I agree 100 per cent with Joseph S. Ellul (‘The destruction in Maltese’, TMID, 4 January). We learn that Maltese is a phonetic language, that is why we say ‘l-iMdina’ and not ‘il-Mdina’, as an example.

At the Lyceum I was taught by Karmenu Vassallo and remember him telling us that we should NOT alter the word with which we are using an article but we should change the article to match the word, exactly as explained by Mr Ellul.

If then we are saying ic-coff, ix-xita or is-sigar we should put the consonant it starts with, with the article for a better pronounciation when reading it.

Most words with which we use ‘li’ instead of ‘il’ do not sound properly when written without the article. Take for example ‘iskola’, suppose you want to say ‘Rajt skola gdida’ would it not sound funny if you say ‘Rajt iskoka gdid’.

As regards ‘ISTRINA’, if the organisers want to call it so they may call it like that, but they should not blame anybody who does not associate Istrina with Strina.

John Tonna

Tarxien