In the recent weeks, a small controversy took up some space in our media when, rather to the surprise of many, the country heard the bafflement of many of our visitors when faced with signage which is in Maltese.

Mostly, and unless this is pointed out to us, we do not even realise how much we baffle our visitors. For us, Valletta is il-Belt, the city and we do not see why it should not be like that. For us, Gozo is Għawdex and that is what we have always called it.

Everything in Malta is the result of history. Even the way we pronounce Malta as Molta derives from the British pronunciation and this too baffles our continental friends when they call our island Malta.

Many of our place names remain the same in English as they are in Maltese but others change. St Paul’s Bay becomes San Pawl il-Baħar, etc.

There is one comment we make at this point. When we go to other countries, such as Italy, or France, we do not expect them to signpost, for instance Rome as anything but Roma. So our visitors expect us to use our own Maltese place names for our places but then, one suggests, it would be worthwhile to add a translation into English even if in smaller type.

The point is we have gone from one extreme to another. Previously, for instance, our street names were strictly bilingual but in recent years these have become rigorously Maltese language only. We seem to have forgotten that the official languages of Malta are Maltese and English and no one seems to challenge this modern practice that practically eliminates the English rendering of place names.

But while this issue remained rather hidden in previous times when it regarded only place names and signposts, it has emerged in other areas.

One such example was the introduction of Arriva with the naming of each and every bus stop and the announcement with voice and letters of the coming bus stop on every bus.

It has been said from these columns that the naming of some of the bus stops leaves much to be desired. Nevertheless, some of the names that have been chosen are instructive and go back to the geography and the history of Malta. It is amusing to see the way how tourists try to spell out the names and the various interpretations they give to the names that have been chosen. Perhaps if these visitors were to ask the Maltese sitting next to them what a particular name means they would be as nonplussed as them.

Still, a small translation would have helped and it was rather fundamentalist to eliminate each and every English name. For instance, the bus stop at Mġarr, Gozo is called ‘Vapur’ whereas the bus stop called ‘Mġarr’ would leave the poor tourist up on the hill with a long walk down. There is nothing to tell the visitors that Vapur means ship and at the same time this is not the name by which Gozitans call this place, for this will always be Ix-Xatt for them.

The entire philosophy behind the direction pointers and traffic signs needs to be reviewed. It is useless, as has been pointed out, to tell people at Ċirkewwa that Marsaxlokk is so many kilometres away and then any reference to Marsaxlokk disappears from subsequent traffic signs. It is ludicrous to tell people, at Mellieħa for instance, that Gozo is 10 kilometres away and then not tell them there is a rather big stretch of sea in the way.

All this shows the danger when the decisions are taken by a small group of people and when no adequate consultation takes place, even though not all consultation can eliminate mistakes.