Stop it with the ‘anzjana’ and ‘anzjan’ – it’s so backward and offensive

I was listening to the 6pm news bulletin on Radio 101 (David Thake had just kept me company throughout the 90-minute journey from St Julian’s to Burmarrad).

An item came on about the Danish woman found dead in mysterious circumstances in Gozo: l-anzjana this, l-anzjana that, l-anzjana the other.

L-ANZJANA?

If they had to define the woman at all, she was a Danish tourist, not an anzjana.

And it’s not just Radio 101, either, but all the Maltese-language stations. They do the same with men: L-ANZJAN.

So in Maltese, you’re a man or a woman until you turn 61, and then after your 61st birthday, for the purposes of news channels you are an ANZJAN/A.

For heaven’s sake, in every language I know (not very many, that’s true, and they’re all European), you stay a man or a woman until you die. Can you imagine a news item on RAI that goes on and on about il vecchio or la vecchia? Or a British/US/Canadian/Australian news channel broadcasting items about “the old woman” or “the old man”?

The age speaks for itself. If you tell your readers/viewers/listeners that the woman was 72, there is no need to describe her as l-anzjana. Describing people as l-anzjan and l-anzjana is so very crass, rude and primitive: in other words, totally lacking in finesse or even basic civility and therefore typically Maltese.

They think they’re being polite because they say l-anzjan instead of ix-xih. How is the former more polite and civilised than the latter? They mean exactly the same thing: old person. It’s describing somebody as “an old person” that’s wrong, whatever word you use: “An old woman was found dead.” No, actually, a woman of 72 was found dead.

Also, it’s a way of objectifying a person who’s unknown, which makes it even ruder and more uncivil. The Foreign Minister was taken ill today in China, and treated for a heart problem that was clearly the effect of taking a punishing long-haul flight followed by meetings at 73 – which is debilitating even when you are 30 years younger than that. But did the news reports tell us that an anzjan Malti safa l-isptar fic-Cina? Of course not, because we know him to be George Vella, the Foreign Minister, so obviously we can’t objectify him and must refer to him with respect.

It’s in these details that you see how Malta’s is a fundamentally peasant culture rather than a highly developed civilisation.