Mohammed goes to the mountain
Published:
May 12, 2014 at 6:33pm
Labour’s Charge Your Vote bus is parked outside St Elmo examination centre in Valletta, where exams are currently being held. And it’s parked on…a public bus-stop.
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Parked on a bus stop, wrong way!
Would a warden or a traffic policeman dare put a ticket on the windscreen?
It says “Malta Ewropea” on the windscreen. Whose spelling was that?
Ewropea is spelt correctly.
Ma niktbux “Ewropei” iżda “Ewropej”, mela “Ewropeja” għandha tkun miktuba.
Le, Ewropea. Ghax hekk nippronunzjawha. Europæa. Ma narabizzawx kollox, please.
Why not Europea then?
Am I the only one not to pronounce it “EwropeYa”? Do you, Ciccio? There’s no JA sound after the e. And if the Akkademja says there is, it’s only because they have provincial accents.
Someone who is not so keen on being in the EU.
May I please use your blog space to explain the following:
“Ewropea” is correct. There is and never was a rule in Maltese orthography that it is incorrect to have two vowels next to each other either in the same word or in successive words. Teachers told students not to put two vowels next to each other to avoid explaining a rule which they thought was difficult to explain.
The rule is that you cannot have two vowels next to each other if one of them is a euphonic vowel — vokali tal-lehen. The logic is clear — if you already have a vowel, you do not need another vowel– vokali tal-lehen — which is inserted when it is impossible to pronounce a word or phrase unless you insert a vowel, the euphonic vowel.
Hence “il-bieba infethet” is wrong as the “I” in infethet is a euphonic vowel: should be it-tieqa nfethet. “Mara isbah” is correct because neither of the two successive vowels is a euphonic vowel.
Therefore, poeta, reali, neologizmu etc are correct. Similarly, one must never drop an initial vowel which is etymologically part of a word: kotba interessanti and not kotba nteressanti.
But then this is a country that says “pojjim” and “studyent”. SO I GIVE UP.
Thank you for the explanation, I appreciate comments like these.
http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/news/national/38898/marco_cremona_resigns_from_sustainable_development_network#.U3EPFWdZodX