I refer to the article Gog and Magog: in the land of the beasts (TMID 15 September). Although the article is very interesting I would have thought that this information is pretty obvious given that a brief ethymology of Maltese is taught to all people (given it is a compulsory subject in our schools). But definitely the intention of the article is to educate and one should never take such things for granted.

I was lucky enough to study Arabic as a compulsory subject (back in 1985 I wasn’t so keen at the time) and what Daphne says is true. All words which were used in pre-medieval times are all Arabic. Fruit, vegetables, animals, numbers, even some grammar like l-ghadd imtenni are all one-to-one from Arabic. It was the advent of the Normans and Knights who bought all the Latin influence to Maltese.

But you know this already. I just wanted to comment on one thing – miskin is not an Arabic word. It comes from Italian meschino or wretched. The Italians (especially the southern Italians) use mischino when they want to have pity on someone.

Culturally we bring something unique to the European Union and the world. Maltese is the only semitic language on this planet that is written in the roman alphabet. We should be proud of that.

Christian Sammut

Munich, Germany