And the supporters of which political party were encouraged to hate English and despise and laugh at those who speak it?
Maria l-Maws wants Labour supporters to begin speaking ilsien il-hakem.
I can’t stand that snake in the grass Evarist Bartolo. He’s such a mealy-mouthed hypocrite. No wonder, really, that he and that sorry half-pint, Pullicino Orlando, are a combo.
NOW he’s worried about the fact that Maltese people can’t speak English. And what’s all this about ‘lost’? Is he actually suggesting that fewer people now speak English than they did in the Glorious Golden Years? Back then people couldn’t even read and write at all, let alone read and write English, which was entirely a foreign language, ilsien il-hakem.
You spoke English in public at your peril back then, unless you were in the safety of some Sliema bar or beach. A group of friends walking along speaking English would be targetted by savage children or teenagers who had been brainwashed by their rabid Mintoffian parents, nanniet and zijiet. They’d kick, punch, throw stones, pull hair and chase you with flick-knives. That’s how bad it was.
You spoke Maltese or you walked along mute.
The least that could happen to you if you didn’t was a gob of spittle hurled in your direction with ‘Ajma x’tahseb li int, ja zibel tal-pepe.’
Malta in the Goltin Years – a laugh a minute.
How do Varist Bartlu and his hypocrisy come into this? Simple – it was a situation he supported. He was all tangled up in the Labour Party already back then, remember. The man is in his 60s, though we all choose to ignore this fact.
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The MALIGNANT, LYING, GIANT SCUM.
Who was it that booted out the British Council? All they did was stock school libraries with books.
NOW he’s bemoaning the decline in English?
Every word this man Bartolo utters is a gob of venomous lies.
Well for the sake of correctness, in the 60`s was he entangled in the Labour party or was he a self declared Communist holding some sort of post within the communist environs of the times ? Was he enmeshed in his conflict as to whether he should be fanning class hate against those who were “keshin” according to him and spoke English ? Was his conscience at rest when all effort was made to channel us into Arabic Lessons ? Was it not Varist`s Labour which drove the British Council out of Malta ? Was it not Varist and Clique who used to slogan “British go home” ? Labour will rewrite its History when ULIED IN NANNA VENUT come back from the States speaking American English and good money in their pockets. Ulied In Nanna Venut will come to regret and depise Labour for its crass.
We are actually risking becoming an inarticulate nation.
I’m afraid that line has been crossed already.
I got pushed to the ground for speaking English to my girlfriend while on a bike hike in the outskirts of Rabat: “Kellem bil-Malti bzieq – mela mhux Malta ghedin a pufta tal-pepe”.
Good times… Good times.
You still see that kind of mentality floating around the internet nowadays, Daphne.
It’s not the first time that timesofmalta.com or any other website has had comments saying that because we’re Maltese, we should be speaking in the Maltese language only; and all that crap.
Even out on the streets it’s prevalent, sometimes. It happened to me a couple of months back; as soon as I started speaking in English to a person with whom I was having an argument with at that moment in time, he started berating me and calling me ‘tal-pepe’ because I was ashamed to speak in my mother tongue (which, please note, is English and not Maltese – I started learning Maltese when I was six years old).
Needless to say, I switched to Maltese, in the hope that his intellectually challenged brain would understand something.
`pimps, thieves and scoundrels` then and `pimps, thieves and scoundrels` now
This cannot go missed. Mrs. Muscat in Ghajnsielem doesn’t know that a carpenter in Maltese is called ‘mastrudaxxa’ not ‘qed jaghmel l’injam’ !
http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2013-12-15/news/bethlehem-fghajnsielem-opens-for-public-3466919937/
Injoranza bestjali. Sinjura Muscat, hemm haga wahda li taghmel l-injam, u nghidulha sigra.
Dan qed nghidulek ghax inhobbok, kif ordnali zewgek.
Cheers.
Yes I remember it well. They even tried to invent maltese words for – washing machine – it was il-hassiela or something to that effect. There were others but I can’t remember.
[Daphne – There is indeed a Maltese word for washing-machine, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with it: magna tal-hasil. It’s ‘waxinmexin’ that’s wrong.]
One other deed that was a slap in the face of education was when foreign teachers who taught us their mother tongue were sent back to their homeland. Why? To spite church schools where nuns and clergymen taught foreign languages. But in their vindictiveness such teachers in government schools were also forbidden.
So English went to the dogs and never recovered.
But then the “salvatur’s” daughters never spoke Maltese and never attended Maltese schools. They went to the one of the service’s primary schools in Malta.
But the Laburisti believed in Mintoff blindly and unfortunately his legacy is still haunting us.
The scumbag was at the forefront when Labour decided to close the Church schools by hook or by crook. And crooks there were by the dozen, troglodyte Laburisti hodor guarding Church school gates making sure nobody got in or out.
And this legless lizard was right there with them, leading the charge.
Daphne, in this day and age, with the choice of TV stations, Internet in every home, films in English, not to speak of books, I do think the number of YOUNG people speaking half-decent English is lower than it used to be 20 years ago.
You reap what you sow.
Learning and speaking English have been vehemently discouraged in Malta in the past fifty years.
Successive MLP governments and education ministers were at the forefront of this.
The results are now there for all to see.
Appalling English both spoken and written.
You see and hear this everyday even in leading newspapers and other media.
The culprits come from a wide spectrum of society and include University graduates. The University has failed miserably in this regard.
This is what makes it so painful.
The situation is pretty hopeless especially now with an education minister who is hypocrisy personified.
1970s/80s: ‘L-Ingliż – ilsien il-ħakkiem’. Thrash state schools. Attack teachers. Attack private schools. Close off university to all but those who could get a ‘sponsor’. Peddle the mentality that Maltese and English were in some kind of competition.
2010s: ‘We are risking becoming a single-language nation’… go tell that to the guy whose coffin Joseph Muscat kissed last year.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20131216/local/migration-malta-loses-european-court-appeals-for-shorter-detention-periods.499194#.Uq6zBcK4upo
Evarist Bartolo should stop grumbling now. He is in charge of education and we want to see results.
I was surprised to discover that Mr Bartolo studied English literature at university, an unusual subject for a Mintoffjan. He speaks faultless English.
[Daphne – He speaks pedestrian English with a dreadful accent. It’s his wife who speaks well.]
Prospective Labour BOV director wannabe is now you using Facebook to hustle up proxies :
Mario Grima
One last effort to get some more proxies.
17 hours ago
Oh, I have no doubt that the effect of the Golden Years of Labour is slowly bubbling behind the scenes.
My 11-year-old daughter – who is quite a bookworm – chose to make use of a few minutes’ free time at the end of a (non-English) lesson to read her English literature book. Her teacher’s comment? “Qed taqra bl-Ingluz, bhal tal-pepe?” And this at an independent school, where lessons are given in English, and where a fair percentage of the schoolchildren are foreign, or whose first language is English.
With an attitude like that from a teacher – who CHOSE to work at the school in question – there really is not much hope for the general attitude to change.
Incidentally, the result of this particular teacher’s attitude was to put my daughter off the subject – a subject she previously enjoyed – although I hope that that effect will wear off.
Tell your daughter to tell her teacher this:
“You can auscultate my fornicating fundament.”
Chances are her teacher won’t have enough vocab to understand.
If the shit does hit the fan she can say she read it in a poem by HPB.
@ H.P. Baxxter – you kill me with your replies. But on a more serious note, we used to be ganged up on because we spoke English, spat at and insulted verbally.
Hypocrites one and all.
In those days being competitive wasn’t necessary. We had everything, from plots to labour corps, canned meat to song festivals.
Nowhere does Evarist consider language a means to enrich oneself, just a skill to add to a CV.
At 10.45 there was George Vella on the CNN discussing the Citizenship scheme.
All the English that the Malta Labour Party desired its blinkered followers to learn was to be able to daub “Pay up or go home” as soon as the MLP bosses reversed their previous instructions to wave energetically the Union Jack flags distributed to their schoolchildren only a short time before during the “Integration with Britain” days.
Lets ask a question. What decisions does this Minister take?
MT 16/12/13
The Health Minister insisted he not been informed that operations were to be postponed, even though he had since returned to Malta. “Such lack of communication is unacceptable, because at the end of the day I am responsible for decisions taken in health.”
MT 27/11/13
When pressed on the fact that the report was actually commissioned by the Prime Minister, Farrugia insisted that the report was “carried out on an initiative of John Dalli, who is a health ministry consultant on a voluntary basis.”
I’m afraid they shouldn’t worry about the language only.
Have a look at this video – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N777IU_Wre8
The video speaks for itself.
On another note, was at farsons direct doing some spirits shopping when all of a sudden, Malta was being mentioned on the TV installed in the shop, looked up and we where on CNN, subject: passport sale!
This was around 15:25, and it was a full feature item, with one of their journalists interviewing people in Republic Street. Want to hear the reason in favour of the sale by one idiot being interviewed: “I’m in favour as you can come to Malta, marry a Maltese and still get the citizenship, at least like this they are making money out of it” HOW BLOODY EMBARRASSING, on CNN….
This sick f*ck and his sawn-off driver, il-Boy (he got his nickname because he’s 5 foot 3 inches tall) seem to be in dire straits.
Last time the ‘Azzjoni Kattolika’ boy visited the Labour club in Mellieha (run by Silvio Debono tas-Seabank Hotel) he was not very welcomed and so he asked little Jimmy to dig deep into the matter.
Make it a bottle party next time.
http://www.maltarightnow.com/?module=news&at=%26%23294%3Baddiema+tal%2DMinisteru+t%27G%26%23295%3Bawdex+jag%26%23295%3Bmluha+ta%27+%27waiters%27%21&t=a&aid=99852938&cid=19
Cocktail sausages out of a can, mussels ditto. How does one organise a reception and forget to order the food?
Well said, just what I was thinking. I used to speak to my kids in English but when I visited my parents in Vittoriosa I would switch to Maltese for the reasons you mentioned.
Whilst Drs Bonnici and Fenech Adami are busy asking Farrugia questions, Chris Agius is surfing your blog.
Justyne Caruana has spent the last 5 minutes surfing this website – you can verify this from the PAC streaming.
On a tangent:
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20131216/local/petition-to-ban-spring-hunting-referendum-launched.499312
“The petition calls for a proviso in the Referenda Act which would exempt the interests, rights or privileges enjoyed by a minority from being subjected to an abrogative referendum.”
Can somebody answer my questions:
1. Is spring hunting a “right”? Why is it not listed in the European Convention for Human Rights?
2. Are hunters “a minority”? On what basis – racial, religious, colour, suxual orientation, nationality?
Paceville mimli Labour
Can’t blame Varist on this one.
His worries must have started the moment Prof Scicluna finished his speech at the EPC.
Filling in the blanks and finishing sentences became such an onerous task.
Even by Labour’s lowest standards, that was a speech which should be forgotten, an will by Labour elves, as many of them were bitterly disappointed.
I just have to agree with Minister Bartolo on this. At least, even if at long last, a politician finally had enough good sense to acknowledge that Malta might well stand to lose its inestimable competitive advantage of also being English speaking unless something serious is done to reverse the worrying downslide.
So when is Mallia going to resign?
http://edition.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/business/2013/12/16/dnt-soares-malta-mulitpassport-europe.cnn.html
And sadly we made it on CNN….
“North Korea has deleted almost its entire archive of online news stories in an apparent effort to rewrite history after the dramatic arrest and execution of Chang Sung Taek.
The purge removed 100,000 articles posted online in five languages by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), and about 20,000 from the website of the Rodong Sinmun, the Korean Workers’ Party newspaper” http://www.thetimes.co.uk
Sounds familiar for us in Malta..
I remember under Mintoff even English street names were scrapped and the streets given new, Maltese names.
http://edition.cnn.com/video/standard.html?/video/business/2013/12/16/dnt-soares-malta-mulitpassport-europe.cnn&video_referrer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fl.php%3Fu%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fedition.cnn.com%252Fvideo%252Fdata%252F2.0%252Fvideo%252Fbusiness%252F2013%252F12%252F16%252Fdnt-soares-malta-mulitpassport-europe.cnn.html%26h%3DyAQEzGtcc%26s%3D1. CNN on Maltese passports scheme.
The hunters want a petition to ban a referendum? PLEASE give some promotion for the original cause to ban spring hunting, we need to get this referendum out there once and for all.
If the government refuses to give the people their rights, we should take to the streets and protest. This is not only the plight of innocent birds…. these are our rights being trampled on by this PL government.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20131216/local/petition-to-ban-spring-hunting-referendum-launched.499312#.Uq_yntJDu4Q
Do these people really need a set of WRITTEN rules to go by? Don’t they know that not all that is legally correct is morally acceptable? Do they really need to have certain things written down for them as being wrong for them to not behave in certain ways? http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20131217/local/bill-on-standards-in-public-life-to-be-presented-early-next-year.499397#.Uq_7lhRwbIU
Look at Mark Camilleri’s English. It’s horrible, incoherent and a confusion of ideas especially when you consider that he is a university student. Even in the Documentary witness by Al Jazeera his English is horrible.
Many Maltese university graduates speak appalling English.
Gotcha.
http://www.maltarightnow.com/?module=news&at=Manwel+Mallia+kien+jaf+bil%2Dka%26%23380%3B+ta%27+tix%26%23295%3Bim&t=a&aid=99852941&cid=19
‘….Farruga kkonferma wkoll mhux biss li Manwel Mallia ilu jaf bl-iskandlu taż-żejt mill-2010, iżda li lill-istess George Farrugia, Manwel Mallia kien qallu li jekk mhux se jasal biex jifthiem mal-kumpanija ‘Power Plan’, dan kien se jirrapurtah dwar it-tixħim li kien sar….’
This could explain Mallia’s star candidature, putting others aside and landing the key ministry in a Labour government.
And if Mallia knew, and sat next to Evarist as they teased us with their scandal by instalments, who’s to say Bartolo didn’t know?
Remember their reaction when Lawrence Gonzi went straight from the airport to a meeting with the AG and the president to grant Farrugia the pardon?
From the BBC World Service Facebook entry – our name continues to be dragged in the mud as a result of the citizenship scheme.
http://tinypic.com/r/f9rg9/5
Ajma … x’dardir ! dawn l-inglizati kollha. Mela insieh l-Malti ? Kellimni bil-Malti …Challi ! Jien Malti .. hi !
Hu go fil Malta, ma haqqekx wlied aktar istruiti minn dawn ! Is-Bartolo mid-dehra ghandu memorja qasira wisq!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-25411118
Yawn, what’d I tell you? So much for Frank Psaila’s, and other well-intentioned Europhiles’ op-eds.
I suppose we should be grateful for small mercies; at least Evarist Bartolo has publicly admitted there is a problem.
It goes without saying that there’s a correlation between declining mastery of English and falling standards in education.
Of course, being Labour, the government will show itself to be totally incapable of solving the problem. That leaves us pinning our hopes once more on a future PN administration.
And therein lies the rub. The PN still hasn’t got round to ditching its black flag or replacing its 1930s Italianate anthem. Slim are the chances of it accepting that high standards of spoken and written English are the only hope for a utopian future of which some dream.
Sadly, the situation is still more or less the same, although some in the high echelons in the Labour Party, like Mrs and Mr Muscat, do make an effort to speak English at times the accent is till somewhat very Maltese.
At least their children might catch up on some good spoken English since they are at an independent private school, where English is the main language used.
It-tort huwa ta dak il-mahmug Mintoff.
Zamm il-poplu cuc u nqeda bih. Hlisna minnhu izda halla warajh wirt fqir hafna ta qammiel li kien.
You are so right, Daphne: It was the Labour Party which desecrated the English language and its use throughout their administration back in the seventies. But on the other hand, didn’t the Nationalists allow Maltese to be a compulsory subject for entry at the University of Malta?
We are all aware of the number of students who come from an English-speaking background who were deprived of tertiary education because they did not obtain a basic O level in Maltese. Many of these students were forced to study overseas or through foreign correspondence courses.
I am not referring to a degree in law here which, as expected, requires a certain proficiency in the Maltese. I am referring to business/economics/medical degrees which all had the mandatory lingwa tal-bigilla as a basic subject.
This reminds me of a funny incident when in 1984 I went to the Sliema Police Station to pick up my identity card. I looked over the counter and told the “Surgent” – Good morning I came to collect my identity card, and he said xiex xi trid?
I thought he hadn’t heard me so I shouted louder – I came to collect my identity card….again he said xiex?
Like an idiot I shouted even louder thinking this poor policeman must be hard of hearing. At that point he came over to the counter and said ghidli bil-Malti ghax hawnhekk Malta u nitkelmu bil-Malti.
Like a fool I had to tell him in Maltese for him to release my ID card…ah the Glorious Golden Years!