The Europeanisation and internationalisation of Maltese has now been established with the setting up of the International Association of Maltese Linguistics (Ghaqda Internazzjonali tal-Lingwistika Maltija) at the University of Bremen, during a recently held conference on Maltese linguistics.
The association's first meeting took place during the conference, held at the Maritim Hotel in Bremen, on October 19. Over 50 scholars from Malta, Ireland, Germany, Israel, Japan, France, Italy and the US attended the conference which discussed a wide range of themes dealing with grammar.
Opening the conference proceedings, Thomas Stolz, Professor of Linguistics at the University of Bremen, said the association's aim was to stimulate the study of Maltese. It would strive to create other university centres of the language outside Malta. This in turn would lead to networking between scholars and researchers from many quarters.
The association needed to become known among the scientific linguistic community, and it was therefore planned that it would have its journal, in English, with Maltese abstracts of its content. Its first venture in the publishing field would be the proceedings of the Bremen conference.
A steering committee was then elected unanimously. Thomas Stolz was appointed as the first president, while Manwel Mifsud, chairman of the Kunsill tal-Malti and Professor of Maltese at the University of Malta, Bernard Comrie and Martine Vanhove, two internationally-renowned scholars, and Ray Fabri from the University of Malta's Department of Linguistics, were appointed as vice-presidents. The committee is to draft the association's rules and regulations and submit them electronically to all members.
Andreas Ammann, who was the conference's organisational kingpin, was nominated as the association's secretary.
Prof. Wilfried Müller, University of Bremen rector, said that they were honoured to have the new association located at their university. It was their aim to promote Maltese as an EU language by means of study and research.
As an independent discipline, said Prof. Müller, Maltese was now emancipating itself from Oriental Studies.
He also recalled that since the end of the 1990s Bremen had exchanged students with the University of Malta, and now the ties would be strengthened through this new initiative.
Prof. Mifsud said that, like any other people, the Maltese were proud of their language. "Maltese is our language because it was on that small island, in the middle of a ruled population, that the Arabic dialect took the shape of a small language, small but complete, with characteristics which set it apart from every other language in Europe."
He affirmed that Maltese studies "is also the heritage of humanity and of the European continent. Its status as an official language of the EU means that "we have to work to make Maltese accessible to whoever is interested in it," and that "we have to strive so that Maltese will enjoy the same means, reach the same level and be subjected to the same rigorous criteria of analysis as other languages. We have to open up the frontiers of isolation."
The holder of the Chair of Maltese spoke of the old ties Germany had with the Maltese language. In fact, "the Germans were among the first to show interest in it and, with great difficulty, to shed the first ray of light and open up the way in which we are proceeding today". He recalled Megiser, Maius, Gesenius, Sandreczki, Stumme, Ilg, Nöldeke and, in our times, Schabert, Lüdtke and the late "and beloved" Kontzi.
"The new Ghaqda is a coronation of centuries of useful work and research, and this honour has come to Bremen."
Maltese Ambassador to Germany, Jean Paul Grech, said that it was gratifying to acknowledge that this international gathering was focusing on the Maltese language and engaging in scholarly discussion on its characteristics, its place in linguistic geography, its changing role as an EU language and its future.
"That Maltese is being academically investigated by an international league of linguistic experts, in a northern German university, on the initiative of a German professor of linguistics who accidentally fell in love with Maltese while on a relatively accidental vacation in Malta, who speaks and writes to me in the Maltese language and who has taken the courageous decision to lay the foundations of an association of Maltese linguistics within the University of Bremen, is indeed unbelievable, yet undoubtedly happening," said Mr Grech.
He described the day as "a symbolic gesture of appreciation for our forefathers who, throughout the past centuries, toiled against all forms of political and cultural resistance in order to give status, dignity and respect for the Maltese language and elevate its rank both nationally and internationally."