Yes, noticed the difference in spelling and I referred to it in my post. I believe that there is debate behind the etymology of the word.

[Daphne – Please.]

[Daphne – Comments like this one make me want to…well, never mind. Haven’t you noticed that the spelling of ‘flea’ and ‘flee’ is different? That means that the words have completely different meanings despite sounding exactly the same. They’re called flea markets because they started out selling used clothes and bedding, which tended to be flea-infested in less hygienic decades than ours.]

It had been located there since the time of the knights when there also used to be some craftsmen working there, such as cobblers. The historical background given by Daphne is correct but I disagree with the semantic explanation.

I believe any linguistics scholar would hold that the word “monti” has now acquired the meaning of “open air market” by analogy with the original one in Valletta. Many or most of today’s open air markets are a relatively recent development and the word monti is now associated with them. Today, the philosophy of linguistics is descriptive – how people use words – rather than prescriptive – how people should use words. One may agree or disagre but this how it is.

[Daphne – ‘Minn fuq il-Monti’: fascinating, because that’s exactly how I say it, but I never stopped to wonder about it, or why, when I hear people say ‘mill-Monti’, it sounds like they’ve got it wrong. Well, now I know that it sounds to me like they’ve got it wrong because they have got it wrong. I grew up with ‘xtrah minn fuq il-Monti’ and ‘ibiegh fuq il-Monti’, so much so that – I now recall, thanks to you – the kind of ‘Slimizi’ who used to joke around by using phrases translated literally from Maltese used to say ‘did you buy that from ON THE MONTI?’ Again, it never clicked until I read your comment.

Open air markets in towns and villages are absolutely not a recent development. It is shops which are ‘recent’ developments. Markets were the precursors of shops. Maltese towns and villages had market before they had shops. But that was the same everywhere in the world.]

Or this:
http://www.midnightbazar.de/muenchen

Before the construction of Mount Carmel Hospital in the nineteenth century, patients with mental disease were housed in Villa Franconi in Floriana. It was known by the now unacceptable terminology as The Lunatic Asylum for Imbeciles.

But ta’ Frankuni became part of the Maltese vernacular for a mental hospital, and to this day some people refer to Mount Carmel Hospital as ta’ Frankuni. I have even heard a psychiatric hospital in the UK being referred to as ta’ Frankuni.

[Daphne – You have the explanation in my post above. The open market was set up for generations just outside the Monte di Pieta in Merchants Street. There was a closed (food) market further down the street (still is). The food market was and still is simply ‘is-suq’, for the reason that it was there first, long before the other one. When the other one came along, it called ‘is-suq tal-Monti (di Pieta)’ to distinguish it from the other. And then it became just ‘il-Monti’.]

It’s only once a month and at Milan’s Naviglo grande, the canal which served barges supplying the city, the dock outside Porta Genova, one of the gates delineating the old city walls. That would be the equivalent of the menqa in Marsa.

The Milanese would never tolerate a flea market in Piazza della Scala with the Opera and Palazzo Marino, the seat of government, at both ends.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnNOvUetNes

Trust the Milanese to design a market to flourish into a phenomenon. Collectors beware, or drive up in a van. The side street leading from the metro everything 20th century jewellery.

It’s also pertinent to ask why Labour intends to disrupt Birgu’s flea market. It had taken on a life of its own. Obviously not Taghna Lkoll.

eponymously