Google Malta hacked

I have to agree with Mr. Fenech and disagree with this exaggerated and virulent false patriotism. I find us Maltese in general can exhale nothing much better than hot air ready to beat our chest for Malta but doing absolutely nothing in practice. To me a quick look around shows the true face of this hypocritical attitude. Valletta crumbles, roads a mess and a destroyed environment. There is a general sense of neglect and job half done whereever one goes.

The "language" is in the same manner very poorly taken care of so I do not understand why this patriotism if fewer books are bought to encourage writers. Not to mention that knowing Maltese is not going to take you far around the world anyway much the same as Irish or Welsh would.

English borrows words from other languages but certainly not 60% from one language and 25% from another + 15% from disparate countries. Let us be honest you call that a language or again a poor mish-mash?

I do feel bad for the likes of Guze Diacono, Francis Ebejer and Profs Friggieri that have done wonders with it but since them once again a job half done.

@Samuel Borg

Although you are not Joe Borg like me i found 5 Samuel Borg on the directory.

Will you just stop at arguing if Malta actually has a language. YES, Malta does have a language and I was lucky enough to hear it being spoken between my father and a farmer in the outskirts of Qrendi at Mnajdra at a place called " Il- Misqa ". This word means: A place where you can find water.

It is true that the Maltese langauge has been bustardised but there is still hope. I suggest that the Malta University should send out language students to vedio tape and catalogue old farmers speaking the mother tongue. Maybe you should involve National Geographic and the EU. B'l-ghagla kollha li ghankhom biex tilhqu ghal quddiem, qtajtu il-hbula li jorbtukhom ma missierijitna.

Nies, jien nitkellem bil-Malti KULJUM.

Kif ghditilkom: pruvaw iktbu artiklu tekniku bil-Malti minghajr ma tghawwgu kliem barrani u taraw...

Il-Malti XI DARBA ghad isir lingwa imma ghalissa ghadu qed jevolvi!

Fans ta' Kilin? Tal-genn!! Tisthajlikx qed taqra xi Harold Pinter jew xi Goethe!

Folklor, folklor, folklor u mentalita insulari insomma...

Caw!

My friends, thank you for your replies to Joe Fenech. How about you try and stick to one language, Mr. Fenech? Maybe you can get at least one right.

It is clear he doesn't have a clue as to what he's saying.

We can all agree that Maltese is a language, and that it is indeed a beautiful one. Writing its vocabulary on a bus ticket? That's preposterous, and a claim that only an illiterate or an uninformed foreigner would make.

Insignificant rock you say? It would be if it was populated by your kind! Just because your life is a pathetic void doesn't mean that the rest of us are insignificant. Most of us lead happy, productive lives and Maltese workers, from the manual labourer to the artist and the professional, are all valued immensely by foreigners and foreign companies.

@Joe Fenech

Maltese IS a language. Learn Arabic, and you'll realise what a truly rich language we have, and though similar to arabic, is as unique as it is similar. If we are losing it, it is our fault, and we shouldn't blame Maltese as not being a language just to make ouselves feel better!

To everyone
I'm a Samuel Borg but it wasn't me who did this. I was informed this morning about it and i was surprised.

Mr. Fenech should be ashamed of himself. The Maltese language is alive and kicking and thats why a lot of "bastard Italianisms and Anglicanisms" come into it ... just because it is constantly evolving. I am living in the UK and I feel proud when I tell my colleagues that a country of less than 400,000 people has a language with proper grammatical rules and everything else that constitutes a language.

Mr. Fenech trying to ridicule people like Kilin and others who spent their whole life promoting our language ... pfff!

P.S. CUQLAJTA is written with a C

@Joe Fenech

By your definition, Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan, and Galician are not languages, but dialects of each other or of Latin because they all share words with common origins.

I know you are not a linguist, but maybe you should publish a book on your ideas. You never know. You might end up getting an honorary PhD for your contributions to the subject.

As a final point to consider, the indian tribes of Guatemala speak a total of around 21 different languages. I'm sure you can't use these languages to write up legal documents, but they are languages nontheless.

To Joe Fenech,
I have been totally amazed by your free lesson regarding the Maltese language which you referred as a dialect as you have discovered this in your profession where you use 5 languages.
Tell you what I challenge you the write the Maltese vocabulary on a bus ticket as you stated.
Once you do that then please do show us your labour of love.
Carry on, enlighten us and entertain us!

@Joe Fenech: By any chance did you fail in a maltese exam or something of that sort? Because you are giving the impression that the maltese language made you suffer.

Mr. Fenech, why don't you publish your observations .... ah well I forgot it's common sense; guess it would be useless - everybody knows all about them already! Most probably Matthew, M.Cutajar and I must be within the minority then, since we haven't been enlightened yet :).

I am very concerned about the security offered by sites that have some maltese connection.

I have noticed that as soon as i give my e-mail address to someone in Malta, I start receiving huge amounts of spam, which is symptomatic of servers lacking in proper firewalls and security software.

I totally agree with Alex, and just some info to show how wrong are your critera of how to select what is a language and what is not! The following are examples of words borrowed in English: buffet(french), pizza(italian), algebra(arabic), fahrenheit(german), barracuda(spanish), ... I can give you an endless list of words in other languages which are used in English in everyday life. According to your conclusions, is English a 'proper' language? It would be better to not speak and let people think you are ignorant, than to speak and confirm it!!! The richness of the maltese language lies in tha fact that large countries such as Australia, America and others don't have their own, while we do, a language built in over 2000 years of history.

Alex and Matthew: where does the richness of the Maltese language lie? In its 'refined' literature, its expressions, its precision???? Stop this ludicrous patriotism! How could an insignificant rock that has made no contributions to art, literature, commerce, etc have a sophisticated language? You do not need to be a linguist to realise: you need common sense. The laughable use of language found in the technical EU documents are a proof of the inadequacies of Maltese as a language. Now you can carry on defending the Maltese 'language'...fine. Waste your time!

@Jill French just as a matter of interest or curiosity why do we need to have an English version of google? whats is wrong with the Maltese translation, we have our own language you know and i have you know that we are proud of the MALTESE LANGUAGE AND OUR HERITAGE. So Please do me a favour and keep your English version to yourself, this happens to be Malta and as far as i am concerned English although it is widely spoken apart from Italian its our second language and i for one prefer my own, its our birth right. Marion Cutajar- Maltese Language teacher.

@Joe Fenech : You seem to be in a very good position to judge what constitutes a language and what doesn't, since (as you rightfully said ) - are not a linguist. As Matthew said, you might want to check out the history of some of the other languages you use professionally before making such a statement and possibly have something concrete with which you can substantiate your arguments. Might I add that it is a pity that the dodo wasn't as sharp as you are, who knows... it might still be around with us today.

To Joe Fenech: I admit that maltese is a mixture of a lot of languages, but so is English. In fact, English is probably the language with the most borrowed words from another language ("lingwa imlaqqta"), and that is what makes it rich and universal! Saying that maltese is not a proper language because of this fact is one of the most stupid comments I have ever heard. If you comment, at least make some semi-intelligent observations!!

Alex Farrugia: I had no doubt that someone would come up with such comments! Typing mistakes are not language mistakes, dodo! I'm not a linguist, but I use professionally 5 languages. A language is considered a language when it has a broad vocabulary and a strong literature. What's our literature?: poems by Dun Karm and Ruzar Briffa; Leli ta' Haz-Zghir???!!!! U eeeejja - f'gieh kemm hemm!!! Common sense is what is required to realise that Maltese is not a language. I wasn't snubbing Maltese AT ALL! Nammettuha darba ghal dejjem l-ahwa! Maltese is not a language! Araw dawk l-artikli ta' l-EU u artikli professjonali - kollha tghawwig u gebbid ta' Taljan, Franciz u Ingliz!!! Ghaliex nippruvaw nitqanzhu biex nuzaw il-Malti fejn dan mhux addattat?

@Joe Fenech... I suggest that you learn how to write both in Maltese, and in English - before passing such comments :).

Why do we need Google in the 'lingwa kuqlajta'. Maltese is fine as an everyday language, but let's face it : you can write down it's vocabulary on a bus ticket. Try and write some sophisticated or technical text without the bastard Italianisms and Anglicanisms we constantly employ! Let's love Maltese for what it is: a humble dialect that reflects these humble tiny islands.

If this is "hacking", then topping up your car's water makes you a car designer.

Google, like many other sites, provides the means for people to translate its text. It's a perfectly simple online form which shows you the text in English and you can provide the Maltese text - or any other language for that matter. No hacking involved anywhere. Other sites like Wikipedia and Facebook provide similar facilities. It's perfectly easy to go into the translation page and change the text into anything you want. Few of them take the trouble to have the changes proofread by others, hence the occasional mischief.

It's not hacking, it's more like electronic graffiti.

@Gianni Xuereb

Hold your horses there. Google, in a bid to cut down on costs and to avoid paying for professional translation services, provides any volunteer with the tools to translate the English UI (user interface) text for any of the supported foreign languages. Some prankster simply abused that service and his/her suggested change somehow went live, despite there being a moderation process in place.*

Lest we forget, an identical incident had already taken place on Google Malta on Tuesday, April 5, 2005. The change back then just happened to include an obscene Maltese phrase replacing "Fittex bil-Google".

* For the record, nowadays it's become a rather common practice for localised social networking sites like Facebook and Hi5 to operate a similar translation service open to volunteers. The only difference is that suggested translations are first vetted by other volunteers who are native speakers of the language. This way, through what is known as the Wisdom of Crowds, pranks and inaccurate translations are likely to be nipped in the bud. Google's draconian system does not permit native speakers to vote on suggested translations, hence the increased likelihood of these incidents happening.

In my blog (http://www.jamesattard.com/2009/04/google-maltese-site-prank.html) I explain in detail how the prank was made and how I put back the original format.

I wouldn't define this as a hack with all due respect....it's a plain simple prank which could be done by anyone. In layman terms, Google relies its translation of its services in other languages by volunteers rather than by appointed translators. I'm actually surprised why we don't see similar pranks on a regular basis since they are barely moderated.

How can I find who this Samuel Borg is????

It is not difficult at all to "hack" Google. All you need to do is subscribe as a translator and you get access to all the text. At least according to this article:

http://www.dailymalta.com/wt/2005/04/google-malta-hacked-analysis.html

So, no, Mr Xuereb, don't put your hopes up too high. I know the industry since I work in it. On one thing you were right though: companies are not securing their networks. Makes the life of hackers much easier.

Come on people, this was done using the google translate project.
http://www.google.com/transconsole/

April's fool came late!

Who the hell is Samuel Borg???

It amazes me that there are people out there who have nothing better to do with their time than wasting it on hacking google!! What sort of satisfaction do they get out of something like this? Unbelievable!

Why google text in Maltese in any road, surely 99.9% of the Maltese can read plain English or not? Mrs. Jill French

There are some really smart people out there and they are MALTESE! Managing to hack Google is no easy feat. That one sentence says a lot! (I am Maltese and I managed to hack Google homapage) Imagine how easier it is for them to play around with corporate and govt. servers, most of them poorly secured! It's unbelievable in 2009 how some companies are relying on unsecure, outdated software. Some IT administrators just suck :S

I guess that would be someone they just wanted to make fun of or an invented name lol

Who is Samuel Borg by the way?

Can anyone inspire me?