Ireland, Malta and the language of history
Joseph G Murphy in Illinois responds to Jim Yates's letter to the Irish Examiner. From Irish Examiner.com:
In his letter headlined ‘Irish language was marginalised by history’ (Irish Examiner, June 28), Jim Yates says the difference between Irish and Maltese as EU languages is that “all citizens of Malta speak Maltese”. Not so. There are three main languages in Malta. Two of them, Maltese and English, are official. The English language is a leftover of about 160 years of British colonisation of Malta. Italian is also spoken by a large number of Maltese citizens and used to be an official language. More and more young people speak Italian as result of Italian TV and radio broadcasts. The wealthier Maltese raise their children to speak English as their first language. The number of Maltese people fluent in Maltese has been dropping for many years in favour of English, Italian or, more often, a mixed language a pidgin having elements of the others.
This is true of Ireland where Hiberno-English is more often heard than the Standard English of Britain, although Hiberno-English is considered a dialect rather than an actual pidgin. Due to British colonisation the Maltese language has broken up into several dialects that have presented difficulties for speakers of one region to understand those of another. This happened in Ireland, too, where three primary dialects arose during British colonisation and suppression of Irish and is only now being addressed through intercommunication between the dialectical areas. So, Mr Yates' Maltese argument strengthens the Irish language cause since the case of Maltese so closely parallels that of Irish.
Oliver Friggieri and language change - Wired Temples
Language Headache - Wired Temples
The popularity of Italian - MaltaMedia
posted by Robert Micallef at 7/17/2005 01:06:00 AM
I thought that this was an interesting read, and worth commenting on (because I disagree with most of it, lol).
The main reason that most people my age (early 20s) speak Italian is that while we were young children in the 80's, Italian TV was where the cartoons were. So, yes, most of use knew a fair amount of Italian.
But this is no longer the case; I am finding that more children and young teens do not know much Italian because thanks to cable TV there is plenty of high-quality English-language children's programming available (BBC Prime, Jetix, Nickelodeon, Trouble) as well as Maltese-language ones on the local channels.
It is true that "The wealthier Maltese raise their children to speak English as their first language", but I don't know anyone who is fluent in English and Italian and not in Maltese; I think that people fluent in Italian are more likely to be people who have Maltese as a first language. Therefore I don't agree with the assessment that Maltese is being dropped in favour of Italian.
The Maltese dialects that Mr. Murphy refers to are in fact accents and not dialects. The regional variations in Malta are mostly in the phonology (usually the vowel sounds), while a dialect should have its own distinct grammar and vocabulary. Were these accents in fact due to British colonisation, or did they come about because the villages used to be a lot more isolated than they are now?
Is it true that Maltese speakers from one "region" really have difficulties in understanding those from another? We joke about it, and tease Gozitans, but although it took my ear a few minutes to adjust to hearing someone from Hal-Qormi speaking "bit-tuf", I could understand it.
And, finally, I question the existence of a pidgin language in Malta. People speaking "Maltish" switch between English and Maltese, often several times in a sentence, but it is not really a pidgin at all. It is just people cobbling together the most convenient phrases, usually expressions, that spring to mind. It is an annoying method of speech, not a language.
Basically, I think that Mr. Murphy is trying to project the Irish situation onto Malta in order to support his arguments in favour of the Irish language without giving a true reflection of the situation here :-)
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