I’m afraid that line has been crossed already.

Many Maltese university graduates speak appalling English.

@ 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.

Injoranza bestjali. Sinjura Muscat, hemm haga wahda li taghmel l-injam, u nghidulha sigra.

Dan qed nghidulek ghax inhobbok, kif ordnali zewgek.

Cheers.

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.

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!

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.

Zamm il-poplu cuc u nqeda bih. Hlisna minnhu izda halla warajh wirt fqir hafna ta qammiel li kien.

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 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.