Count to five in English. Five short words. Now take a deep breath and count to five in Maltese. It takes almost twice as long because four of the five numbers in Maltese have two syllables.
When you start repeating other numbers the difference is even more apparent. It may be one of the reasons why we count in English – even though we are Maltese speaking – much to the horror of all those who genuinely love our language and think rules and regulations can dictate how we speak, and that far more menacing bunch who only promote Maltese because it is very clearly in their financial, and not only their patriotic interests, to do so.
Most of us speak mostly in Maltese, or Minglish, but when it comes to writing and reading we often opt for English for a variety of very practical reasons. English is more succinct, you can get to the point quicker and it has a far larger vocabulary, partly thanks to it having assimilated so many words from other languages (Maltese language gladiators please note!)
All this is lost on those who want us to spell euro as ewro instead of euro! After all, even if it is written as euro, we will still all pronounce it ewro when we speak to each other, and perhaps euro when we travel or trade, if we are sensitive and intelligent enough that is. Yet this council for the Maltese language insists that the word should be spelt ewro, even though the government used the word euro in all the accession documents, quite rightly I might add. We will, (although some of us might not have noticed) soon be adopting a European wide currency after all. That's the idea isn't it? To have a currency with its own local base yes, but it is actually as European as the dollar is to the Americans. At least that is where we are trying to head, much to the consternation of all over zealous nationalists (and I'm not referring to the PN)
Why don't we have a council for the English language? When are we going to accept the fact that English is our national language too? Can it be true that the recent the Matsec exam in English was made easier because the majority couldn't cope with the standard of English required? So the Maltese Matsec remains impossibly cumbersome, overburdened with books many children cheerfully hate or are totally bored by, and the English Matsec now going to be easier. Is that the way to cope with the ever-deteriorating standard of English? By making the exams simpler?
This means only one thing. We are giving up on English as one of our unique selling points in a very completive globalised world. Instead of trying to raise standards in this area, we are going around promoting the preservation of ridiculous Maltese words, which people are not using anyway. Imagine talking about mitjar instead of ajruport, gugarelli instead of toys or toyz? This debate on the euro is just the tip of the iceberg of a siege mentality that is developing here in a worrying form, and not just in the area of language! Are we really so sure it is so advisable to take our standard of English for granted and not work on it?
Look how hard we have worked, for example, to achieve the high level of standards in IT knowledge in this country. Now I am no fan of Austin Gatt's heavy-handed methods, which have certainly not always reached the lofty aims set out, but in that area the energy he generated has been positive, and it is working. Of course it was relatively easy because the government just followed young people’s natural inclination and affinity for IT. But the minister read the signs of the times, and persuaded us to do something we wanted to do anyway, so he has succeeded. In fact that is when governments are at their best. When they take a modest approach, as our PM does, and tries to push this country in the direction needed, recognising always that it is the people who lead and it is the government which must exercise leadership in the areas where it is essential.
A clever government does not say it has achieved something single-handedly. A clever government gives credit to its people. And what this government has achieved with the people in IT, it could achieve in the English language. The trouble is, does it want to? Has it yet to see the need to revive the fortunes of the English language? Has it got the courage to stand up to certain self-interest groups and say yes, let’s work on Maltese, but let’s work equally hard on English because that is what is going to get us jobs.
Without jobs there can be no pension reform, no increases in social benefits, not anything worth having really. Jobs and decently paid work is our passport to everything and I am not surprised that the MLP have chosen this as their rallying cry.
Who in government, or anywhere else, is putting the same energy into the nurturing, the promotion of excellent English that we are putting into IT? So many work opportunities come here because of our English. We are all aware of the booming TEFL industry but what about call centres? We could serve the whole English-speaking world from here. But are we waiting to be told that these kinds of companies can’t find enough English speaking people? Did we need a beautiful young girl to fall from our bastions to realise our young people's social life has many unacceptable faces, that ice cubes are spiked with salt at many venues, that exploitation is rife?
We all know the facts here. But sadly we only take action when disaster strikes. And it will be disastrous if the next generation of Maltese turn out to be proficient in one language only, that English becomes as foreign to them as French or Arabic. What a loss of our own English language...