Language serves both as bridge and as barrier. English in Malta serves as a bridge with the outside world, but as a barrier between the Maltese themselves.

As a nation, we have failed to develop our own language, preferring to use English for public administration and high-level discourse. Arguably, this is understandable, as using English necessitates less resources: it has all the terminology required for current ideas while new terms for new ideas are coined by others, saving us mental energy. It also saves us the psychological price of having to look to the world on our South to see what our language's natural siblings are doing...

So it's one big mess... created by centuries of armed conflicts and, more importantly, conflicting ideologies absorbed by the Maltese, becoming our national culture: laziness in home-grown creativity but extreme industriousness in importing from the outside world. Isn't it fascinating how our attitude toward language reflects our attitude toward the economy (or vice versa)? In both cases, it could be due to the lack of a significant domestic market.

For the political actors, this has meant that when the decisive moments came, the ammunition needed was lacking. The language did not have the terminology necessary to deliver the message.

Simon Busuttil

In 2016-17, Simon Busuttil found himself having to fight an unprecedented war and lacking politics' most important weapon: language. Not because he lacked linguistic skills – our language lacks the linguistic arsenal.

As Leader of the Opposition, Dr Busuttil had to wage the War on Corruption, fighting the Panama Papers obscenity. But he lacked the means, because the War had no precedent – it revolved round offshore corporate structures... something that has rarely, if ever, been tackled in Maltese.

The entire financial services sector functions in English, the highly technical variety to boot. Even the law regulating companies lays down – myopically, to my mind – that "if there is any conflict between the English and Maltese texts, the English text shall prevail."

So, when Dr Busuttil fired his cannons on the Government, he had to produce his terminological cannonballs there and then. He couldn't refer to a pre-existing language that was a neutral universe of concepts, because such language didn't exist: nobody had created it.

Whereas lawyers and accountants, and others too, immediately understood what Dr Busuttil was saying – because they knew the pre-existing concepts in English –, for a vast swath of the population the language was doubly incomprehensible: it wasn't just English, it was technical English.

Dr Busuttil was a victim of the Language Question, Mark II. And with him, the entire country. Because Joseph Muscat's irresponsible handling of the situation has now cost the entire country a huge fortune in terms of reputation, as Chris Fearne accurately pointed out during the Labour Leadership race.

Adrian Delia

Dr Delia too is a victim of the Language Question, Mark II. Again, not because he isn't a good orator but because the hospitals contracts bamboozlement is rendered obscure by linguistic deficiencies. The entire scheme – from the BVI company to its representatives to the politicians involved – seems to have been one big con-trick played on the nation but it's linguistically difficult to explain.

That Joseph Muscat attends meetings apparently as lobbyist for the company involved is scandalous, and easy for all to understand. What is more difficult is the maze of technical niceties and complications that seems to characterise the entire web of corruption.

Dr Delia faces an uphill struggle. Not only because of the maze, but also because of the language. Dr Delia is trying to convey an immensely complicated story in a language that hasn't been developed in this domain. It is already difficult to follow the story in English; in Maltese, the difficulty grows exponentially.

This is a tragic national fault. We have simply failed to develop our own language, and are now unable to use a language comprehensible to the majority of the population to explain the malfeasance of the Muscat Administration.

Joseph Muscat

Muscat's charisma consisted in part in his or his advisors' ability to formulate good slogans, Malta Tagħna Lkoll being the most powerful. (He also used Il-Ħolma Maltija in 2017, obviously plagiarising it from my father's 1994 novel of that name...)

He also had the ability to explain complex situations using the Maltese language intelligently. At the same time, he delegated his sidekick Konrad Mizzi to entice the code-switchers, and Mizzi obliged by peppering his speech with English phrases. Ultimately, these theatrics paid off.

Robert Abela

Muscat's successor seems weak in this department; his language betrays an ineffectual speaker, a below-average orator but, more pointedly, a below-average narrator. We still have to see whether this will be a hallmark of Dr Abela's leadership style, or whether Dr Abela is still trying to find his feet.

Whereas Muscat had a strong narrative – which he encapsulated in his messianic heralding of the  Progressive Good News and in his hallowed and hollow roadmap –, Dr Abela's narrative is conspicuous by its absence.

His claim that the country is back to normality is the most bland, dull, insipid, flavourless, flat, and improbable narrative one could imagine. And it begs the question, What on earth is Dr Abela's notion of normality? The assassination of a political commentator who didn't mince her words? The utter destruction of the country's international reputation and the relentless rape of the urban and natural environment? The remorseless demolition of the traditional family and the shameless flirtation with abortion and other so-called "civil rights"? The artificial ballooning of the economy which will now – as Dr Abela himself has admitted – mean that Malta could get less EU funds?

There is an element of perversion to this last point. Malta has been told in no uncertain terms that it has been active in all high-risk economic sectors, thereby attracting the wrong kind of attention. This activity has raked in a lot of money, which in turn now means we could get less EU funds. Which could mean less investment in public projects and the rest. So, we risk ending up with more flak and less funds just for Muscat to achieve the "best of times". This will be the narrative Dr Abela might have to weave. He won't be needing sophisticated language – it's just the story of the successor blaming the predecessor. In this case, Dr Abela will be right. His predecessor was indeed a false idol.

But the problem remains

Irrespective of Dr Abela's headaches, the problem for the country remains. We have a number of media outlets that produce "independent" news in English. They manage to set the public agenda and sway the public opinion. Except that it is the opinion of those who read in English; Maltese speakers are completely ignored, as if we were living in Victorian times, with no universal suffrage.

One understands that there are financial considerations: with a sizeable ex-pat community, it makes sense to cater for that community's linguistic needs. But the media enjoys constitutional privileges not because it is a proper business, but because it is one of the pillars of democracy... and ex-pats don't vote here.

Then there's the issue that some people in Malta consider the use of English as a sign of social superiority. I find this argument both pernicious and self-contradictory.

English per se cannot be the sign of belonging to the upper classes because, in England, all classes speak English. True, there are different types of English, from received pronunciation (usually used by the posh) to other accents, and accents communicate social class. But they all speak English... Anglo-Norman French hasn't been used since the 15th century. I won't go into the history of the English language, and Chaucer, the Gawain Poet, and John Gower, and Royal Patronage for literary works in English at the time of the wars with France, and all that, even though it's fascinating. 

But the point I want to make is that it makes no sense to say in Malta that using English is high-class, mostly because nobody – but nobody – in Malta has any inkling of received pronunciation. (The only exception would obviously be Martin Scicluna, who, because he masters it, beguiles himself that he's intellectually superior to the other natives. He reminds me of Samuel L. Jackson's character in Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained.)

To my mind, this high-class notion was possibly promoted by the British themselves who would have preferred to understand what the natives were saying rather than allowing them to cultivate their own tongue and plot against them.

Be that as it may, the more educated would do well to develop the nation's language and stop lazily following the former colonisers' script.

Changes to language rules

I've heard rumours that new rules are being contemplated, to change -hom into -ħom.

Apparently the reasoning is that since a growing number of people pronounce "you see them", say, erroneously as taraħom instead of the correct tarahom, the rules should change to reflect popular usage.

This is ludicrous.

I do understand where the linguists are coming from, but I shan't enter into the linguistic debate between the diachronic and synchronic schools of thought. The linguists have to understand that language doesn't exist in a vacuum – there's a compelling argument for the prescriptive approach to be preferred to the descriptive alternative.

Just like there seems to be a psychological relationship between language and capitalist production/importation, so there seems to be a relationship between language and ethics.

This country is going through a period of unprecedented laissez-faire, exacerbated if not actually triggered by Muscat's irresponsible leadership style. Lack of conscientiousness prevails – everything goes. Lowering the standards of written Maltese, because people are unable to follow rules that require a little mental effort, condones the rampant attitude that the little extra mental effort needed to follow rigid but necessary rules is futile, since rules can be relaxed.

This attitude is spreading. The introduction of the morning-after pill, for instance, green-lit even more irresponsible behaviour. Instead of extolling the control of impulses, the no-effort attitude is rewarded with a magic pill that eliminates the consequences. Instead of imposing strict urban planning rules to safeguard the architectural heritage of the community, the no-effort attitude is rewarded with soul-killing building permits. Instead of imprinting in youngsters the need to make a mental effort to learn the rules of their native tongue, the rules are relaxed because the effort is too much for the sissy weaklings to cope with.

I think the pattern is clear.

My Personal Library (88)

I've overshot the word limit; the editor won't be happy. So, just a couple of words on Joseph Conrad's (no political pun intended) The Nigger of the Narcissus. Read it; its psychological insight can be applied to the need of wearing a linguistic mask...