First Aid in English (III): why Maltese people think that the word for bus-stop is ‘stage’
Some very simple, basic and fundamental English words just do not exist in the form of English spoken in Malta. Suitcase is one example (tackled earlier).
Bus-stop is another. Just as a suitcase, in Maltese English, is ‘a luggage’, so a bus-stop is ‘a stage’. Stage has even become the Maltese word for bus-stop, as in ‘Domt ghomor nistenna fuq l-istage.’
On H. P. Baxxter’s suggestion, here’s why a bus-stop is not (necessarily) a stage, and why Maltese people think that place you wait about in for a bus to arrive is called a stage and not a bus-stop.
The use of the word ‘stage’ comes from ‘fare stage’. A fare stage is a section of a bus journey for which a set charge is made. The bus-stop which marks the end of such a section is also called a fare stage.
Back in the dark ages when I was a child, fare stages were marked with signs at the relevant bus-stops. These signs said simply and in large lettering: FARE STAGE. There were no signs saying BUS STOP. It was assumed you knew what that half-shed with the non-existent time-table was.
So the obvious happened. People who were not routinely exposed to English and who had never heard the word ‘bus stop’ in common currency assumed that ‘fare stage’ was the name of the place where you wait for a bus. of course they did: there was a sign right there saying FARE STAGE.
The ‘fare’ was soon dropped, leaving just the stage, which coincidentally is what it was originally: the stage where stagecoaches stopped to pick up passengers and change or water horses.
I am pleased to report, though, that it is now mainly older people who still call a bus-stop a ‘stage’ when speaking English, though people of all ages still routinely use ‘stage’ as the Maltese word for bus-stop.
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Some British people complain that Americans are ruining English. I suppose what the Brits mean to say is that English (like any other language) evolves in different ways when a group of people becomes semi-isolated. Here is what Prince Charles had to say: http://www.pbs.org/speak/ahead/change/ruining/
My point is that we have come to accept lots of changes the Americans have made. Even ones that seem very wrong. Why do we accept the American version of English and not the Maltese or Indian versions? I know the answer but am just trying to make a point.
[Daphne – Because English is a foreign language in Malta (despite being an official language) and so any changes we make are not changes but mistakes. Americans, Australians and Canadians speak English because the original immigrants were English. So theirs are not mistakes but the separate development of their own language. In those parts of Canada where the original immigrants were French, they speak French, and when French Canadians speak English badly, their mistakes are mistakes and not parallel development of the language. It is their French which is considered to be ‘separate development’. The situation in India is what it is in Malta: not the separate development of English, but English spoken with mistakes. And actually, educated Indians speak perfect English, far better than educated Maltese and even better than most English people.]
Again, I love linguistic diversity so I feel the need to step in here and give my opinion on the topic. In Malta, even those who speak English as a first language speak a variant. You too speak this variant, Daphne. I don’t doubt you know how to distinguish between your variant, which I assume you use exclusively with other speakers of the variant, and the standard form of English which you speak to non-speakers of the Maltese variant. This is not something to be ashamed of; it is beautiful. I feel I need to use Privetera-style caps there on the word ‘beautiful’. I have always admired those who can speak more than one variant and can distinguish between them all and adjust their speech according to the situation.
[Daphne – The only reason I speak a different form of English when speaking to other Maltese people, Albona, is good manners. The essence of good manners is ensuring that other people don’t feel ill at ease in your company. I therefore speak in a manner which, and using words which, ensures that I am immediately understood, don’t have to repeat things, and most crucially, doesn’t make my companions feel awkward. You will never find me correcting the way anyone speaks in that very rude way some people have of repeating what the other person has said, but in the correct form. In fact, one of the reasons I no longer socialise much is because over the years I have come to find repeatedly dumbed-down conversations extremely trying. Rather than give in to the temptation to be rude, which is almost overwhelming at times, I just avoid the situation. I am most comfortable speaking exactly as I write.]
Indeed, the best speakers of Italian are often those who code-switch and code-mix with their local languages/dialects. It makes for a great mix and makes one that little bit more expressive thus enabling the person to convey a more nuanced message.
True, ‘stage’ is technically incorrect but it is a loan word regardless of the reasons it came into being. In fact, I quite enjoyed the history behind it. I had always wondered.
There is nothing I love more than listening to an Anglo-Indian speak with their archaic and nuanced variant which sounds so noble – a relic of their colonial past. Think: ‘I was vexing’ or ‘my leg was paining’.
Then there are the exaggeratedly and almost parodied snobbish upper-class accents, which incidentally exist in Malta too. In fact the Maltese variant of English very much tends towards this pronunciation that was so typical of the upper classes a century ago but which now only gets giggles when heard in the UK.
It would not be the first time that I hear foreigners outside Malta say to me that the Maltese they have met had very posh, aristocratic accents. They then ask me: ‘why is that?’ Think of the standard phrase used in emails in Malta: ‘For your kind perusal’. Hilarious and beautiful at the same time.
Something similar happened in Angola, where interestingly enough, some say the best Portuguese was spoken. This was because speaking good Portuguese was a sign of having attained a certain class.
Ironically, today it is the Angolans that are often considered the best speakers of the language whilst in other parts of the Portuguese-speaking world the language has mutated.
Some of the worst English is spoken in England itself. This is a matter that Cameron’s new curriculum is trying to address. Also, English varies greatly within England itself to the point where Antipodean English is closer to South-Eastern English than is the English of the Midlands, North or West.
This is a simplification of a complex development but here you go: If you want to see what English sounded like in the 17-18th centuries go to the USA. Then if you want to know what it sounded like in the 18-19th go to NZ and Australia. Finally go to South Africa/Namibia/Zimbabwe for 19th-early 20th English.
The correct version of English spoken in Malta is received pronunciation, because there are no regional English accents in a place this tiny, and among a population this small.
It’s a rare form of English, but not entirely unique. Gibraltarian English is very similar. So is the English spoken by Zimbabwean whites. You see the common element here: isolation.
It is unfortunate that many of the native English speakers that we interact with in Malta tend to be the working class type, with strong regional accents, who snigger at accents they perceive as posh. Let them laugh. The alternative is what? To put on a fake Jamie Oliver Estuary English voice?
Just to simplify it even further.
If from Spinola to the the Strand (Ferries) there were 2 fare-stages and 4 bus stops one would expect to pay
1 penny leaving Spinola
1 halfpenny at each Fare-Stage
No charge at the remaining bus stops
Total charge twopence.
For an even cheaper ride one would get off the bus if an inspector rode on but that’s another system.
Lesson IV: It’s “charged”, not “arraigned”, unless you’re writing for a newspaper east of Suez.
Lesson V: People are admitted to hospital, not recovered there, though one hopes they recover after being admitted.
Lesson VI: It’s “national” or “domestic”, not “local”.
“Stejg” is another “word” commonly-found in Maltese textbooks. I had to explain its origins – and stress that it is not really a word – to my school-age children.
Another disgruntled parent I see. I found “helow,” “xorts”, and “mowbajl” written in standard text books (coauthored by none other than Trevor Zahra).
I refuse to teach these words to my children. Instead of using Semitic replacements for a purer and richer language, we’re bastardising English and Maltese.
Don’t get me started on this. ‘Slijsis, kari, plejers, penalti,’ the list goes on and on. I’m told that this is done with the blessing of the self-appointed guardians of the Maltese language. As the Minister of Health and Energy would say: “fenominali.”
May I point out that we had bus stops that were painted blue while the fare stage was painted red. And there were no half sheds anywhere. But I am referring to when I was much younger.
Another one for your list:
Why Maltese people think that the word for spare tyre is “Stepney”.
Also stepney. [f. the name of Stepney Street, Llanelli, the place of manufacture.]
1. A spare wheel for a motor vehicle, comprising a ready-inflated tyre on a spokeless metal rim, which could be clamped temporarily over a punctured wheel. Also stepney wheel. Now Hist. exc. in Bangladesh, India, and Malta, where = any spare wheel.
http://www.bl.uk/learning/resources/oed/50237131%282%29.htm
When we were much younger, the Fare Stage had blue signs with white lettering while the Bus Stop signs were red with white lettering, clearly and visually distinguishing the difference between the two. I suppose the different colours were also meant as an easy identification for the many illiterate people of the time, when even buses were colour coded according to destination.
If I remember correctly, at least in the 70s there were both Fare Stages as well as Bus Stops. The signs were lollipop in shape and while Fare Stages were painted red, Bus Stops were dark blue. The lettering was white in both cases.
I also recall Fare Stages were outnumbered by Bus Stops. I think Fare Stages were simply there to denote changes in fares (so you’d normally come across two or three on your typical route). In between Fare Stages you had a series of Bus Stops where the fare for the ticket remained the same.
Yes, I remember the old “fare stage” signs too. I always assumed (correctly, as it turns out) that they were the reason for a bus stop being called a “stage” in Maltese.
When speaking in English I never refer to a bus stop as a stage though. It would feel wrong to me. I do use stage sometimes, interchangeably with bus stop, when conversing in Maltese, simply because there is no other Maltese word for it.
I find the situation of English as spoken in Malta quite fascinating. It seems to me that there are several strains of English in common use each of which seeming to have acquired a life of its own.
There is the “Edwardian English” that so many who are alien to it consider affected and borderline irritating. There is the “nouvelle Slimiz” variety that has seemingly incorporated a plethora of Maltese parts of speech in a somewhat consistent way (ghax instead of because, imma instead of but, etc.).
Then there is the English spoken by the segment of the population that, while having received an education mostly in English, and who may be more or less fluent in it, do not consider English as their first language.
This is the most prevalent and also appears to have fairly consistent features, such as the rhotic pronunciation, peculiar intonation and stress patterns and the idiom influenced by Maltese patterns of speech. There also other smaller segments with different characteristics.
My point is that all these groups are not a simple free for all but they do have internal consistency. Some are closer to the Queen’s English than others of course, but always having clearly identifiable characteristics. Which is the reason that, while understanding her point, I don’t really fully agree with Daphne’s assessment of what constitutes an evolution of language and what constitutes a mistake.
English being considered a first or second language, it seems to me, is less important from a linguistic point of view, than the coming into being and continued evolution of the language, dialect, patois, pidgin or whatever you want to call it. If that internal consistency is in place the dialect will evolve along its own path and at that point the line between “mistake” and “variation” starts getting blurrier.
[Daphne – The essential point is that language is about communication, and the version of English spoken by many Maltese is virtually unintelligible to those who really do speak English, or has to be decoded. I am really fascinated, for example, by the extreme difficulty Maltese people have with the use of tenses in English, when this is something that is picked up naturally by listening to proper spoken English and by reading. The greatest difficulty appears to be with anything happening in the future or the probability of it, and the inability to understand that English uses the present tense in many of these circumstances. Thus, ‘I will go there tomorrow’ but ‘When I go there tomorrow, I will find it.’ Your average Maltese will give this as ‘when I will go there tomorrow I will find it.’ Or worse, ‘when I would be going there tomorrow, I will find it.’]
Well, as far as intelligibility goes, I think Maltese English is well on its way to becoming some kind of a patois, similar to Jamaican, say. I have had foreign friends who have remarked to me exactly that – the first time they heard Maltese English they thought it sounded exactly like Jamaican.
But eventually, they do get used to it and it starts sounding more natural. Sometimes, if they settle here for the long haul, they start using some of the “wrong” phrases themselves, either because they find it simplifies communication with the natives, or else because they genuinely take a liking to that way of speaking and find certain phrases expedient. The Maltese “ta” at the end of a sentence instead of “you know” is commonly adopted by foreigners, even British ones, for example.
I bet the Brits have the same problems with the thicker Scottish or Irish accents too (although I must admit I’ve never actually asked). Within England itself, I myself find some accents completely unintelligible. I have a couple of friends from Stoke-on-Trent for example and when they speak in their native accent, they might as well be speaking in Mandarin as far as I’m concerned.
So, yes, of course language is all about communication, but it is also much more than that. Language is the most natural and most immediate mode of self-expression, so basic that its fundamentals are probably encoded in our very genes. It is no surprise that it takes so many forms and diverges so readily from a common root when exposed to different environments.
That said, I am also a bit of a grammar Nazi myself and I also find the common grammatical errors extremely irritating. My pet peeve is framing questions in English using Maltese syntax and intonation (“You finished the book?” instead of “Have you finished the book?”).
As you say, early exposure to a language *spoken correctly* is the key. If you come from an English-speaking family, well, you have it easy.
I do not come from an English-speaking family, but I was lucky in that I was exposed to English at an early age at school. We were spoken to exclusively in English and we were encouraged to speak English even during breaks. That English wasn’t perfect, mind you, and my English is not exactly RP and sometimes I pronounce the “Rs” if I’m not careful. And the bias against “tal-pepe” accents did not help in that regard, as I’m sure I have no need to explain to you, Daphne. On the other hand I do pride myself on my grammar and I consider mixing English and Maltese to be a mortal sin.
What baffles me, quite frankly is this. Children of my generation had practically no access to proper spoken English. Almost all TV was Italian, except the Maltese station, which transmitted very few programs in English that were interesting to a developing child. The situation with teenagers and twenty-somethings nowadays, however, is completely reversed. They have a multitude of English TV stations to choose from that are much more interesting than the, rather pedestrian, Mediaset and RAI lineup.
Notwithstanding this, however, I find that the standard of English of my generation is almost invariably better than theirs, written even more so than spoken. I often have to proofread and reluctantly correct the documents written in atrocious English drawn up by younger colleagues who are sometimes almost exclusively English speakers (albeit mostly of the “nouvelle Sliemiz” type).
When I use the adjective “atrocious” I don’t do so lightly, mind you. These are university graduates, but I would judge their linguistic maturity to be no more that that of an eleven or twelve year old.
I wonder what your take on all this is, Daphne.
Stage is idiomatically incorrect in English because no indigenous English speaker uses it when referring to a bus-stop.
Likewise, ‘closing the water’ whilst ‘washing your teeth’.
Whilst sitting in a hotel reception area one evening I overheard a Maltese tour guide giving details to a group of English tourists about a walking tour planned for the following morning.
He said that it would be quite a long outing so he recommended that they wear “A comfortable slipper”.
The group looked amused and were probably trying to figure out how they could possibly hop around all day in one (bedroom) slipper.
One quick-witted gentleman in the group asked what should they wear on the other foot…but the guide just didn’t get it!
For many Maltese ‘slipper’ = ‘trainers’ (plural).
This is probably thanks to people like Trevor Zahra and the Akkademja Tal-Malti who have converted words (wrongly) used by the illiterate village idiot into official Maltese.
We cannot really blame people who use these ‘English’ words incorrectly when they speak English. This is what they were taught at school in their Maltese lessons, and since it is an English word they assume that it means the same when they speak English.
The Akkademja is therefore not only responsible for turning Maltese into a confusing joke for our children but it is also responsible for causing confusion when Maltese people try to speak English.
The result is often hilarious, or should I say sad?
A friend of mine was once chosen to play football for a youth national selection. At the end of the first meeting, the coach, a well known brute at the time, informed the players that for their first training session, all they’d need to bring with them were “flokk, knicker u slipper”. Since the young lad had very little exposure to Maltese in those days, the outcome was inevitable.
Perhaps you will bow to the wisdom of one harking back from an even darker age. Your interpretation of the origin of the use of the word ‘stage’ instead of ‘bus stop’ is incorrect.
The true and very valid reason why Maltese use the word ‘stage’ is that from the start of the public bus (charabanc) service in the 1920s the loading/dropping-off points along the route were marked by a large blue-coloured hexagon shaped sign reading ‘STAGE’.
[Daphne – Oh dear. So this really goes back to ‘stagecoach/stage’ days, then.]
At that time, the bus network was very basic, all routes to/from Valletta. The driver usually owned the bus, the son was the conductor, and all the passengers were regulars.
There were no fare stages marked as such at that time. On the Sliema route, one simply paid different fares for say ‘Ferry’ (not Ferries), Torri, Balluta, and Spinola (SpinOHla to British servicemen). The same held good for other routes.
That system held good at least to the late 1950s, when new and formal fare structures were introduced. It was only then that the stopping-points on the route were changed to Bus Stop on blue round sign and Fare Stage on red round sign, were introduced. Also unfortunately the time when the notorious Maltese shorts and under-vest clad bus driver started to appear on, and to eventually dominate, the scene.
The bus conductor was made extinct by Mintoff in order to keep down bus operating costs and so avoid a politically inadvisable, but economically essential increase in bus fares.
The Maltese are notoriously lazy speakers, Pacc for Pace, Bunell for Bonello, for example. Bus Stop is two words and non-Semitic in structure, Stage fits in well with the Maltese tongue and character. It is now the de facto and logically evolved Maltese word for what the English refer to as a Bus Stop.
That’s a very interesting comment.
Do you really blame the Maltese for using the word stage instead of bus-stop? Bus-stop must have sounded like a cure for flatulance.
Same reason why the word bowl as in fruit bowl, is by most people pronounced as “bawl”. You don’t want to be misunderstood as referring to urine.
How about some lessons on how you don’t “stay going and coming”, or that you don’t leave things “at me”, or even how you don’t break things “forrrr me”.
And my favourite: “whose is this of?”.
Incidentally, things all said by people whose Maltese is even worse.
Those are typical constructions of people I referred to as “nouvelle sliemiz” in my previous comment. They typically speak consistently in this mishmash of English words and Maltese sentence structure.
What I find interesting is that this confused grammar is actually used consistently by that demographic and is completely normal to them – its “native speakers”. They typically find Maltese uncomfortable to speak notwithstanding their constant use of words and ideas derived directly from it.
To my ears this speech sounds a lot more grating than the harsh R’s and singsong rhythms of otherwise (mostly) grammatical English spoken by educated Maltese who have not been trained to speak RP.
I call it “Sliema English”, well, at least that is how my British relatives refer to it. In my opinion, most Maltese tend to either try hard not to sound Maltese when speaking English, BUT incorporate Maltese syntax, or the other way round… Just pop by university and listen to bizarre utterances such as : “your friend, second year he’s in?” ; “Your mate is sick? She’s still coming but?” (“But” makes me think of the British use of “though”). I just don’t understand why locals speak English to Maltese people…
Kindly note that on bus routes between two destinations, there were bus stops(blue) and fare stages (red). The normal blue bus stops were regular stops on the route between the two destinations and the fare stages (red) were the locations were the bus fares ((cost of tickets) would increase according to the distance travelled from the original point of departure. Way back when fare stages existed, the charges between two destinations (fare) varied according to a pre-established distance from the original point of departure. .
Here’s another one that I cannot for the life of me understand. Maltese refer to the pair of shorts in one’s sport kit as ‘nicker’. Therefore a pair of (even male) track shorts is called a ‘nicker’ – anyone have any idea how that came about?
[Daphne – It starts with a K and like all English words for items of clothing with legs or leg-holes (pants, trousers, shorts, knickers) it takes the plural form even when there is only one piece. So the Maltese use of ‘knicker’ is like the Maltese use of ‘trouser’. The Maltese use of ‘niker’ to signify men’s sports shorts is especially hilarious because knickers are women’s underpants. But the same people who call men’s sports shorts ‘niker’ also call women’s underpants ‘blumer’ – from ‘bloomers’, the word for the voluminous undergarments worn by Victorian and Edwardian women.]
First Aid in English (iv): Understanding the difference between ‘lose’ and ‘loose’. I see this on an almost daily basis and it drives me crazy.
Actually, suitcase exists in the form “syootcase”.
I still have to fathom the origins of the word “bowser”.
[Daphne – Here you go: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowser_%28tanker%29 ]
Last week the Times carried a story about some idiot who shot an air gun in a ‘habited’ place. Mind you it was Gzira.
Language is a means of coomunication in order to be understood. Like laws, culture, dress and other customs, languages change over time and space. Anyone speaking Shakespeare’s English or the Cantilena’s Maltese would not be understood today.
Therefore it is not surprising that Maltese English, German English, Irish English, Scottish English, Malaysian English, Indian English and other types of English are different from King’s or Queen’s English. Canadian French is different from the French language in France. Swiss Italian is different from Italian in Italy and so on.
Now do you know what our forefathers used to call a nemnebus in Malta means in English?
[Daphne – David, dear, you are extremely confused.German English? Malaysian English? For a version of English to be described as X English, it has to be the national/official language, and not something that is learned by a few people. English is the (in Canada’s case, an) official language of the United States of America, Australia, the United Kingdom and Canada. English is also an official language of Malta, but unlike in the cases just mentioned, it is not also a national language. It has never been spoken by anything other than the tiniest percentage of the population. To 95% of the Maltese population, perhaps even more than that, English is a completely foreign language, and learned and spoken as such.]
German English is called English. Then there is Manglish and closer to home Maltenglish. Since most Maltese are bilingual, in my view English is the second language but not a foreign language in Malta. Italian to a certain extent can be considered the third language.
[Daphne – David, define second language. Most Maltese can’t speak English. If you can’t speak a language then it’s not your second language. It’s a completely foreign language.]
According to the EU, 88% of Maltese persons speak English. http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_243_en.pdf
[Daphne – Those surveys are based on self-reporting, David. You ask respondents whether they can speak English, and being Maltese and extremely presumptuous, they say yes. Respondents are not required to sit an examination in English, not even basic English. Experience of life in Malta should have shown you by now that very few people actually speak the language, though lots know just enough to get by.]
A second/third language means what it says. There is the first language which is the one uses generally, and then there is/are the second/third language used less frequently. English is a second language in India and the Philippines. French is a second language in North Africa.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_language
[Daphne – David, listen to me carefully now. It is PEOPLE (not countries) who have a second language. Countries have official languages. The official languages of Malta are Maltese and English. The first language of most Maltese is Maltese. Some Maltese speak English as a second language, but not that many.]
Or ‘stejg’ (g bit-tikka) as written in children’s school Maltese reading book.