Mario Cassar (Maltese: The Only National Language , August 22) is technically correct when he says that Maltese is our one national language and that English, though one of our official languages, is not a native language. On the other hand, to say that Maltese is what "endows us with an identity" goes a bit too far. German, for instance, is used by three countries and English by a great many countries, yet the inhabitants of these disparate countries have a separate sense of identity despite sharing a common language. By the same token, there are countries which have a number of different national languages and they still maintain their national uniqueness as, for instance, Switzerland, a country with four national languages (three of them from other countries), or India, with dozens of commonly-spoken languages in her different regions and hundreds of dialects.

The attitude that Maltese is threatened by widespread use of English is equally mistaken and betrays a lack of understanding about what constitutes an endangered language. This view is also shared by Carmelo Pace, (Preference Should Be Given To Maltese, August 24). The use of English in Malta does not in any way render Maltese a minority language. Maltese is spoken throughout Malta to an infinitely greater extent than English and it is far more deeply implanted in our psyche than English. Our national language is therefore perfectly safe.

Mr Cassar is right, up to a point, in saying Maltese is being "slaughtered" - but for the wrong reasons. The cause lies elsewhere. So-called "westernisation" nowadays affects most languages. A curious sign of this in Malta is the fashion of inflicting outlandish names at birth on our younger generations. Apart from this odd fashion, a certain amount of westernisation of our language is inevitable and has little to do with the coincidental fact that English is spoken in Malta. English just happens to be mostly responsible for westernisation because, besides being a widely-spoken language, it is very zippy - which makes the borrowing of buzzwords very tempting. By virtue of its wealth of monosyllabic words, English is also very adapted to computer, e-mail and, especially, messaging.

Contrary to what Mr Cassar seems to think, the real threat to Maltese comes from nearer home.

First of all, our media are greatly to blame. Our Maltese television programmes are of a low standard and mostly an insult to peoples' intelligence - excellent programmes such as Meander being rare exceptions. Local radio stations mostly spew junk music accompanied by racy (westernised) patter. The result is that our young generation can grow up without ever being exposed to beautifully-written or spoken Maltese (apart, possibly from school if they are lucky) - or, even, without ever becoming aware of what real music is. As mentioned earlier, our one and only national cultural programme, Radju Bronja, was unceremoniously taken off the air by our Investments Minister for economy's sake (thus saving a few thousand liri annually) without even a squeak of protest from our Minister of Culture. With friends like these Maltese does not need enemies.

Then there are those misguided people who, instead of trying to enrich our language by seeking authentic Maltese equivalent words for new concepts, actually encourage deliberate assimilation of borrowed words (almost invariably English) by devising hideous "Maltese" re-spelling for them. In this way, Maltese is being invaded by an outrageously absurd neo-Maltese vocabulary through a lack of imagination or laziness, or both. Typical examples of this linguistic lunacy would be "bagit" (why not leave it as budget? Shouldn't this be Estimi ta' nfieq anyway?), "wejter", "idajllja" instead of "cempel" and so on. One hopes that the more bizarre examples like "waxinmaxin" are not to be taken seriously. Mr Cassar's comment that those who do not speak English are "looked upon as some sort of retrograde oaf" and that "those who cherish and promote their own native language" must be "suffering from some sort of obsessive disorder" is exactly the kind of paranoid nonsense that stokes misunderstandings and promotes bigoted attitudes.

Equally, the remark that "some locals... literally hate this national language" is as facetious as it is untrue. In an ideal world we would all be capable of speaking both perfect Maltese and perfect English and all converse habitually in Maltese but, because we have all been exposed to differing backgrounds and influences (including foreign media, for want of something better) our linguistic abilities and habits will vary accordingly and, since English is also an official language of this country, nobody has a right to impose on his fellow countrymen which language to use.

Finally, Mr Pace's bizarre assertion that correspondence was being limited to those "who hold stamped credentials" (along with a snide reference to "cultural elitism") - was a transparent attempt at dodging the accusation in a previous letter (Linguistic Discrimination). Just for the record, the wording was unambiguous: "... what are the credentials that give Mr Gatt or Mr Pace a right to exhibit such offensive ingratitude to a public-spirited person?" Please note, Mr Pace, credentials are not necessary to write to the editor of The Times.