mothers saying “ejja ha nimsahlek “in-nosey” or “trid il-woterr” (water) or “ixorbu l-woterri” (water).
I’ve had waitresses ask my young lad the same thing (tink). Where do we stop? Should we write “ic-cokklejt”, il-battri, tenks, baj-baj and a host of other blasphemous bastardisations?
I don’t think so.
There are some beautiful turns of phrase in our language that are being lost. My mother-in-law does not speak a word of English because of her particular uneducated upbringing. However, if you want a fantastic Maltese dictionary, she is the one to ask.
She’s taught me a new appreciation of our language because she expresses herself in a single language. Although ultimately we need to speak both English and Maltese, we need to make some strict distinctions.
English is grammatically unstructured but has implicit rules. Maltese is a highly complex and ordered language that has Semitic roots – Arabic is a very sophisticated language whatever our stigma against it.
Why do we need to turn to English when we should borrow from Arabic or perhaps even find in some unforgotten corner of our cultural memory?
FYI some of our words go far back in their origin and may be traced to some dialects in Lebanon. You use the word siggu. Siggu is Sicilian – the word my grandparents used was maghqad (I believe this is the correct spelling). It sounds ugly but it is the original word.
“It-tfal tieghek qeghdin juzaq l-internet b’mod ghaqli?”
Ghaqal fl-internet – stabbilta’ u progress.
Aaaaargh my eyes!
Coincidentally, Stephen Calleja has written about a similar subject today – http://www.independent.com.mt/news.asp?newsitemid=141721
I know, we received it too. It’s atrocious.
Le x’tghid mela? Jiccattja? Jiccattja would be to flaten something.
[Daphne – It is perfectly possible to pronounce the ‘a’ sound, John. Spelling it is another matter. That vowel sound doesn’t exist in Maltese. But you won’t get somebody who pronounces ‘chat’ the right way saying ‘chet’ in Maltese. So how would they spell it? This is like ‘blekbort’.]
*flatten
Well we have BDOTI instead of Piloti and SKAWTS instead of scouts.
I think this flat A has always created a big confusion among the Maltese.
There is a generation who pronunces it as a strong A like in Maltese and Italian and in my opinion it sounds awful.
Men and man, that is very typical.
Yes I think that (men/man) is an awful one. You an always tell what sort of teachers your kids have by the way they recite their prayers: Blessed art thou amongst WOMAN.
Hang on, surely there must be a word for “chat” in Maltese? Couldn’t we borrow a Semitic variant (considering the roots of our language)? “Ticcetja” (among the other variants like kompjuter or Jetaime (see the popular names article in the Times today) are tantamount to blasphemy.
Isn’t “titkellem” fuq il-web a purer and, dare I say, lovelier way of preserving our language and cultural heritage?
[Daphne – That’s exactly what I would say. But unfortunately the language is being changed from the bottom up, not the top down (educationally speaking, that is). There is absolutely no doubt where words like ‘cettja’ originate, and that’s part of the reason why others refuse to use them.]
I JUST DO NOT GET IT.
We learn English. English has its rules of orthography, grammar, and pronunciation. We follow the rules as best we can. We do not object to those rules.
Maltese has its rules of orthography, grammar, and pronunciation. We also developed rules as an attempt to standardise the adoption of words from other languages …
… AND ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE!
Why?!
[Daphne – Because no distinction has been made between the natural, organic development of the language and the rpaid rise of a slang patois. If you have part of the population who object, for very valid reasons, to being told to say ‘chet’ and ‘blekbort’ then you have a massive problem and it’s not going to work.]
You unwittingly put your finger on the problem, FP.
Yes, Maltese has is rules of orthography, grammar and pronunciation. But those rules were set by anally retentive, pompous gits. We need bright, switched-on, savvy experts in touch with reality.
And by reality I don’t mean Mikiel Anton Vassalli’s Lexicon, but the fact that language is above all a means of communication for the here and the now, not for 1930s Malta.
Perhaps you’d like to give a few examples of the work done by the anally retentive pompous gits …
… follwed by better suited modern day alternatives.
Here’s one: skont.
In Maltese, strong consonants at the end of a word are softened. So for centuries we’ve been happily writing “skond”, and pronouncing it “skont”. But the meddling busybodies had to change the spelling in the name of god knows which ludicrous rule.
Presumably the one which says that “Il-Malti jinkiteb kif jinhass.” Right then, let us remove the Gh and H.
Ri-flipping-diculous.
The “better-suited modern day alternative”, FP, is SKOND.
Brilliant.
Tell me now: list all the languages you know that are free from rules set by anally retentive pompous gits and solely designed by bright, switched-on, savvy experts in touch with reality.
English
Russian
German (because their language evolves organically)
French (because their experts ARE anally-retentive but also savvy – trust the Frogs to be the exception)
And other languages which I do not know.
But I seem to have touched a raw nerve here. You’re not from the Akkademja, are you?
No raw nerves here, Baxxter. A mere secondary school leaver is what I am.
Well now, I know absolutely nothing about Russian or German, and next to nothing about French, but a little English I do know.
If “skont” “ittik daqshekk f’għajnek”, the case for pronunciation and pronounce is equally eligible for it having been decided by anally retentive pompous gits.
[Daphne – Pronounce and pronunciation reflect their….pronunciation. It’s not pronounced ‘pronounciation’. Or ‘pronunce’, for that matter, as you no doubt know. Pronunciation was not decided by any pompous git at all. It comes straight from Latin.]
I’m sure you can come up with infinitely more examples than I can, seeing that you’re infinitely more eloquent than I am.
… and there you go again.
Pronounce and pronunciation reflect their….pronunciation.
Right. Exactly. Spot on.
Skont reflects its … pronunciation.
I couldn’t find a better argument for writing “skont” and not “skond” myself.
[Daphne – I thought you’d say that, but you’re wrong in making the comparison. The ‘mother noun’ is ‘pronunciation’ (fron the Latin), but the verb over time came to be pronounced differently, and English has a standardised way of spelling that particular sound (one of the very few instances of this): ounce, announce, pronounce, renounce, and so on. There is no attempt to standardise the spelling of though, thorough and through: the ‘ough’ sound in all three is different. Wherever possible, and where people are not ignorant and semi-literate, spelling always reflects the origin of the word. Skont is spelled the way it is because it comes from ‘sconto’ and that is what it means: discount. Skond is spelled the way it is because it comes from ‘secondo a’ (according to), and that is what it means. Also, skond is NOT pronounced skont. It’s pronounced ‘skond’. I know that lots of people say ‘skont’ when they mean to say ‘skond’ but then lots of people say ‘irkotta’ and apparently the language is decided on the principle of majority rule. I won’t bow to the will of the ignorant masses, however. I still make a point of saying ‘Skond is-Sur Buttigieg….’. If it gets up the noses of the Skont Brigade, that’s their problem.]
I’m sorry to say, if there’s anything that shines through here is your inconsistencies.
“but the verb over time came to be pronounced differently, and English has a standardised way of spelling that particular sound”
“I won’t bow to the will of the ignorant masses, however. I still make a point of saying ‘Skond is-Sur Buttigieg….’. If it gets up the noses of the Skont Brigade, that’s their problem.”
You would have been VERY consistent had you said and written:
“but the word skond over time came to be pronounced differently (skont), and Maltese has a standardised way of spelling that particular sound” …
… the sound “t” in Maltese is written “t” and not “d”, and if it gets up the noses of those that have adopted anything Maltese as their pet hate, then it’s their problem.
[Daphne – The uniform spelling of the ‘ounce’ sound is an exception, FP. That’s why it’s remarkable. ‘Skond’ has not come to be pronounced differently over time. It is mispronounced by the majority of people who never knew the difference in origin of skont and skond. And it is still pronounced correctly by a minority of people, including me. Now, please explain why those who, like me, have always pronounced it ‘skond’ should suddenly be told to pronounce and spell it ‘skont’ because that’s what the semi-literate are doing and we have to speak and write as they do.]
You can also throw in cough and bough – and that would make it five different ‘ough’ sounds.
Ought makes it six.
The only explanation I can come up with is:
If Daphne finds herself with the minority, then the minority rules.
If Daphne finds herself with the majority, then, ħeqq, the majority rules, mhux hekk?
Saħħa Daphne. Love your tenacity.
But not when you’re wrong.
[Daphne – You still haven’t told us what accent your British wife has, FP. I rather suspect, from the manner in which you argue, and your general touchiness about the subject, that it isn’t David Cameron’s. The majority rules in decisions taken through the democratic process (boards of directors, elections and so on). In all other situations, decisions are taken and standards set by the ‘specialised’ minority. But then you probably know this, which is why you don’t ring me when you need advice on your plumbing or your car engine. The ‘official’ version of a language – Malta is a rare exception – is that spoken by the educated few and not by the uneducated many, and by educated I don’t mean university degrees. All versions of English, for example, serve the essential purpose of communication, but the official version is that used by the monarch, not by a port-worker.]
What about tough?
[Daphne – And rough. My god, it sounds just like ruff. How can those clever Brits work out the difference? We dumb Maltese have to stick dots on ours to tell them apart.]
It is David Cameron’s, as it happens, not that my wife’s accent has anything to do with my views and this discussion
Yes I do know that about who sets official standards. But I don’t see how the official Maltese is that spoken by the uneducated many, as you say.
[Daphne – FP, this is what the discussion is all about. If the official spelling is ‘blekbort’ (for blackboard) and ‘cett’ (chat), that also tells you what the official pronunciation is, and what sort of people are setting the standard. Who says chet? Who says blekbort? Work it out. Or ask your wife.]
Just for your information, I wouldn’t call you for advice on plumbing and car engines not because you’re one of the uneducated many, but simply because I’m one of the educated few in this case.
There’s nothing to work out, and nothing to ask about.
Right from the start, my argument has been and is about the change of spelling of adopted words as opposed to using the original spelling, and not what the actual official words are. I still don’t know what your source for official words is.
Bashing Maltese and calling us dumb for using dots on letters to tell them apart simply because Brits “know” the different sounds for the same spelling is ridiculous.
The massive problem comes from the fact that people would object to any alternative.
Consider this: would people object to using an already existing Maltese equivalent for “chat”? Yes they would, and they insist on the using the English word, as is the case in many other modern day instances, especially where technology and communication is concerned (most of which, admittedly, there’s no real equivalent in Maltese).
If we want to drop Maltese orthography and leave imported words in their “original” language, then we all majteżwel pack up and leave. For even if you just scratch the surface, that originality starts showing its true colours.
[Daphne – The problem is not with the language or with the spelling, FP. It’s with the ignorance. I would never say ‘nic-chatja online’ (still less write ‘niccettja onlajn’). I’d just say ‘nitkellem fil-vojt man-nies fuq l-internet’, which is a very accurate description. There actually is a word for ‘chat’ in Maltese – or rather, an expression: titkellem fil-vojt. The only problem is that it reflects the negative attitude, in Maltese culture, to wasting time that way. The English word is just as negative – hence ‘useless chatter’, ‘idle chatter’, ‘senseless chatter’, ‘chattering on’ and ‘chattering classes’. But people who speak only Maltese don’t know this.]
Well, Daphne, at least it’s not “niwweggja c-cin onlajn” (as in online ‘chinwag’).
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20120326/local/Me-Delpiero-you-Jetaime.412720
I find it more amusing that The Times felt the need to explain that Kaiser is German for emperor and that a boy was named Deniro “after Hollywood actor Robert De Niro”.
I heard of a boy who was given the name Tyron Power as full name and also Donovan after Jason Donovan’s when in reality Donovan is the singer’s surname.
You know Paul Caruana, after the Churchill debacle last week, the venerable Times wanted us to know that they know their stuff.
@ cat
Donovan actually is a first name, apart from being Jason’s surname, although admittedly not common. I think it’s Irish in origin.
Have you been to an Under 10 football match lately? I have and it was surreal; names like Nedved, Shayron and the list goes on.
The Maltese are incredible. When it comes to serious issues like the craziness of Franco Debono in trying to bring the government to its knees, the responses are minimal. One sign that Daphne is ‘criticising’ the Maltese language and suddenly everyone finds a voice.
The basic truth is the Maltese are pig-headed when it comes to their language. They see speaking English as some kind of insult to Maltese. For a country like France to insist on people speaking their language only (not that I agree with this) is one thing, because they have 80million speakers, but for Malta?
I think it’s fantastic that the Maltese have their own language and you should be proud. Many other larger nations have lost theirs. Language makes up a large part of any culture especially the Maltese.
What the Maltese need to realise is that, like it or not, Malta is a small rock on the edge of Europe. Businesses are not coming to Malta for your Maltese-language skills. English is still considered the world language especially when it comes to business.
Be proud of Maltese, but also develop your language skills. The Swedish are a small country of 9 million people with a proud history and a strong language, but they also speak fantastic English. They are able to communicate with the world with an almost native-speaker level of English.
Malta needs to play to its strengths and stop seeing speaking English as ‘tal-pepe’ as it is seriously holding back many Maltese, especially when they are looking for higher-paid jobs in Malta and abroad.
Why would a company want to employ a Maltese person with low-level speaking and writing skills in English when they can get a Swede with high skills in Swedish and English? I know of companies that don’t consider Maltese English-speakers as good enough to speak with the English markets.
For a country that depends on businesses coming to Malta and tourism you need to stop being so blindly patriotic and get to a level of English people expect.
Spot on. What’s worse, we’re desperately trying to sell Malta to the English-language student market as an English-speaking country. The general feeling among students is that they’ve been duped when they find that everyone’s speaking Maltese.
So much for “attracting foreign investment” and “Maltese youths [cringe] can compete for jobs with the best Europeans.” Yes we can, after we can prove, on our honour, that English really is our mother tongue. Because having two official languages on paper (and one language in practice) doesn’t exactly sell very well among recruiters.
Here’s Baxxter’s tip: If you’re applying for a job abroad, drop “Maltese” from the “language skills” list in your CV. It’ll make things easier.
I think this issue needs to be settled once and for all.
A survey needs to be carried out amongst our English teachers and ask one simple open question: list the reasons why you don’t speak and teach proper English.
How high would the response “Because I’m proud to be Maltese and it would be an insult for me to speak English in it’s proper accent” feature, do you think?
I argue that if people are not taught the proper accent, they’re not going to use it. Not only that, some would prefer dropping it altogether: my son, having been brought up in an English-speaking household, mostly by his British mother, had a very pleasant English accent. Enter secondary school, and guess what? It’s like he never had it. Wny? He feels awkward being the odd one out, even though he knows perfectly well that his was the right accent. And this not only when speaking with his peers – he speaks to his cousins and grandparents (in England) in the same Maltese accent.
It has nothing to do with pride, and everything to do with what and how English is taught in schools.
See? We agree, after all.
Let me just add this: It has everything to do with the fact that English is NOT spoken as a first language, confined as it is to the classroom and the occasional interaction with Johnny foreigner.
I doubt whether anyone in Malta can really lay claim to English as a mother tongue, except perhaps the last remnants of our upper class.
It’s about time we dropped our TEFL charade. “The TEFL Delusion”. Now there’s a smashing title for a bestseller.
I don’t think it would be a very difficult job to get English English-teachers in principle to come to Malta.
The problem is the salary. I think it’s unfair on the English-teachers here to say the students are being ‘duped’. The simple fact is many Maltese watch Maltese TV day in day out so their level of English doesn’t improve.
Also, if you look at the level of journalism and professionalism as a whole Malta is lacking.
I feel very sorry for the government because even after everything they provide for the students of Malta they are being let down by the parents with the very basics.
A worrying trend is the number of students from real traditional working backgrounds who think because they got through university they somehow are better than anyone else. A big indicator of this is the MLP who seem to think a degree is a licence to govern.
Most students from around the world see a degree as the very basic requirement for getting a job interview. In Malta it’s a status symbol and a fast track to power.
It DOES NOT have everything to do with English not being spoken as a first language.
A second ago you agreed “spot on” to an argument where a people can speak near perfect English even though they do not speak it as a first language.
And so can we. If we had the right teachers.
[Daphne – Teachers bleachers. What about some initiative? Except for one, the near-legendary Miss Booker (the clue is in the surname), I had crap teachers at St Dorothy’s Convent – the sort who said ‘Petegonia’ and ‘play well the guitar’. I even had an English teacher who had that ‘Kavin’ and ‘dask’ problem. My parents spoke Maltese at home most of the time. But I read ALL THE TIME and still do, and I register the way words are used, and the context and the cadence. I am totally mystified at the way so many people can read without picking up even the basics – e.g. ‘he asked where is the guitar’; where do they read or hear that in English? How long will it take for them to notice, if they ever will, that when it’s a statement rather than a question, the verb goes AFTER the noun? And more mystifyingly still, how can they watch film after film after film and still carry on pronouncing words so atrociously? Aren’t they listening to the way they’re pronounced in those films they watch? Are the majority of Maltese linguistically ‘blind’ or something? Or just very, very arrogant and self-satisfied?]
What do we expect, after all? Students bettering their teachers in every English class on this blessed (misħuta, rather) rock?
[Daphne – It’s that way in most schools where the majority of pupils come from Anglophone backgrounds, FP. The pupils do know more than their English teachers. It’s tragic.]
Onto a different angle …
Is anyone here implying that businesses do not go anywhere in England where English is not spoken with the proper accent? I much suspect that proper English is spoken by the a very small minority of English-speaking natives.
[Daphne – Not the businesses, FP, but the people who run them. London’s most important hotels are not run by an Englishman with an East End accent, but by a Maltese man with the ‘proper’ accent. Good presentation is of the essence at that level, and the right way of speaking is part of it.]
So again:
Why do Maltese have to speak better English than the British themselves?!
[Daphne – We don’t. But if we can, then we can go places and do things that British people who speak their own language badly or with a thick accent can’t go or do, as in the example cited above. Nobody has to do anything. You do it because it is in your interest to do so. If you are going to bother learning English, then learn the best and most useful form. Otherwise, what’s the point?]
So that, perhaps, we can finally claim merit for our George Cross, and append a BaxxterDaphne medal?
[Daphne – Here we go.]
We’re not going anywhere.
I’m all for learning good grammar and what have you – that’s a given and I never meant to argue otherwise – and this you can learn even if you are deaf.
But to insist on proper pronunciation, you first have to have teachers that firstly know the proper pronunciation themselves, and then insist on the proper pronunciation just as much as they insist on the use of proper grammar.
Expecting an 11-year old to take some initiative and contradict his teacher and the rest of the class is expecting a tad too much.
[Daphne – I can’t see why. We did it all the time at school. So did children at the school my sons went to. We either contradicted them or we mocked them or we simply ignored them and pressed on. So, OK, I’ll admit that the difference there is that we knew the correct form and pronunciation, but the situation is more difficult when children don’t have this advantage over their teachers. But here’s the interesting bit: the wonders of peer influence. Though our teachers’ accents and English in general were pretty terrible, even those of our class-mates who came from homes where no English was spoken at all ended up speaking it pretty well. Rather than learning from their teachers, they picked it up off their fellow pupils. But that presupposed a willingness to do so. It wouldn’t happen today, in this ‘I don’t see why I should change the way I speak’ culture.]
@ H.P. Baxxter
No, The Grand Master’s name was “de Valette” not “la Valette” . Not once, during his lifetime did he or his contemporaries, use “la Valette” . There are hundreds of inscriptions, coins, edicts, medals, documents, made before his death and never once – not once – is the GM referred to as la Valette. Always as de Valette (in different spellings).
La Valette was the town he built, not the person who built it.
Now shoot me, and aim straight at the heart.
Shoot you? My dear sir, I wouldn’t want one of your scathing judgements on my record. “Gentlemen at home, hoodlums abroad”, I think you said.
Can you cite some sources re. this de Valette story? Most of those inscriptions and medals would have been in Latin, and referred to “Iohanes de Valeta”. Translated, it would take the definite article.
I grant you it is not such a clear-cut case. The first “Valette” chappy that I know of was a Seigneur de Valette, AFTER his name of something something de LA Valette. French titles had this strange quirk, where definite articles would start appearing at some point in the family tree. By the 18th century, everyone had settled on “de la Valette” for our national hero.
Tell you what. Let’s make a deal. You get them to stop saying “l-Abate Giliberto” and change all the street names, and I’ll accept your Valette thesis.
I can’t really get what you’re driving at, FP.
I suspect you’re one of those peculiarly Maltese exceptions, telling us about your British wife and your English-speaking household (all right for you then) but insisting that Maltese should morph into a Creole patois, unusable for anything but ghetto-speak, breakfast-show patter and grocery store inanities (not all right at all for the rest of us). All because of The Rules.
And another thing. I’m not here to win the argument. This isn’t the Oxford Union. In fact, I wish I were wrong here. Recognising the failings of of my native language isn’t something I’m happy about. It’s like looking in the mirror every morning, knowing that no matter how hard I try, I will never be able to express myself as adequately as a native English speaker, and that my thoughts will forever be straitjacketed by my language. And then bracing myself for a full day of inarticulate pidgin at the office.
[Daphne – I don’t think you’re doing too badly at all with the native speech. As for the full day of inarticulate pidgin, you have the sympathy of many, including me. It’s bad enough that the usual idea of conversation is banter; the pidgin only makes it worse.]
Well, I don’t really know what you’re trying to say either.
What rules are these that you speak of that are morphing Maltese into a patois? Where have I argued for this?
I honestly don’t know where you got that idea from. My basic argument is for regularising and tranposing foreign words (where there’s no Maltese equivalent, naturally) using the already established pronunciation rules, and not to leave them in their original spelling. Otherwise, a patois is exactly what you’d end up with.
I remember a time when there was a resistance by some to adopt the word television, because, they said, Maltese gives us enough to translate that to “trażmissjoni tal-istampa mingħajr fili”. Not much more of an exaggeration than Daphne’s “nitkellem fil-vojt man-nies fuq l-internet”.
Don’t you see that this is stretching things a bit too far? When people say “chatting” in English, do they say “chatting uselessly with people over the internet”? Of course not! The “uselessly with people over the internet” bit is a given if the context is the internet, so insisting on “fil-vojt man-nies fuq l-internet” is an exercise in masochism.
What would be the best translation is arguable – in our parts, “paroli” has taken the meaning of “idle chatter”, so “tparla” may be a good candidate here. Or not. But one word is definitely enough.
On the other hand, had there been no option other than to use the adopted word, then I definitely favour spelling it phonetically using Maltese orthography to be as close as possible to the original pronunciation, for reasons that argued about elsewhere.
That, in a nutshell, is the gist of all my arguments on this thread.
Yesterday I was listening to the parliament radio, and Dr Alfred Sant was speaking about the Greek loan. At one point he repeated several times ” jikkattja 5 percent’. I was wondering whether this author (accomplished?) in Maltese could not find a better alternative for the verb ‘to cut’?
[Daphne – Iqaccat. And if it were a lot heavier than five per cent, jahsad.]
Iqaċċat: breaks off
Jaħsad: harvests
Jaqta’: cuts
Daphne must have a different dictionary to mine.
[Daphne – I don’t need a dictionary, FP. I learned the words in context (through gardening, mainly). You use ‘qaccat’ when you slash, break or tear off lots of something. Tista tqaccat id-dublett, per ezempju, u jigik mini-skirt. Tahsad – this is when you slash a plant right down, after wind-burn, for instance. Yes, it does mean ‘harvest’, too – but its meaning in this context came originally from the use of the scythe (to harvest wheat etc), but then came to be used for all kinds of harvesting, including hand-picking. You can ‘tahsad’ people, too, by giving them a nasty shock. Same difference.]
Off in tangents again.
Back to Dr Sant, who I much suspect was not speaking in the context of gardening, mini-skirts, dbielet, genocide and what have you …
Jikkattja 5 percent.
Inti tgħid iqaċċat 5 percent.
Jien ngħid jaqta’ ħamsa fil-mija.
[Daphne – I would have said ‘iqaccat hamsa fil-mija’. It’s a lot more effective than ‘jaqta’.]
Daphne, I think that there are two problems here but you seem to be confusing them and making a single argument out of both.
One problem is that Maltese is fast degenerating into a patois that is almost incomprehensible to the native English speaker.
There are Maltese people who describe themselves as English-speakers who routinely say “You went?” instead of “Did you go?” or “I didn’t go ghax I didn’t feel like it”.
Now people who speak in this way are found at all ends of the scale, be it working class or not.
In my experience, however, the worst offenders are those who think of themselves as upper class and who speak almost exclusively in this kind of butchered English, sometimes not being able to string together a decent sentence in Maltese.
This group, however is distinct from people who would write “tajt” instead of “tghid” and “tijaj” instead of “tieghi”. It would mostly be people who you would describe as working class that would write in this way, and in all probability these people’s English would be next to non-existant, as opposed to the former group’s.
Now, I believe that this wholesale incorporation of English words with Maltese orthography is not helping this latter group. On the contrary, it is giving people the impression that it is OK to spell words any old how as long as they end up with a similar pronunciation.
It is, however, not affecting in the least the “Maltenglish” spoken by the former group.
I would like to mention a few points. Here we go:
1) I don’t think it’s a big deal if some foreign words are switched into Maltese as long as there isn’t a similar word in Maltese. The Maltese language is a living language. Eg. Kejk (cake), kompjuter (computer)
I wouldn’t accept bajsikil (bicycle) or xelta (from sceliere), as there are rota and ghazla respectively.
2) I also think that teaching children about different spellings for the same word is not an issue. It’s something we’ve been doing for ages. Eg. Karta (carta), furketta (forchetta) etc.
3) I believe that problems in English (and Maltese for that matter) pronunciation start with our primary teachers. I have had to make an effort to try and adopt an appropriate English accent when talking in English. Why do many people say nikpi when the word is nibki? I am a doctor, and the things I hear are terrible: tyros (thyroid), imperial (period), operazzjoni tal-prostituta
(tal-prostita).
I think one should make an effort to speak and write in a grammatically and phonetically correct manner, but one has to remember that different people have different IQs.
I also admire your crusade on incorrect language and I definitely join it, but please don’t be too severe on people less intelligent than you are.
Għeżież Sinjuri,
I am an English person with some knowledge of Maltese. I read on your website: “Stefan qed jiccettja ma nies li ma jafhomx.” This should read: “Stefan qed jiċċettja ma’ nies li ma jafhomx.” It is necessary to distinguish between ma’ (“with”) and ma (“not”). I do not object to words being adopted from English into Maltese, a process which is happening all the time, as long as the result conforms to Maltese grammatical and spelling patterns. In the case of “jiċċettja”, a prefix and a suffix have to be added to the English verb “chat” in order to make it into a Maltese verb. The same applies to all verbs adopted from English into Maltese. And as the English vowel sound “a” as in “chat” does not exist in Maltese, the vowel has to be altered when the word is adopted into Maltese. There are also nouns which have been adopted from English but have been given the Semitic plural ending “-ijiet”. E.g. “kowt”, “kowtijiet”. There are though also other nouns which come from English and must have a wide currency in Maltese, but take the English plural ending “-s”!. E.g. “kompjuter”, “kompjuters”. I am not a native speaker of Maltese, but presumably no one is going to say “kompjuterijiet”. Thus “-s” must be regarded as a genuine Maltese plural ending.
I do not object to the adoption of Italian and English words into Maltese, as long as the result is not a total mixture of Maltese, English and other languages with a complete breakdown of any regular syntax – that is to say, sentence structure.
It is also necessary to write the letters għ and h correctly, even when they are not pronounced. However, they often are pronounced. E.g. smigħ, biegħ, fih, koroh. And it is necessary to known when and when not to use the apostrophe at the end of a word. E.g. “ma’ ” and “ma” (see above), “qala’ ” (he earned), “sata’ ” (he could), “qara” (he read) “beda” (he began).
I have also studied other languages (German, Russian, written Arabic), have always remained a grammarian at heart, and am convinced that if the rules of grammar and spelling were adhered to, modern Maltese would be a better structured language than it is. But I am aware that a great deal of bastardization of the Maltese language is taking place today, both in the spoken and the written language. That is a sad tendency, and I would be glad if something could be done to correct it.
Inselli għalikom
Charles Earle