'Spoked' English

She shook her head expressively, and then dug her chin into her chest, avoiding looking at the camera. I shuddered.

This tiny girl had just been asked whether either of her parents spoke Maltese (her father did); whether she knew how to talk in the vernacular (she did not); and whether she would like to learn Maltese to be able to speak to her father (this is when she shook her head).

This week, without paying particular attention to the stations on which the clips I shall mention were broadcast, I have been following the way language is used on television, a medium that is supposed to educate and inform as well as entertain.

The aforementioned interview was only one of many; and inevitably, we also had a spate of replies that regurgitated the 'fact' that English is the international language in which (most) local textbooks are written, and which was understood by many people in foreign lands.

Ironically, none of the interviewees realised that they were indicating they did not understand English - for the researcher was asking in which language the interviewee preferred to speak.

In another programme, describing a particular method of learning English, we were shown the teaching aids used to help children absorb the teaching better. These included the soft toys ironically called Geru and Zringa, written in the English alphabet but pronounced the Maltese way.

On several occasions, even the teachers themselves were heard using wrong constructions based on Maltese syntax. This is what their students will have learnt also at the end of the day.

This went on throughout the week. In both the Junior Eurovision Contest (TVM) and the Junior Live Festival (One), children were mispronouncing English and mumbling words of some songs they ought not to have been singing anyway, given the subject matter. At least we were spared this mortification in Kanzunetta Indipendenza, because the singers, who are older and presumably wiser, used the vernacular and kept to a common theme. This is not to say they actually knew how to sing, however.

It must have been dinned into the minds of some of the children that the less Maltese their words sounded, the better their English would be. This is the type of logic that bombs; especially when the enunciation of syllables is not clear and the accent is less than mediocre. There are two possible solutions to this: the children may sing in their mother tongue, or they may learn how to do it properly in their second language.

On to children's programmes, where the excuse continues that you cannot 'mind your language' in live broadcasts to such an extent that our children have to sit there and be insulted by the likes of Jittravelja and Jippuxxja.

This type of contortion is always present in the same magazine and music programmes. Therefore, I wonder what the Maltese language consultants in these particular radio and television stations are doing to stop the rot.

Arthur Schopenhauer was fond of saying that talent hits a target no one else can hit but genius hits a target no one else can see. Sir Max Beerbohm (www.worldofquotes.com/author/Sir-Max-Beerbohm/1/index.html) could be relied upon to reply that only mediocrity can be trusted to be always at its best.

It is a moot point, however, whether sportscasters are worse offenders than the TV personalities who prepare food and cook it, whether or not they bother to remove jewellery and tie back their hair, or wear silicone gloves to give the subliminal message that they run a clean kitchen.

I, for one, am fed up of being told I have to chop tomatoes and onions into kaxxi żgħar. I know for a fact that herbs, cucumbers, olives, capers and olive oil have authentic Maltese equivalent words. I do not want my sauce riduċjat, my vegetables stimjati¸ or my fish iggrilljat either, and I have always assumed that there is a difference between meraq and zalza, just as there is a difference between rokna and kantuniera.

Inevitably, we must touch upon the way news bulletins are written. Let's not forget that in one session, 'Palin' may be pronounced in up to three different ways.

Some journalists appear to cull most items from American sites such as CNN, and go on to translate them verbatim. So the construction of the sentences leaves much to be desired, even though a particular bulletin may be more interesting than those broadcast on other stations (or even totally different except for a few items of local importance). The excuse, on this occasion, is that they are pressed for time; a rationalisation that does not hold water, because being adept at a language means you can interpret as well as translate.

There is also the quirk of quoting the source at the end of a news item, which means that the end of the sentence falls flat, and what we would have assumed to have been fact may often be the opinion of a particularly biased columnist in a particularly biased newspaper or newsmagazine. Of course, a named journal beats the hackneyed "sorsi infurmati tajjeb" any day, but "...il-ġurnal Washington Post qal" just doesn't sound right at the end of a sentence, and is probably not correct either.

Moving on, it has become normal for each drama series to be wrought more expansive through the airing of a teaser, "The making of...", or a grand opening at a cinema complex, or the sale of DVDs and other merchandising.

Tomorrow, Net TV will be broadcasting the Anteprima of Is-Siġill tal-Qrar, at 8.30 p.m. It will include clips from the series (which are also on Youtube), out-takes, and interviews.