While agreeing with and applauding David Buttigieg De Piro's observations (August 27), I would like to leap into the Maltese language fray that is raging yet again and add my own comments.
As I see it, Maltese needs to have its wings clipped today, rather than tomorrow. It is a quaint, museum-piece code which requires so many foreign fixes and props to keep it alive in today's world that the line where Maltese stops and other languages (English especially) start has become blurred to the point where it is no longer there, effectively.
I say drop Maltese and concentrate on English, a language which connects us to the rest of the world on more levels than can be counted.
The increasingly militant attitude of the Maltese camp should be summarily dealt with by those of us who hold the banner for English. Don't forget that English is one of Malta's two languages. Insist on your rights; if you find it difficult, or downright tiresome to read a Maltese-language communication from the government, send it back and ask for an English-language version. Return council magazines and the like with a big In English Please scrawled across the front.
Why does everybody steer clear of this next point? We are lucky enough to have a choice. For some of us, Maltese is ugly - it is harsh, guttural, and resonates with nasty, semitic-sounding noises which we wouldn't be caught dead burping on a regular basis. We use it only when necessity dictates that we communicate with those who haven't been blessed with the gift of choice and attendant ability to code-switch.
My parting observation is this; anybody involved in education will tell you that the levels of spoken and written English are plummeting and hitting desperate levels. If we turn our back on this problem, we will be allowing a vast resource to slip through our hands. A resource which, ironically, other countries are spending millions of pounds attempting to acquire (consider all the TEFL-related income that Malta earns). I am afraid that we will only realise our loss when it is too late.
This is precisely why we need to check those elements which, from their insular, schoolboy dens, promulgate anti-English language sentiment; they are actually working against the economic and cultural development of our country.
We need to stop squabbling over the ethics of using or not using our dear old scullery language and concentrate on the far more important challenge of shoring up, healing and putting English on a sound, forward-looking footing once again.