I know that it’s a tired old argument, about how we should or should not spell borrowed words from English which have become part of our daily language.  But in all the back and forth debate, we have to remember that there is a whole generation out there which has now become seriously confused because of this mishmash of words.

This was brought home to me by a close relative who told me that her six-year-old refuses to write “birthday”, and insists that the correct word is “berdej” because “it’s in Maltese”.

Well done. How’s that for a linguistic mess? Can anyone tell me how that is remotely a Maltese word? It does not need to be said that it’s certainly massacred the English one, while obliterating the need for children to learn the difficult  “th” sound which does not come naturally to most Maltese people anyway. In one fell swoop this child has illustrated just why this spelling is wrong on all counts.  Of course, we have a Maltese expression for birthday, as well as for “Happy Birthday”, but most people colloquially use the English version. So in the written form, we should either leave the English version in its original spelling, or teach children that we do have the equivalent in Maltese thus ensuring that they have increased their vocabulary in the mother tongue.

People say that this spelling is not compulsory but, excuse me, then why is it being taught like that in schools and in textbooks?   You and I can flatly refuse to use the spelling, but when it is presented to children by their teacher as fact, then you get the kind of linguistic tug-of-war between a mother and her child as described above.  How can children even begin to write and spell English properly (which I hope everyone agrees is essential for their future) when their wires are being crossed with all this mumbo jumbo of a contrived language?     

I get so upset by this spelling precisely because I love Maltese just as much as I love English and in a million years I will never understand why the Kunsill Nazzjonali ta’ l-Ilsien Malti feels this spelling is necessary. (A few years ago I had interviewed one of the members about it and despite answering all my questions, I was still not convinced about what real purpose it is serving).   Even when I was sitting for my ‘O’ and ‘A’ levels many moons ago, we had to resort to using English words when the Maltese ones did not exist, although I do realize that because of technology and the media, English expressions have infiltrated our language more than ever. But, really, so what?

Why does it bug people to see a Maltese essay sprinkled with the occasional English word, but then they don’t mind seeing atrocities like hendawt (handout) and websajt (website).  I don’t know if it’s just me but I get an actual physical reaction of revulsion at seeing words spelt like that.  The only real exceptions as pointed out by Prof Joe Friggieri during Times Talk a few weeks ago, is when words have also become verbs, like “komputerizzat” (computerised).

There are other aspects of this Maltese spelling business which make the whole thing questionable. People pronounce their vowels differently, so you get those who learned their English with a British accent, who pronounce a word completely different to those who learned it with a Maltese/English accent. Then you get people like me who speak American English (which thanks to cable TV has become more and more popular). Yet the “Maltese spelling” which has been handed down from the Kunsill is clearly that of people with a Maltese/English accent which (let’s face it) is often completely wrong.  Don’t get me started on the pronunciation of the word “bowling”.   You guessed it, it has become “bawling”.  You might as well put me in front of a firing squad and kill me now.

The other attempts at changing the grammatical rules of Maltese are also nonsensical and detrimental to the language. I was recently told by a teacher that doing away with the format “ta’ l-” when a word begins with a vowel, and making it “tal-”  for every word was done to make it easier because of the lower achievers. Wow, that’s some logic.  Instead of raising standards and figuring out ways to help low achievers to do better, we lower the bar and screw up the grammar. So what happens to all the classic textbooks, are we going to re-write them?

No wonder so many children hate learning Maltese, and no wonder their parents see Maltese homework as a nefarious form of torture especially designed to make their school day afternoons as miserable as possible.   Above all, no wonder our previous advantage of being able to communicate in two languages reasonably well is deteriorating faster than you can say (ugh) “woterpowlow”.