Some weeks ago, The Times's Fiona Galea Debono interviewed the aptly-called DJ Caesar about 'his' new perfume. He came across as dead serious about it, quite unaware that he was being taken for a bit of a ride.

Typical, some would say, of the Maltese public sphere, where self-deprecation, spoof, and parody are unknown, and where 'personalities' react to satire by phoning their lawyer - provided they realise it's satire at all. We have no Private Eye to poke fun at the who's who, our cartoons are fairly sanitised, and our carnival a staid and depressingly-unfunny scramble for official trophies (this is also trophy island, but more on that some other time).

At first glance, then, Malta and humour do not mix. And yet we know that the contrary is also the case. Somewhere just beneath the veneer of straight faces lies a world of indigenous wit and fun. The Maltese - and quite untranslatable - word for it is 'nejk', and there is plenty of it around.

Possibly the best places to experience nejk are the village bars and clubs where banter, jokes, and jestful blasphemy are the order of the day. I had to struggle to explain this to an English friend the other day; for her, as for so many people who have lived here for years without learning the language, Malta is the rounds of solemn letters they read daily in The Times.

Which rather begs the question why all the nejk rarely makes it into the public sphere, at any rate in writing. Part of the answer, I think, is language. It is not just that we are generally not fluent enough to be witty in English. That may well be, but there is a more important case to be made for a historical and still very relevant division of labour between Maltese and English.

To quote a practical example: I once lived next door to a nice young couple who, as it happened, seldom used Maltese. She had gone to Sacred Heart (pronounced 'haaht', irrespective of how the rest of the sentence is pronounced), he was ambitious and aspiring, so they spoke English. Until one fine evening and one right row, when I realised just how rich their (and especially her) Maltese vocabulary was. I would imagine their nejk was in Maltese too, but let's not go there. Surely a couple deserve a private giggle.

So, it's rows and laughs in Maltese, English the rest of the time. Which rather tends to strengthen the linguistic nationalists' case that Maltese is 'our' language while English is not really. In other words, that we use English artificially and Maltese authentically. Both are official languages but only Maltese is national.

In fact, I find the whole idea of a national language very off-putting indeed. National languages are rather like some sort of favoured and spoilt child, indulged and overfed to the disadvantage of their siblings. They make for state meddling, usually via rent-seeking brokers, into how we should 'properly' speak 'in our country'. And for the occasional pathetic spectacle of Maltese politicians in Brussels throwing tantrums for lack of interpreters.

Rather, I see Maltese and English as equally 'ours', because both are very commonly used in Malta and both draw on deep historical roots.

There is, however, at least one important difference. English is the language of officialdom, Maltese that of nejk and such. This doesn't mean that they are fixedly so, or that the boundary is neat. (And, admittedly, a fuller discussion would have to factor in class.) The general division of labour, however, holds.

It is interesting and perhaps ironic that Dun Karm, in his poem Ghaliex? (Why?), seems to propose exactly this distinction. For him, the essence of the Maltese language, and therefore the reason why we should treasure it, lies in its use as a means to express emotions: "thus did your heart speak its joy, your sadness find words" (my translation).

Maltese is the language of the heart - which presumably leaves some room for those of the mind. Had Dun Karm not become linked to the 'national cause', his career as a poet could well have transformed him into 'Fr Carmel' - or, better still, 'Dun Kaahm'.

Linguistic nationalists will eat me alive for this. They will say that this is precisely the division of labour we need to overcome. True to their 18th-century forebears, they will say that Maltese needs to be 'elevated' above the vernacular. My retort is that it is precisely the mixing and switching that makes it 'Maltese' - the language and its social context, that is.

But back to humour. Partly the reason why we find it so hard to write, or even to understand, nejk in English, is that English to us generally means serious business, with little room for humour. The minute something is said, even more so written down, in English, its meaning is officialised and sterilised into a staid business-speak. One might add that we also link English historically to the civil service, which is not exactly renowned for its feats of double entendre.

Had The Times been a Maltese-language newspaper, I think DJ Caesar would have seen through its nejk and kept in mind that women may smile at one for a number of disparate reasons. And I wouldn't have received so many e-mails last week asking me if I knew that Entropa was a spoof.

mafalzon@hotmail.com