L-ewwel nies, lanqas biss taf titkellem sew
I’ve noticed from watching too much political television that it’s become the fashion to say l-ewwel nies (gutterspeak, and wholly incorrect) instead of l-ewwel nett (meaning ‘the very first’).
Nett here is used as it would be in ta’ fuq nett (the topmost). Are these people going to be saying, now, ta’ fuq nies?
Manuel Mallia is the most prominent culprit. He says it all the time, and with such aplomb that people assume it is the right way to say it and they go right ahead and copy him.
Like this fine lady, for example, who responded to Lou Bondi’s question on Facebook, ‘What did you think of Joseph Muscat’s answers to my questions yesterday?’
Mariella Gerada
l ewwel nies jien ha nitkellem bil lingwa maltija ax malta taghna lkoll!!!!!!!!!!!!u nixtieq najd li ghalija u al hafna JOSEPH huwa bniedem intelligenti ,onest u umli .Ahjar taraw xandkom fil partit taghkom mux fuq din il blokka qlajtu plejtu meta intkom kontu fil gvern traffikant tat droga ha il mahfra u ma wehhel xej ed nirreferi al QUIEROZ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!AX MA TAJDUX LI TRIDU TAMLUWA TA XI QADDISIN KULHADD ANDU XI JXOMM TA PERO IT TATTIKA TA GONZI PN ADU HADT MA FEHMA AX UNIKA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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L-istess tista tghid fuq il kelma naqra (a little bit) tiddawwar f’ naqa (to fall).
That’s technically naq’a, if you had to transcribe it as spoken, since the r is only omitted in speech. It’s not like this is an alien concept in other languages, is it? It’s not quite the same as naqa’ (I fall).
The worst one is “bir-rispett kollu”.
Why? Is that Maltese? To me it looks like a semi-literate collection of letters placed next to each other in a poor attempt to make them sound the word which this fine lady has in mind.
If that is Maltese, I have Shakira’s figure and bank account. ( I can assure your readers I have neither ).
She’s too busy focusing on her career to worry about these trivial matters
Unfortunately this person thinks she is really writing/speaking in Maltese and yet the text is full of spelling and grammatical mistakes and she writes as though she is speaking which is not done if you want to get a message across.
“ha nitkellem bil lingwa maltija ax malta taghna lkoll!!!!!!!!!!!!”
Fifty years of independence. Oh joy.
@qeghdin sew
So if many native British speakers say ‘we was’ instead of ‘we were’ does that make it correct?
Describing Joseph as an intelligent person says a lot about who’s making the statement.
It takes one to know one … clearly intelligence isn’t her forte. Do the math
Titkellem bil-lingwa Maltija forsi, u nerga’ ngħid forsi għax anki fuq dik nidubbita, imma tiktbu ma tafx żgur, x’diżastru.
Kif ha titkellem b’lingwi ohra jekk x’aktarx ma tafhomx! ajma.
“L-ewwel nies” is an expression used very widely, commonly accepted to be valid idiomatic Maltese.”L-ewwel nett” is also used but in a different context.
[Daphne – L-ewwel nies is a corruption from ignorance, like pirmli and ‘xakuza’. It’s l-ewwel NETT, as in the English ‘most’ of topmost and foremost (l-ewwel nett and ta’ fuq nett). Nies has nothing to do with it – the first people?]
‘
What is “xakuza”? The idiomatic Maltese version of Jacques René Zammit’s blog?
[Daphne – A contraction of x’arukaza. But yes, it could be that too.]
Mariella may be speaking in Maltese but surely not writing in Maltese. If Vassalli and Dun Karm were to return to life they would be banging their heads against the wall.
But Mintoff and Joseph Muscat would be rejoicing. See, this is bottom-up government. Rules, if any, are made by The People, and evolve accordingly, and they’re invariably made by the loudest faction, which may not always be a majority.
This is where the rot starts. If I were to put an exact date to it I’d say ours started in 1949.
Trouble is, today’s Maltese “Right Wing” is no better.
Mela xi nghidu ghall-prezentaturi bravi li ghandna fix-xandir. Jghidu ‘Naghmlu wafqa qasira ghar-reklami’. WAQFA mhux wafqa.
Many comment on the inaccurate use of English by Maltese persons for whom English is a foreign, if second, language.
But what is one to say about those who think that they are being patrioting by writing (or speaking) in massacred Maltese?
Hear hear, what is worse is that the “Kunsill tal-Malti” are accepting this rubbish and its being taught in schools to our kids.