Dee littil old wimmin (singular) endy chincherbratmen (singular)
If the prime minister’s wife is going to run about the country reading fairytales in English to schoolchildren and worse, being filmed doing so, she had better get to work on that dreadful accent or just stick to Maltese.
This is not a political issue but a linguistic one. Politicians on both sides of the house have really dreadful accents when speaking English. You can count on the fingers of one hand, if that, those of them who don’t.
So Michelle Muscat isn’t in a minority here, not by a long shot – even though she isn’t a politician, strictly speaking, but married to one.
The thing is, when you read to children you’re not just telling them a story. You’re teaching them pronunciation in an alien language. If your pronunciation is dreadful, you’re doing those children a disservice and not a favour, because they’re unlikely to be exposed to the proper pronuncation from other sources and so they’ll take your pronunciation as the right one.
I listened to a part-recording of Mrs Muscat reading that fairytale, and as an example, this is how she read out “the little old woman and the gingerbread man”:
dee littil old wimmin endy chincherbratmen
People who grow up exposed only to Maltese or Maltese English have really serious difficulty with English vowels and also switch and confuse the hard consonants g/k and d/t and the ch/j sound.
So ‘ginger’ becomes ‘chincher’, ‘bread’ becomes ‘brat’, ‘mug’ becomes ‘muck’, ‘woman’ becomes ‘wimmin’ (confused with the pronunciation of the plural form, women, which in turn becomes ‘woomin’, pronounced close to the singular form), and ‘man’ is impossible to get right because that flat ‘a’ sound just doesn’t exist at all in Maltese and vowel sounds not learned in infancy or early childhood are never learned at all (something to do with the linguistic wiring of the brain, which is particular to vowels).
So ‘man’ is pronounced in a bewildering variety of ways, and generally like the plural form ‘men’, as Mrs Muscat does, because the speaker literally cannot distinguish between the sound of ‘man’ and the very different (to a mind/tongue attuned to English pronunciation) ‘men’.
That flat ‘a’ sound is the reason so many people have trouble with my name. When people go around talking about ‘Defni’ or ‘Duffni’, they’re not necessarily mocking. The English ‘a’ sound is literally beyond their ability to pronounce.
I would never run around reading fairytales in French to schoolchildren, because my pronunciation is from hell. So I just can’t understand why people think it’s OK to teach children terrible English pronunciation.
Teaching them English at home in whatever accent is fine as long as they learn the language and you have no alternative (badly pronounced English is way, way better than no English at all), but when you are a teacher or in a position of authority like a prime minister’s wife reading out fairytales to children, you’ve got to get it right, because the pronunciation (as distinct from accent) is part of it.
Chincherbratmen? Please.
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Daphne, I know I will be up all night.
Thanks to you.
I have lived the past thirty six years with a public school educated English lady.
Furthermore she claims to have won the prize for elocution every year for the six years she spent at Sutton High.
And I still make these awful mistakes.
It used to be every day.
Now it is about once a week : “You mean ……”.
Poor Michelle.
I really pity her.
On watching the video, one of my children commented that Michelle Muscat can’t even speak proper Maltese, saying ‘edvencherr'(adventure) instead of the Maltese ‘avventura’, and ‘serrprajzz’ (surprise) instead of ‘sorpriza’.
Meanwhile, apparently, Konrad Mizzi referred to Tonio Fenech as ‘ministru’ twice on television this evening.
Not just twice but several times. Almost every time he addressed him.
Bondi+ had just started when I tuned in and, for a couple of minutes, I thought they were showing a clip from a pre-election programme.
A Freudian slip, no doubt wishing for the good old days when he can just criticise and then go to bed, safe in the knowledge that the ship of state was in capable hands.
Seems that the elocution lessons she took didn’t do much good.
Well, as you said, it can’t happen in a month or a few months, can it?
George Bush read a story about a pet goat to children as the New York Trade Centre was being destroyed.
Michelle reads a story about gingerbread men.
Out of topic but Re George Bush’s story-telling, this comes to mind:
http://vimeo.com/44583147
They wee put in ‘dee uvvinn’ to cook.
Why didn’t she read them a story in Maltese? What happened to anti-pepe Labour?
And Arabic too, that’s what ‘Il-Salvatur ta’Malta’ wanted.
Joseph Muscat is currently visiting his socialist friend Francoise Hollande. It’s a good time to look at the latest developments in France.
Following the resignation of his finance minister due to undeclared assets, Francoise Hollande was forced to make all his ministers publish their assets.
It turns out that a lot of his hate-the-rich and presidente-normale-loving, socialist ministers have as much bling bling as Nicolas Sarkozy ever did. Seven of his ministers are millionaires.
In other news, the French economy is on a fast downward spiral. Factories keep closing down. The ministers’ promises to save jobs and kick-start the economy have gone up in smoke. Instead of trying to reach deficit targets, another promise given during the electoral campaign, the French government is planning to ask Brussels to give it more leeway to bend the rules (something I suspect Joseph Muscat is planning to do too).
The difference between socialists and liberals is that liberals admit to liking money and property while socialists hide their money adoration behind socialist ideological claptrap. Socialists have a habit of grabbing other people’s money instead of working hard to make their own too.
Margaret Thatcher was right about socialists, wasn’t she?
If I were Joseph Muscat, I would avoid hobnobbing with Francoise Hollande. His popularity is tumbling faster than a hayrick rolling down a hill.
http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21576421-several-socialist-ministers-are-uncovered-millionaires-transparency-days/
http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21576414-it-weakness-economy-not-political-scandal-most-threatens-french
While the French embassy in Tripoli was attacked with a car bomb.
If Muscat is a socialist then I’m a ballet dancer.
The only thing ‘Labour’ about Labour is the name.
FRANCOIS not ‘Francoise’. ‘Francoise’ is the female version. And there’s actually an accent under the ‘c’, but I can’t figure out a way to type it. Sorry. It irked me.
Joseph Muscat doesn’t need ideas from Francois Hollande how to fuck our economy. He is already doing it his own way.
This video might help her:
http://www.engvid.com/english-pronunciation-a-e/
Aas leader of the opposition Joseph Muscat was entitled to use of an official car, so was he for the past 5 years being paid €7000 per year?
Also Mrs Muscat I believe is the 1st wife of a prim minister to be paid – I think it is important that her pay package and benefits be published.
Daphne,
Michelle is a B.Ed graduate ie. a teacher, a real teacher.
What are you graduated in daphne?
…I know i know – you will say that you have experience as a journalist and a writer … blah blah blah !!!
I bet you will give anything to have had a B.Ed (hons) like Michelle! wouldn’t you?
[Daphne – They say Frans Sammut was a good writer (which, in English at least, presupposes ‘good thinker’), but if that were the case how could his son’s skills be so very wretched? I won’t go into the social class dynamics of ‘dik ticer ta, hi’ for fear of offending hundreds of innocents, but be assured that when the BEduc degree was the only one available other than law at the time I left sixth form, I didn’t bend over backwards to collect the long list of non-examination entry requirements.
In answer to your first question: in archaeology, with honours, after having been on the Dean’s list (and this while working and raising three children still at primary school and not collecting a stipend).
In answer to your second question: No. It should be obvious from the fact that I never read for a degree in education that I never wanted one. If I had wanted one, I would have read for one. This is not to cast aspersions on the BEduc degree, but is purely a matter of personal preference and choice. If I had wanted one but was for some strange and inexplicable reason unable to get one (lower IQ than those who graduate BEduc, perhaps?) I would certainly NOT have given anything to get one. Those are not my priorities, though they appear to be yours.]
Take it form me, being a B.Ed graduate does not make you a teacher, real or otherwise.
Besides, as a teacher, her pronunciation is appalling.
Talk about negative modelling.
And her dissertation is not in the Melitensia database, and we know what that means.
Now France has approved gay marriages as well. Perhaps this will help the French economy.
What has the economy got to do with gay rights?
Let’s persecute gays because the economy is in a mess, that will definitely sort the economy out.
The level of English at tertiary level is appalling and we went on further to push Maltese translators at EU level when we could have comfortably stuck to English.
To add insult to injury we use words like “skawts” instead of scouts, “Bdoti” instead of piloti, gowl instead of goal, “unjin” instead of union and strajk instead of strike.
This is precisely what I meant about ‘the undervest.’ Or… ‘dee un terr ffest (can’t even do that)’. Most people I know simply say ‘vest,’ from whatever nationality. Those people in I’ve heard in Malta who choose to use undervest. manage to totally distort it and make it sound all wrong.
Which is why ‘sin-glitt’ would probably be a better choice for them.
It’s exactly the same thing with “un terr pends.”
Whilst we’re on the subject, the distortions that bother me most are ‘po-jett’ and “po-jett-tree” for poet and poetry.
It’s a very little detail really, but it fits in with the nature of this blog. In Malta this little detail says all too much.
Unfortunately, if teachers go into classrooms teaching English, or anything, with this sort of elocution, it is only natural to expect the students to come out with a similar one. The quality of English in Malta didn’t deteriorate suddenly. It’s been coming since the early 70’s, when standards in general ceased to be important.
Much like the ethics issue today.
Copied from the real deal:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=259626bx3CU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWUjd7hIQg8
So for the latest possible action:
http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2013-04-24/news/mintoff-museum-could-be-housed-in-new-parliament-building-1452507139/
If this happens it flies totally in the face of reconciliation and all this ‘Malta Taghna Ilkoll’ crap. This would be the ultimate spiteful measure to take, disregarding all the wrongs Mintoff did to so many.
Eddie Fenech Adami, for all your wisdom, you messed up on this one. There could never be reconciliation without acknowledgement of all the damage done. Now this lot ‘ghandhom il power’ to run roughshod over the lot of us, rubbing salt in the wounds caused and rewrite history.
A Piano building to house Mintoff. What a sacrilege. Mintoff himself would turn in his grave. He was more at home wading in his duck’s crap than in any beautiful building. A bust down at the pet farm would be more appropriate.
She also sounds a bit like a rattlesnake…got a bit of a problem with her ssssssss sounds.
By the way, I am surprised you didn’t say anything about her outfit. There’s so much material there. Cheap acrylic jumper, wide hips in too tight jeans (it’s not the wide hips I object too, it’s the jeans), nasty over-the-top plastic necklace over a too-busy and too-chunky pattern jumper, big plastic clutch bag (clutch!! – why?), bil-yellow halli nkunu metchy metchy.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20130424/local/marlene-mizzi-is-malta-s-first-woman-mep.466805
I believe the technical term for this phenomenon is ‘devoicing’, though I stand to be corrected.
It occurs frequently in Maltese, particularly in singular forms ending with the letters b, g, v, d and ż. Consider ‘bieb’ or ‘pajjiż’. The ‘b’ and the ‘ż’ are pronounced as though they were ‘p’ and ‘s’ respectively.
Some Maltese speakers probably apply this rule subconsciously to whichever foreign language they’re speaking. It’s an awful habit which stems from the lack of exposure to proper spoken English.
It’s a shame there is no longer a ‘true’ Conservative party in Malta. The Nationalists went left, and Labour went/is going right, and the mix became too blurred, and one cannot really tell one party from the other. Some call it ‘middle ground politics’, I call it ‘politics of convenience’.
[Daphne – “One cannot really tell one party from the other”. Rubbish. Labour is squalid and has no principles at all. It’s not only policy you should be looking at, though that too.]
I speak many languages and lived in the UK most of my life since the age of 20. I am in my mid-fifties.
English is the hardest language to pronounce for non-native speakers, especially the Maltese. Vowels are a minefield, especially the ‘a’ and the ‘u’.
Unfortunately in Malta, pronouncing English correctly is considered as showing off. I hope more emphasis is given to pronunciation in schools.
Do you ever get hit by a moment of self-awareness when you realise your Maltese (nicely documented on YouTube) is about as atrocious as Ms Muscat’s English?
[Daphne – I’m afraid you’ve got that upside down, TL. My Maltese is far from atrocious, and it is actually a lot better than the Maltese spoken by people from a an uneducated background who speak only Maltese, for the simple reason that my vocabulary and grammar are by definition better. You labour under the delusion that ungrammatical working-class Maltese spoken with a heavy accent in poorly constructed sentences is ‘real Maltese’. It isn’t. It is the equivalent of the sort of English spoken on a Greater Manchester housing estate, which is certainly not better English or more authentic than that spoken by, for example, David Cameron. People who are acutely aware of the significance of vocabulary and grammar in one language are generally hyper aware of their significance in all other languages: and so it is with me and Maltese/English, and that’s also the reason I refuse to even try to speak French and Italian – because merely making myself understood is not sufficient for me. Also, please do drum this into your head: a Maltese working-class accent is a Maltese working-class accent. It is not ‘the one, true Maltese accent’. Michelle Muscat does not have ‘a Maltese accent’. She has a working-class Maltese accent in both English and Maltese. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but my view is that if you’re going to work so hard to climb the ladder, why not dump the very first thing that marks you out after table manners? Look at Ramona Frendo. She’s sharp enough to know that.]
Social climber….once a hamalla, always a hamalla.
Here’s a look at technical words destroyed in the Maltese language, hose pipe, horse pajp. Make and break, makinbeajk. Cardian shaft, garden xhaft. Radiator, reddijater. Shock absorber, shokupshoulder, go way down south, stay and wait in a car parts shop and one can hear this unique language.
Can someone please teach the prime minister’s wife how to carry a handbag? Why was she clutching onto it like that – because somebody might steal it?
She needs elocution lessons, too, if she is going to insist on spending half her life in front of the cameras.
Can someone please a post a YouTube link to this rendition?
I thought the French President was male (François).
So much expertise on the subject of France and, apparently, no knowledge of the French language…
What’s the big deal about having an accent? I’ve been living in the UK for years and I have never seen anybody (politicians included) being criticised for speaking with an accent while being interviewed on the BBC (or elsewhere for that matter). I have both English and non-English colleagues (incl other native speakers of English) and practically everybody speaks with an accent.
[Daphne – Total bollocks. Not only are accents mentioned, but when politicians make a point of losing their original accent along the way, as in the case of Margaret Thatcher and, latterly, speak John Bercow, the fact is mentioned regularly. There was a big interview with Bercow in the IHT a couple of days ago in which at least a paragraph was devoted to his ‘hyper-articulate’ manner of speaking and the fact that he dumped his working-class accent while pulling himself up by his bootstraps. In any case, Michelle Muscat’s problem is not about the accent so much as her regular mispronunciation. Chincherbretmen for gingerbreadman? That’s not as accent so much as a bloody-minded refusal to learn how to pronounce it properly.]
And it’s not like you don’t have an accent! According to my non-Maltese wife who has listened to you when I was watching the Lou Bondi YouTube video before the last election, you have a very noticeable Maltese accent.
[Daphne – Exactly where is your wife from, Carl? If Britain, please state region and social class. If not Britain, don’t bother.]
I’m sure this is Kenneth Zammit Tabona’s idea of culture
http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2013-04-24/news/mintoff-museum-could-be-housed-in-new-parliament-building-1452507139/