'Europe's Arabic connection'

Fr Geoffrey G. Attard in Dundee, Scotland, writes to the editor of the Sunday Times in reaction to the article about Malta by Louis Werner published by Aramco World:

..The article was published in the November/December 2004 issue of a review entitled Saudi Aramco World (Vol. 55, No. 6). The article explains in a nutshell the origins of the Maltese language and some of its unique characteristics. However I observed a little mistake in the section about the Gozitan manner of speaking. The author writes: "Gozitan Malti most strikingly maintains an emphatic h sound that is now lost on the main island, and it fully pronounces the letter q that elsewhere has become a glottal stop - a shift that, curiously, also happened in the Arabic of Cairo. Former President of Malta Ugo Mifsud Bonnici was a Gozitan, and his pronounciation on occasions of state always drew attention - sometimes unfavourable - to his roots" (p. 6).

I can almost surely state that the author had in mind former President Dr Censu Tabone, a Gozitan by birth, whose public speaking still reveals his Gozitan origins in the pronounciation of q as k. It is the people of Victoria and Xewkija, especially those over 40, who still speak in this manner. Dr Mifsud Bonnici does not hail from Gozo but incidentally did spend some years on the island during World War II. Anyhow, Werner's article Europe's New Arabic Connection certainly deserves a read.

Europe's Arabic Connection by Louis Werner