The word berga gives more information about what happens in that clinic.

As for the word ‘manikomju’ (derivative of the word ‘mania’), I think it’s obsolete in this day and age as it’s no longer a place where people lock up relatives deemed crazy. Nowadays everyone sees it as a place where people with psychiatric illness ranging from depression (not crazy) to schizophrenia (not necessarily crazy) are admitted to get better. The aim is for these people to return to the community.

That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about “daqqaq” for a musician in the National Orchestra, about “fatra” for a business breakfast, or about saying “qabla” when you’re asked to state your profession in a job interview.

People don’t speak that way. And the ones below fifty, which I suspect you’re not, don’t particularly relish the preservation of quaintness. Not in a cut-throat, globalised job market.

So the language which has been used for hundreds of years is rather funny.

If I were to say ‘siggu bir-roti’ this sounds stupid to some, but if one says ‘wheelchair’ that sounds very refined ‘rota siggu’ and many other created words in English but for some this is not allowed in Maltese.

What they did not/wanted not to realise was that Malta as an island was impoverished.

They did not realise that the citizens also, were impoverished in many ways – educationally, culturally, job wise and money wise.