I was surprised to read in your editorial (“ A summer of music”, TMID 29 August) that you felt “It was...particularly sad to hear... Ivan Filletti address the crowd in English”. There are thousands of Maltese people who feel more comfortable expressing themselves in English. Ivan is probably one of them. He was also being courteous and practical once he was addressing an international crowd (you yourself refer to the many foreigners who were there for the concert).

The others were Maltese who have all been to school where they studied English for several years. Many of them will move on to University where English is the medium of instruction. Others among the audience will no doubt be teaching English to the students who visit our island because they have been given to believe that we are a bilingual country and that they will have ample opportunity to hear and speak good English in order to become fluent themselves.

So please don’t make it sound as though Ivan has committed a crime. He has not shot a protected bird. He has not littered our village streets after a festa. He has not splattered our wonderful historical monuments with painted threats. (These things are presumably carried out by people who wish to “safeguard” some local customs!)

The Maltese language does not need to be artificially “safeguarded”. Thousands of people will go on speaking it as they have always done and the language will evolve in a natural way, as languages always do.

Meanwhile, it is vital, for the improvement of our levels of education, that we encourage fluency in English. It is so hard for our youngsters to have the opportunity nowadays to hear it being spoken fluently in natural surroundings too (a classroom is not enough). We must go back to having a full news bulletin in English (including the weather forecast) on our local TV channels, as well as English films, documentaries and debates, for the benefit of the several hundred locals who prefer it in English as well as the thousands of visitors, especially students of English, who pay us to come here to learn the language.

V. Debono

St Andrews