Maltese translation of Malta-EU Treaty

The butchering of the Maltese language performed by Erika Vassallo (and partners) in translating the Draft Constitution produced by Convention on the Future of Europe was no flash in the pan.

"Make do" has become the custom in this country. So it is no wonder that this lawyer thought that simply by having been born in Malta she could play at being a linguist and undertake a translation that has made us blush.

Had it not been for the timely intervention of a Malta-EU Information Centre (MIC) official in Athens, that infamous text would have done the rounds at least throughout the 15 EU member states and ten acceding countries.

Our entry into Europe is now sealed. But the real task is only beginning now. Government has had a first class team of negotiators. Their immediate aides have performed excellently. So have a number of senior civil servants and advisers.

But what about the middle and lower ranks? Any change has to go down to the grassroots, and the chasm between the top and the bottom has to be bridged by those occupying these ranks. And yet they have not been prepared for the change to come - and the EU means change, something people, and not only the pusillanimous, seem to be afraid of.

The case of this mistranslation is only one symptom of many.

I dwell on this subject because Maltese is dear to me, as it should be to anybody else, the authorities being no exception. It is not the first time that I have decried the lack of interest in the language that is possibly our only identity ticket.

Maltese has even suffered in the very department at the University, which should be the first to take the initiative to protect the language. And yet, the standard of some BA and MA graduates in Maltese of recent years at times makes one wonder whether they have ever been made to understand what our language is all about. Even their orthography is abysmal. As is that of so many who teach Maltese in secondary and primary schools.

We have an Akkademja tal-Malti whose council is, in the main, made up of non-linguists pontificating rhetoric with puny results.

Last October this so-called academy was entrusted to look after the language used by broadcasters. Has anyone in the island noticed any change in the daily massacre the broadcasting media make of our language?

Have a look at the language of the Malta-EU treaty solemnly signed by the Prime Minister and the Minister of Foreign Affairs in Athens on April 16.

There is an average - and this is a conservative estimate - of some five mistakes per page. The Commission entrusted to translate the acquis was right to disclaim any say in the translation of the Draft EU Constitution. But the treaty and the acquis are the product of this Commission which never included a linguist among its members and whose instructions to would-be translators were very much in line with what was produced by Erika Vassallo.

I remember these would-be translators being told to "invent" words when translating Eurospeak, and to follow the syntax of the source language, that is English, rather than that of Maltese.

But I do not remember any would-be translator being put to a real test, by professional people, to assess his/her level of Maltese or his/her ability to understand properly the source language, in this case English.

The results are there for everyone to see in the most important legal document our government has ever signed.

The front page of the Treaty made available in summary form by MIC says It-Trattat ta' Shubija ta' Malta ma' l-Unjoni Ewropea, while throughout the text we have the word adezjoni. I was told that the actual title reads It-Trattat ta' Adezjoni ta' Malta ma' l-Unjoni Ewropea, and that it had been changed by MIC.

I was also told that this latter was used to make sure that there would be no confusion between membership and partnership, which in Maltese can both be translated by shubija. No sir! The word shubija has a very definite meaning, especially when it is followed by the preposition ta' + noun; adezjoni has several meanings (such as consent, assent, agreement, adhesion) and as far as I know was never officially used in this context.

Then we find rejali for rjali, ftehmu for ftiehmu, favur ta' d-dhul for favur tad-dhul, l-acquis/protokoll tax-Schengen for l-acquis/protokoll ta' Schengen, Koreja for Korea, Griek for Grieg, etc. The plural of area (for which zona - not zona - could have been used) is sometimes given as areas, at other times as arei.

The author/authors keep writing posizzjonijiet and disposizzjonijiet for pozizzjonijiet and dispozizzjonijiet, ghall-iskopijiet ta' dan l-Att when the proper legal terminology should be ghall-finijiet ta' dan l-Att, Komunità innifisha for Komunità nnifisha (the incorrect dropping or insertion of the euphonic i runs through the whole text), affetwa for affettwa, jabbrogaw for jabrogaw, jigi mibdul for jinbidel, kalkolazzjoni for kalkolu, kwalifici for kwalifiki, anestezija for anestesija, obstetrija and ostetricja for ostetrija, assikurazzjoni for assigurazzjoni, ucuh tar-raba' for ucuh tar-raba' (quite often spelt without the final ' for gh). "L-Att li jikkoncerna..." has replaced "L-Att dwar..." normally used in our legislation.

Throughout the text we find "id-decizjonijiet ghandhom jehtiegu mill-inqas 232 vot favur, espress mill-inqas minn zewg-terzi tal-membri"; when espress should be espressi while zewg terzi has never been hyphenated in Maltese. In this same context we have the strange use of pezati, presumably to mean weighted, in the clause "il-voti ghandhom jigu pezati kif gej". The verb peza (from Italian pesare forming the past participle plural pesati, hence the invention of pezati) is not used in Maltese. Besides, in Maltese it would mean to weigh and not to weight. A proper translation should be "il-voti ghandhom jinghataw il-valur taghhom kif gej". Further on the word is used as an economic term, with at times miserable results.

Among the translation "gems" are infermerija (in Maltese = hospital, clinic) for nursing, foresterija for forestry, bugetarji for budgetary, il-bazi kkapjata tat-taxxi for the capped tax base.

For the sake of brevity I will limit myself to one syntactical mistake: ghajnuna moghtija mill-Istat temporanja u specjali should have been ghajnuna temporanja u specjali moghtija mill-Istat.

These are but a few examples of the kind of mistakes that dot Malta's Accession Treaty, but they do give a quite factual picture of the state of language use and the even lower state of translation techniques.

Over the ages the Maltese have been used to communicate in two or even three languages. Hence the art of translation was never really nurtured. Few, very few of the classics have been rendered into Maltese. Technical subjects are taught from English texts. Journalists and broadcasters receive text from English-speaking agencies and then go for, often bad, literal translations. The knowledge of languages, written and spoken, has plummeted, even at University level.

Three years ago, at a seminar on the Maltese language on the threshold of the new millennium, a strong case was made for the setting up of a translation institute, especially to cater for the vast amount of translations that would have to be made on Malta's accession to the EU. Some two years back the University's Institute of Linguistics was asked to devise a course for translators, but was not given the money to run it.

It has now been announced that the Faculty of Arts will be holding a two-year part-time diploma course for translators and interpreters. Translation agencies bidding for EU translation work also have in mind similar training courses. The Malta Standards Authority is setting up a Technical Committee to devise a standard for Translation Services.

Let's hope that the few resources we have in this field of linguistics are made full use of in order to build a strong team of translators and interpreters. After all, there is work for over 300 people if we prove ourselves efficient.