Today is the last day for "voting" for the face of the Maltese euro coins, which should enter circulation once Malta joins the single currency - the targeted date is January 1, 2008. Apart from the options suggested by the National Euro Changeover Committee - 12 falling under four different categories - a number of other suggestions have been made, including several by newspaper readers and organisations.

An element of controversy has crept into the choice of the Maltese "face", even if the NECC refrained from suggesting the images of Maltese personalities precisely to avoid controversy.

However, more controversy has surrounded the spelling of the Maltese word for euro, with Government taking an apparently Solomonic decision, namely to retain "euro" in all official documents and correspondence and, naturally, the coins and notes themselves - since this is the commitment undertaken with the European Union - and to allow the use of ewro in non-official writings. (The Kunsill tal-Ilsien Malti, making the case for ewro, says this is the only logical spelling once we write Ewropa in Maltese). One should note that in spoken Maltese the word is (or at least, should be) pronounced differently from the way it is in English.

However, one must be practical. Since euro notes are the same throughout the Eurozone, it would not make much sense to insist on the inclusion of ewro when all other states - except Greece, which uses a different alphabet - have accepted euro. After all, the Maltese language won a considerable victory when it was accepted as one of the European Union's official languages. But the euro/ewro controversy betrays a much more serious "language question" affecting both Maltese and English as spoken and written in Malta.

One has to admit that the standard of written and spoken Maltese, and the way it is being "massacred" by the media, newspapers included, is falling precipitously. We are increasingly being exposed to a hotch-potch of anglicisms and arbitrarily coined words and expressions which should make the true lovers of the Maltese language recoil in horror.

Sporadic attempts are made by a few writers and newspaper readers to bring the offenders in line, but to no avail. The assault on the language continues without let-up on our radio and television stations, primarily, but also in Maltese-language newspapers.

But they are not the only guilty ones. Apparently with the official blessing of our Maltese-language authorities, English words (though not other foreign ones, it seems) are given a phonetic orthography which makes them look simply ridiculous - and this on two counts at least.

First, in other languages - English, French, German, Italian, to name a few - foreign words are retained in their original language. So we have, for example, "computer" in English retaining the same spelling in Italian, French and German; "rendezvous" in French is spelt exactly the same way in English, Italian and German.

But in Malta we have to go our own way, which is not necessarily a better one. So we have kompjuter, unjin (why not junjin?), bagit, rawndebawt, skrin, imejl, mobajl, nejvi, and a growing list of other monstrosities.

Secondly, using the same logic, why not apply the phonetic rule also to names and surnames - like Xejkspjer, or Cajkovski (which in other languages is transliterated differently from the Russian, which uses the Cyrillic alphabet)?

However, beyond this particular aspect of Maltese orthography, our teachers, schools and other educational institutions must ensure correct usage of the language. Its enrichment, through the assimilation of foreign words primarily, should not mean its degeneration, where everyone goes their own way. An even greater responsibility falls on newspaper editors and heads of broadcasting stations, since they reach a much wider audience.

The degeneration of Maltese is, unfortunately, accompanied by an alarming decline in the standard of spoken and written English. Perhaps the most to blame for this are parents who insist on speaking to their offspring in a mix of bad English and equally bad Maltese. They should realise that the chances of their children speaking both languages correctly increase if they use a completely unadulterated form of either in communicating with them.

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