Comments on: The farcical reaction of continental socialists who speak Globish and of Maltese Laburisti who think “they should be taken out and shot” is a literal incitement to violence

By: H.P. Baxxter

H.P. Baxxter — Tue, 10 Jan 2017 17:35:00 +0000

In reply to Daphne Caruana Galizia. Whinnied? Surely that was his successor?

By: Daphne Caruana Galizia

Daphne Caruana Galizia — Tue, 10 Jan 2017 17:18:00 +0000

Of course you do – plenty, minus the Maltese inflection. English-speakers have no problem understanding me at all – not the accent, not the inflection, and certainly not the idiom. It’s one of the reasons why I’m so often the first port-of-call for journalists and news media from English-speaking countries. I speak in a manner that’s completely comprehensible to their audience, but before that, the idiom of what I write is 100% familiar. That’s how they find me in the first place.

By: lupara bianca

lupara bianca — Tue, 10 Jan 2017 17:07:00 +0000

Salvu, keep it up and keep strong. We need bastions like you and David Thake to rebut these bogans. As the Chinese saying goes: ‘The wolf will cry at the tiger’s funeral’.

By: Daphne Caruana Galizia

Daphne Caruana Galizia — Tue, 10 Jan 2017 16:01:00 +0000

In reply to Malcolm Alden.

That’s because Maltese pronunciation is ‘lazy’. And also because we influence each other. I actually became conscious at one point of having slipped from govenmihnt to gov-er-ment and that many of those around me had done the same, but was brought up short by something I had been listening to.

Spending too much time surrounded by Maltese people speaking English means you end up picking it up and speaking the same way – that can be fun at lunch, but only if you’re aware you’re doing it deliberately.

By: Joseph V Savona

Joseph V Savona — Tue, 10 Jan 2017 15:55:00 +0000

Nazi is the abbreviation of Nationalsozialist. Full name Nationalist Socialist German Worker’s Party.

By: Malcolm Alden

Malcolm Alden — Tue, 10 Jan 2017 15:55:00 +0000

As a Maltese person who speaks English as a first language and who does not pronounce his R’s, I can tell you that I say ‘gove-uh-ment’… I don’t really pronounce the N. Also asked some people with the same background and they agreed with me… issa ma nafx.

By: elektra

elektra — Tue, 10 Jan 2017 14:58:00 +0000

In reply to Daphne Caruana Galizia. Somebody who understands this very well is John Zammit. He does the editorial on Radio 101 on weekdays. Apart from doing a great job of it he has always maintained that there are different ways in which one can work within a political party in spite of listeners insisting that he should come out for elections in 2018.

By: V Zammit

V Zammit — Tue, 10 Jan 2017 14:53:00 +0000

In reply to H.P. Baxxter. Both

By: Daphne Caruana Galizia

Daphne Caruana Galizia — Tue, 10 Jan 2017 14:51:00 +0000

Please – I gave ‘mint’ as the closest approximation because of the serious trouble Maltese people have with English vowels. There is no way on earth you can communicate the fact that the ‘ment’ in ‘government’ is not pronounced like the word ‘meant’.

It isn’t even picked up by listening to where the emphasis goes in compound words or words of more than one syllable. Every time I hear Maltese politicians or union leaders pronounce ‘mittilkless’ as one word, I struggle not to leave the room. IF YOU’RE READING THIS, BOGANS, IT’S ‘MIDDLE’ PAUSE ‘CLASS’ – TWO FRIGGING WORDS.

By: Daphne Caruana Galizia

Daphne Caruana Galizia — Tue, 10 Jan 2017 14:46:00 +0000

Well, I’m afraid Bondi was right, because the Maltese – weirdly enough – comes from the Italian.