I was very interested to read the contribution by Mary Mills (TMID, 4 September) who says she lives “in the Welsh speaking part of Wales”. She quoted some Welsh words. First I wish to tell her that Welsh is one of the three languages that remained from before the great flood. The other two are of the people of Finland and the Basque region. These three have their languages very different from the rest of Europe. These three countries were not affected by the waters of the flood.

Welsh was the language of Great Britain. But when the Romans attacked Britain they expelled the inhabitants from the land. Then came William the Conqueror from Normandy, France. France had been already under Roman rule and so acquired the Roman dialect from which the English dialect emerged. But the Normans again expelled the native English to the west into Wales. To make matters worse, they called these outcasts Welsh, which means “foreign”. The people of the land were labelled foreigners. Now it seems the government is again cultivating the Welsh language. Malta has a lot of lingoes but those of Gozo are more interesting. Some in Malta sound the akka “h”, but in Gozo they sound the “gh” and the “q”. I really enjoy listening to them.

For anybody, including Ms Mills it would be a great prize to get a copy of the festa of the Munxar lingoes. What I am against is not the festival as such, but the use of the term of dialect. Malta has no dialects. These are found in Italy, France and so on.

As I said above, Gozo has very interesting lingoes.

Joseph S. Ellul

Zurrieq