Fear of Maltese words of Semitic origin

Amanda Mallia

Aug 7th 2008, 16:51

Karl Consiglio - Please don't tell me that you feel comfortable with the "Maltese" words xawer, hiter, xorz, gerzi, blEkbord, kuxin, etc.

Whatever next? Berrrrdej, skuwl (as in "Ejja ha' mmorru school" as is often heard outside the school gates), najs (as in "ghamillu "nice" id-doggy), menn (as in "ghamillu "bye" il-man"), xuwz (as in "kemm ghandek "shoes" sabih"), howmwerks (for homework, singular and plural)?

Are these not colloquialisms used by certain people too, and which have, unfortunately, become entrenched in our language? Would you feel comfortable should they be made officialy Maltese words too. I certainly wouldn't.

Alex Ellul

Aug 6th 2008, 15:50

@Joseph Micallef: How about ' lingwa' for 'ilsien'? I mean when we don't even use the right word for 'language' means that we have reached the nadir of our language bastardisation.

@Crocker: The Maltese language is not 'a.... bastard language from when an Arabic Dialect got mixed up with the Italian language ...' The Maltese language sees its semitic root since 2700 years or so ago, since when the Phoenicians (present day Lebanon/Syria) inhabited that islands. The few hundred years of Arab occupation just juxtaposed the maghrebite semitic on to the Maltese language of that time.

In fact, that could be the reason why the Maltese understood Paul of tarsus when he was shipwrecked in Malta on his way to Rome. Paul of tarsus was Syrian and the Maltese were Lebanese. His companion Luke described the Maltese as barbarians, since they did not speak either Roman or Greek, even though they were Roman citizens.

The Europeanisation of Malta of course had its great influence both in culture and language. It is a pity that we are using italian/english words when we still have semitic words that can be easily understood by all Maltese.

Joseph Micallef

Aug 5th 2008, 22:06

Mr. Ellul's contribution illustrates exactly what I had said earlier, ie, that some so called experts have a bias towards Maltese words of semitic origin. Quoting Mr. Ellul:
Kuluri instead of ilwien
blu instead of ikhal or izraq
lagi instead of ghadajjar
visita instead of zjara
bibita instead of xarba
panina instead of hobza/hbejza

What he is saying (with the exception of lagi) is that a word of semitic origin is Maltese but the one of Italian origin is not!! I said that lagi is an exception because you will only hear that in some traveling advert by who can't really speak Maltese or who just translate from Italian to Maltese in their own way! Lagi never existed before such adverts! We always refer to ghaddajjar when we meant lakes!

L Galea

Aug 5th 2008, 21:26

Fr Theuma
how about compiling a list of wrong words used in the media and listing their correct Maltese words and sending the list to the media?

I know this will be a difficult job since so many media writers and speakers bastardize so many words that it is difficult to keep track of them.

However, maybe they will then start to be a little more careful with what they write and say.

Maria Ferstl

Aug 5th 2008, 20:42

@Alex Ellul
What's bad about "bastard languages"? English is a bastard par excellence, wouldn't you agree? And still not "on its dead bed" though...

Karl Consiglio

Aug 5th 2008, 19:35

It doesn't matter, the point of language is communication. All this fuss about proper this and that is just an absurd invention, the language is still in a process of evolution.

Joseph Mizzi

Aug 5th 2008, 19:24

The term "whistleblower", according to Wikipedia, owes its origins to the English bobby's act of blowing the whistle when he observes a crime being committed, so as to alert his colleagues and the general public to the commission of the unlawful act.
Hence, no other word quoted in the examples of the letter and comments below really applies to this term.
I would refrain from looking for a word which describes what a whistleblower does, and seek to translate "ad litteram" the word "whistleblower" to something like "saffar" (which used to be written with a circumflex accent on the second "a") meaning "whistleblower". All the other words being suggested, whether they are of Semitic or Romance origin, have meanings similar, but not exactly identical, to what the word "whistleblower" actually conveys.

Antoine Cassar

Aug 5th 2008, 19:16

"A language is a dialect with an army and navy". Max Weinrich

Franco Farrugia

Aug 5th 2008, 17:42

@ M Crocker - 'There is no Generic Maltese Language... Maltese is a mix of Baby Arabic, Italian, bit of English & a tiny bit of French.' Man, stick to things that you know about!

Graham Crocker

Aug 5th 2008, 17:01

There is no Generic Maltese Language... Maltese is a mix of Baby Arabic, Italian, bit of English & a tiny bit of French.

err..Alex Ellul, Maltese has been a bastard language from when an Arabic Dialect got mixed up with the Italian language & turned into a language called Maltese *sigh*

What we had before was not a language, but a Dialect.
English->Arabic-> Maltese
better->ahsan->ahjar
dark->mothlem->mudlam
first->awwal->ewwel
short->qaseer->qasir

We're lucky we have a language, and not just another Arabic Dialect

victor zammit

Aug 5th 2008, 16:33

Any language will live and not die for the fact that it is spoken and generally written. How it is spoken (and written) is a related but distinct aspect which, in a way, is so well illustrated by this correspondence.

Maria Ferstl

Aug 5th 2008, 15:50

What I meant to say (sorry for not expressing it clearly enough): IMHO the reason why English loanwords are seen as less welcome is that, as the most recent part of the vocabulary, part of them have not (yet?) been completely integrated, and besides that it is more difficult for them to fit in due to the fact that the structure and phonetics of English do not have much in common with the preexisting layers of the Maltese language. On the other hand those who care about the Maltese language cannot but hate the omnipresent phenomenon of code switching. No wonder if those who love Maltese react emotionally to such bad use of English words. And as English loanwords are the most recent ones, it is not easy to draw the line where (unacceptable) code switching ends and (acceptable) borrowing begins.

laurie vella

Aug 5th 2008, 15:37

As a matter of fact whistleblower is an English invention, the word should be "INFORMER".
There is no pure Maltese as much as there is no pure English iether, to prove my point I ask anyone to open any page of an English language dictionary and look up any word to see where its orgin come from.

Alex Ellul

Aug 5th 2008, 15:28

The Maltese language is dead, or if not yet dead, its on its dead bed. If not why do I hear words like:

Nazzjonijiet Unit instead of Gnus Maghquda
Kuluri instead of ilwien
blu instead of ikhal or izraq
lagi instead of ghadajjar
visita instead of zjara
bibita instead of xarba
panina instead of hobza/hbejza


But the one that really insults our language is the use of lingwa for ilsien. Many time I hear 'il-lingwa Maltija' instead of 'l-ilsien Malti'. SHAME.

These are just a few that come to mind... If I had to keep a list of what I hear on the local radios and TV stations, I would fill a whole newspaper.

I believe that there is no hope for the Maltese language. In 100 years time it will be just a bastard language that would neither be Maltese, Italian or English. We might just as well forget about it and start speaking Italian or English, at least then we will not be a nation that speaks faulty Maltese, faulty English and faulty Italian.

Joseph Micallef

Aug 5th 2008, 14:32

@maria ferstl
Code switching is not what worries me most. Its the kind of language usually Hairdressers on the radio or tv speak. Using words like "nikkowmbjawh" (combing it), "niddrajjawh" (drying it), "nibbejdjawh" (bending it) etc when after all there are perfect Maltese alternatives which are as well very commonly used and which it seems only such people are not aware of!

Joseph Micallef

Aug 5th 2008, 13:32

@Lucy Calleja
"kixxief" although hardly used presently, would mean to me more like something similar to "investigator" than "wiehed li jikxef" ! The problem with the Maltese language is that we tend to use descriptions instead of single-worded terms. For us a whistleblower would be "wiehed li jmur jugza" or "wiehed li jmur jikxef" - but maybe some also use the single word "widna" figuratively nowadays. "Dak widna" would mean that the person is someone who evesdrops and then reports to third persons. Who knows maybe one day we would start using the word "widna" as whistleblower or maybe have a law passed called "Il-ligi tal-widna"!! The problem here is that such figurative terms tend to change meaning according to context!

Lucy Calleja

Aug 5th 2008, 12:37

Victor Zammit is spot on. The Macquarie dictionary enters new words by way of a scientific method. Most important in surveying people's understanding of a concept is a question's validity, and number of respondents for statistics. It wouldn't surprise me a majority of randomly selected respondents would use the word, "kixxief", for 'whistleblower'.

As village kids we used it in our childhood games. But then again, I'm not familiar with what the young generation, those who are too young to conceptually use the word 'whistleblower' in any language or context, would use to express their delight or otherwise at 'whistleblowing'.

Maria Ferstl

Aug 5th 2008, 12:28

@Joseph Micallef
IMHO the problem is not about well adapted words, whatever their origin, but about that awful code switching still common in Malta. Especially from experts in any field of science I would expect the ability to speak to us in one and only language whenever they appear in the media. (How can it be that nobody stops them to advise them to repeat their statements in proper Maltese?)

victor zammit

Aug 5th 2008, 12:11

Correctly the Latin is 'denuntiare' (to give official information, to send a message). Whether it is apt for 'whistleblower' is a moot point in terms of the descriptive/prescriptive approach. Prescriptively the advice from the competent authority when it comes to enacting a law in this respect, as in similar matters, is both desireable and, one hopes, accepted.

Joseph Micallef

Aug 5th 2008, 11:45

I had pointed this out in the online comments here when Joe Felice Pace had showed preference for "denunzjatur" as the maltese equivalent for "whistleblower" - I had immediately corrected him that both "akkuzatur" and "denunzjatur" derive from Italian (or Latin). The problem according to me is the opposite as to what Fr. Theuma is saying, ie, that so called scholars and so called experts of Maltese language seem to have an unexplained and unjust bias for words with semitic roots and tend to snob words having italian or other origins. Some still even talk about some kind of "pure Maltese" which does not exist because as we all know words are either of semitic, romance (italian) or even germanic (English) origin - so where's the purity. The Maltese language is what it is, ie a mixture of derived words, and trying to marginalize any one of them would be simple prejudice.

Joseph Buhagiar

Aug 5th 2008, 11:18

The only word with a semitic origin used in this letter is xilja. The rest are all italian words.

Denunzjatur comes from the latin word denunziare

Akkuza also comes from the latin word accusare.

But in my opinion none of them mean whistleblower.

victor zammit

Aug 5th 2008, 10:01

But one has also to distinguish between the descriptive and prescriptive approaches to language.

Franco Farrugia

Aug 5th 2008, 09:17

Fr Teuma is an excellent academic and his knowledge of the Semitic languages know no bounds.
He is right. When we search for glossaries and terminology, we try to find the Semitic origin of a term or word. Failing which, we move on to the Italian language; THEN, on to the English language.
Fr Teuma is a great scholar and his opinion should be noted with care and his advice considered.