I suppose Stanley Farrugia Randon, writing in English in The Times Talking Point on December 10, failed to see the irony behind his urging us to preserve, like some fossil, our Maltese language in a time-warped jar.

English is our language too. Both Maltese and English are the official languages of this country. Yet, Dr Farrugia Randon is worried if we are talking about toys not gugarelli, about tops rather than a flokk.

Does he realise how many English words are, even as we speak, being absorbed from other languages? English is a very rich language precisely because there wasn't a silly group of men trying to fossilise it all the time. The English happily drink a cappuccino and don't think of calling it something like frothy coffee. Young people adorn themselves with tattoos. Is that pure English? Does it exist? English is our language too and we don't moan the fact that it is being decimated every day.

It is a common, almost acceptable, pastime in this country to criticise those who are English-speaking when they speak Maltese.

However, would English-speaking Maltese people (many of whom buy The Times) dare deride so many Maltese people who now speak English so unintelligibly you almost cannot understand them? Maltese-speaking people who just learn English as a foreign language at school often speak and write it terribly. I know from trying to recruit university graduates how appalling both the levels of English and Maltese are, have become, or always were.

We spent years attacking our English-speaking middle class culture as if it were something to be ashamed of. We were urged to promote Maltese at every opportunity.

The result: An apparent deterioration in both but it is always the Maltese bandwagon that moans and the English-speaking classes watch in horrified, dignified silence as some of their children are taught by teachers who are obviously and increasingly the product of this warped system where English is no longer their own language. It's sad when your child's good English is corrected by some of these educators, who actually have an English which is so basic and school based they don't even understand good English when they hear it.

Most of us (at least most of us who have a positive attitude in this country) were happy when, during the recent visit by Queen Elizabeth, our dignitaries spoke of her as our queen. Yet, why are we embarrassed to admit that English is our language too?

I don't want to be unfair to Dr Farrugia Randon. In the media, both languages should be used correctly. It is however worrying that he wants subjects, other than the Maltese language, taught in Maltese. Why did he pick on history? I wonder.

And let's look at his concept of "our language" too. It's as much not "ours" as English is, with a few years separating the two. Why should a word used by whoever was colonising us many years ago be "better" or "worse" or more ours than a more recent word. This all smacks of the Mintoffian era when we were meant to use mitjar instead of ajruport (airport) and similar nonsense which, thankfully, is now in the realms of our history.

Let's not have a pitched battle on the language issue. Let us wake up and enjoy and nurture the English language.

The Maltese language has an equally important place too but it is English that is our unique selling point in an increasingly globalised world where English, not French, German or Italian, has taken centre stage.