What next – a health department advertisement about ‘pirmli’?

Published: April 13, 2014 at 12:03pm

The official theme for the upcoming European Parliament elections is ‘saqsi, ippartecipa, aghzel‘ (sorry, no dots and dashes).

This reflects the standard lazy/ignorant mispronunciation of ‘staqsi‘: saqsa, saqsi, saqsu instead of what they should be, which is staqsa, staqsi and staqsu.

The noun is mistoqsija, and not misoqsija – even though lots of people pronounce it the latter way.




18 Comments Comment

  1. canon says:

    The date for collecting my medicine has been changed three times already.

  2. gaetano pace says:

    Oh you noticed the misspellings. I noted the mispronunciations on Super One especially foreign places` names. Have them pronounce that notorious brown typical English sauce which goes well with most things except for the Super One crew,

  3. James Catania says:

    How right you are. Similarly, it has become common practice on several radio and tv stations’ adverts to pronounce ‘ta’ wara nofs inhar’ as ta’ wara lofsinhar’. Very irritating indeed.

  4. Malti says:

    Dear Daphne, both “saqsa” (verb FORM1) and “staqsa” (verb FORM10) are acceptable and considered standard in MT. Thanks

  5. Rumplestiltskin says:

    Thanks for this. The misspelling was driving me crazy every time I walked by those signs at City Gate. I thought that the Akkademja tal-Malti had had another go at the rules of language to dumb it down to the idiot level.

  6. Francis Saliba M.D. says:

    @canon

    We were promised “change”. You have had it. Three times over (and still counting)!

  7. MALTI says:

    BRAVA. Have been meaning to point this out for months.

  8. enzo gusman says:

    According to certain Maltese teachers, and a professor, “saqsi” is still “good Maltese” because according to them, if a word is regularly used by the “people” IT BECOMES PART OF THE LANGUAGE! I have been endeavouring to convince them otherwise for years, to no avail.

    • H.P. Baxxter says:

      Majtezwel nuzawwa.

      See? Like Monsieur Jourdain and his prose, I’ve just added two words to the rich Maltese lexicon.

  9. enzo gusman says:

    Regarding “pirmli”, I wouldn’t be surprised if, or rather WHEN, the language-mongers decide it is ACCEPTED. Well done! Keep it up!

  10. the three monkeys says:

    U ‘pirmli’ u ‘towja l-laham’ u ‘windscream’ u ’tisprajnja’ l-polish.

    All these have to be eventually added to the Maltese dictionary.

  11. Tabatha White says:

    Miracle or mirage – like the old jokes about a Skoda, or two, making it to the top of a hill – would be unfair to expect from a Labour administration that doesn’t set rules, but sets about breaking them.

  12. kram says:

    What about including ‘X-tray’, ‘spartin plugs, etc etc etc!

  13. Maltija says:

    La gejna ghall-Malti u pronunzja, jien li jdejjaqni kif kulhadd sar juza l-gh (ghajn) meta suppost juza h (akka).Per ezempju saru jghidu ‘xtraghha ‘ flok ‘xtraha’ …taqraghha flok ‘taqraha’ ecc (Sorry no Maltese keyboard)

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