I refer to the letter written by Miriam Cassar (Daphne and Gozitans, TMID, 1 September), and ask her whether some of the sessions during the festival are recorded? If so, I would so much like to, perhaps, buy a copy of the recording of the dialects as well as receive any other info.

We should be so proud to have our own language whose syntax and morphology prove so helpful if one decides to learn Arabic – something I’ve been trying to do these last 10 years.

How disappointing, however, that so much of the original vocabulary in Maltese has been dislodged by loan words... adopted mostly by towns’ people, not least by tal-pepe. Of course the latter’s chewed up, pidgin speech, far from being “cool” and “genteel” is, in the eyes of foreigners, an embarrassment.

Yes, because, always, something which is our own must be retained for our own sense of self-worth.

I live in the Welsh-speaking part of Wales and hear a lot about cadw ‘r iaith – safeguarding the language – I see some parallels between attitudes to language among the Welsh and among certain Maltese people (Daphne Caruana Galizia with her allergy to the Maltese language, to be placed into a different category, of course, to the run of the mill of people who may merely be indifferent, unappreciative of our linguistic heritage). No time to explain more about that, just here.

Good for the Gozitans who refuse to be imitative – makes me feel yet more proud that some of my distant relatives come from there!

I would, as I said before, like to find out more about activities, and other, of Ms Cassar’s group.

Mary Mills

Wales