Experts appointed to study Maltese language variations

Should it be futbol or football, Bagit or budget? Maltese language experts were undecided at a seminar called by the National Council for the Maltese Language yesterday, but they resolved to appoint a group of experts to resolve such longstanding issues.

Theirs will be a difficult job.

For it is not just a matter of deciding how foreign words adopted by Maltese should be written but, more importantly, how to tackle variations in the Maltese language itself. For example, should we write Awissu or Awwissu, serduq or serduk?

Taking part in the seminar were some 140 writers, linguists, language teachers, proofreaders, publishers and translators.

Council president Manwel Mifsud said that deciding which form was right was necessary to avoid confusion in the minds of students, translators, writers and journalists, who wrote the same words in different ways.

Professor Mifsud said variations occurred in other languages, not just Maltese. But since written Maltese was still in its infancy, there were still a number of variants.

Should a decision be taken on the version which is most widely used and, if so, how will that be determined, participants argued. Should a decision be taken depending on the historical form of the word, and what if the original spelling of a word is out of use? Would a word be spoilt if it was simplified?

The use of information technology had also introduced a series of words which did not exist in Maltese before, such as tipprintja. And should one write hendawt, kapxin and woxrum?

Education Minister Louis Galea said the government has been want-ing to bring together linguists, writers and people who use the Maltese language - an important aspect of national identity - so that lacunae and uncertainties could be discussed, clarified and decided upon.

The National Council for the Maltese Language, Dr Galea said, had successfully brought together "the workers of Maltese" who had expressed their views on how different words were written, and which form was to be kept as the officially acceptable one.

When the council decides on which should be the correct versions, an official and binding list of words will be published in the Government Gazette, while academics and teachers will be informed of the decisions through a series of meetings.