I am not a linguist but as a concerned and literate Maltese citizen I too have been following the disturbing controversies about the Maltese language especially in recent years.
The latest one I noticed is a sign put up at St James Cavalier changing ‘Studio’ to ‘STUWDJOW’. God help us. Is this true? In a centre for culture and creativity. And is this by law? What law exactly?What are we trying to do? Is there no end to this linguistic pollution, which is destroying our language? What’s wrong with ‘Studio’?
I recently read that Dun Karm himself in his dictionary gives ‘according to’ as ‘skond’; while restricting the meaning of ‘skont’ to ‘a discount’. As it has always been.And as it should be.What’s wrong with this? Who is the Johnnie come lately who decrees otherwise, for all supposedly to follow blindly?
When the Minister of Education recently announced that henceforth there should be a filter between what a handful of know-alls on some non-elected ‘kunsill’ determine and the Maltese general public, before such decrees take effect ‘irreversibly’, those whose power would thereby be curtailed responded fiercely toguardtheir acquired powers. They even claimed they represented ‘six organisations’. This was uncritically reported by the local press as if it were true. Who are these six organisations in fact?
The Department of Maltese at the Junior College is not an organisation. It reports directly to the Department of Maltese at Tal-Qroqq. The so-called ‘proof reading course’ in the ‘new’ Maltese, is hardly an organization. It is directed by a member of the same department, known to be one of the instigators of the very law creating the ‘kunsill’ way back in 2005. Even the president of the ‘Akkademjatal-Malti’, which, I am told, hardly consults its own members, turns out to be an assistant lecturer in the very same department. The Institute of Linguistics at the University works hand in hand with the same department, as does the Ghaqdatal-Malti. Six organizations eh?! All in varying degrees with vested interests in the powers conveyed by what now seems to be an outdated law which has not worked out as intended.
What about Joe Public? All those who have studied Maltese at school and beyond, and who now are beginning to feel that they no longer know how to write it, or even to help their children with their homework? Who will defend their interests and concerns?
Most seriously of all, why should any recommendations or guidelines be so ham-fisted,dictatorial, absolutist, irreversible?
As so many correspondents have been saying, it is clear that the law should be revisited to make way for greater representation and flexibility. If we are going to read and write in Maltese at all, we would like to read what the authors write, not what their brainwashed proof-readers change for them.
In another section of the press the President of the National Book Council has seriously queried what this ‘kunsill’ was up to.
Malta has had a working orthography for decades. This may need some touching up as new terms arise, for example in technology, but there is no need for uncalled changes in orthography or grammar surely.
Similarly, we have to be very careful indeed with ‘anglicising’ Maltese, spelling English words supposedly in Maltese, supposedly ‘phonetically’. This is creating confusion and chaos.
What price STUWDJOW?
And excuse me, what about the corpus of literary works by great Maltese authors before the ‘kunsill’ was invented? Were these all written in ‘bad’ Maltese?
Hello, wake up! There is a limit to arrogance, ingratitude and intolerance.
Gejtu Vella
[email protected]