Regrettably, the Kunsill ghall-Ilsien Malti seems determined to ruin those English words that creep into Maltese usage by advocating that we spell words such as coat into the evolving Maltese kowt, coach into kowc, queue into kju, crash and crèche (even though they have different meanings) into krexx, chairman into cermen, the plural of which brings us to the ultimate idiocy, chairmen into criemen and so on. It is no wonder that our poor schoolchildren are completely confused with the result that their knowledge and use of English has been seriously compromised, with no apparent benefit to Maltese.

Instead of carrying on with this farce why not spell the English words that we adopt correctly and simply italicise them. This is what Mark A. Sammut, the president of Ghaqda tal-Malti seems to favour in his excellent letter in last Sunday’s Independent, and I quote: “In view of the above, my personal suggestion would be that, in the last analysis, it is still too early to decide on whether most English words used on a daily basis form part of Maltese parlance. I would suggest that when in doubt we ought to opt for caution. We should first see whether another word (or circumlocution) of Semitic or Sicilian/Italian origins, conveys the equivalent meaning, and only then move to accept the English word, in which case we should use the English spelling.”

Unfortunately, I suspect that the current practice may be more acceptable to the Kunsill ghall-Ilsien Malti, which appears to favour the continued bastardisation of English. This is why we should not be surprised to find the Kunsill suggesting that, if only to be consistent, the name of our national airline should be changed from the internationally known and respected AIR MALTA to the ridiculous ER MALTA!!!

John C. Ripard

MADLIENA