Thursday, 5th November 2009 - 14:49CET
Teaching of Maltese abroad to be given importance
The rights and interests of Maltese emigrants will be discussed at the third Convention of Maltese Living Abroad which will be hosted by the Foreign Ministry in March.
Foreign Minister Tonio Borg said today that the three-day-conference would discuss the progress and developments registered during the last convention ten years ago as regards protection of the rights and interests of Maltese living abroad. It should also serve as a spring board for initiatives for the future.
The minister said that a considerable number of ideas and suggestions had been put forward by organisations and associations representing Maltese abroad. The organising committee would be giving due importance to participation by youths in order to secure a convention which looked not only to the past and the present but also to the future.
He pointed out that liberalisation of the nationality law had guaranteed access to Maltese citizenship to any person, wherever he was born, who could prove a relationship in the direct line with any person of Maltese nationality born in Malta.
The focus now was on education and learning.
“We should strive to enhance and expand the teaching of the Maltese language abroad, as well as instruction in Maltese history and the peculiarities, traditions and folklore of our nation,” the minister said.
This will be the third Convention for the Maltese living abroad. The first was held in 1969 and the second in 2000
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Comments
2. English is a 'foreign' language for most of us - it is not our first language. It is an official language but not 'our' language. As we are both speaking a foreign language it is a question of mutual respect. Do you seriously think that if I spoke an official language of Belgium in Flanders, one that is foreign to me (French), people will respect me for it? Probably not. You'll tell me the situation is different there - but it is different everywhere if we want it to be. It is a lucky position you are in- being in a country where you are not pressured into learning the everyday local language but can just speak an international one (not my case in Belgium). We're cool with it, but just remember it's a privilege very few 'immigrants' worldwide enjoy...
Maltese is also written using the Latin alphabet, just like German and French, sa simple examlpes. Furthermore, consider my name - Jessus Mondus !!!
This message is also intended to all those who read the articles on the Times of Malta,but unfortunately never comment !!!
Whether something is a language or a dialect, or official or not is fairly arbitrary. German and Dutch used to be a continuum, slowly changing as you move eastwards. Then the big idea of nation states was born and official languages came into place, but standard Dutch is based on the Holland (not the same as the Netherlands!) and Brabant dialects. This is a reason why the Limburgish dialects - there's no standard language, but they DO have official status - are so different from Dutch, both in different grammar and vocabulary. So don't call it a patois if you don't know what you're talking about.
But I simply CANNOT learn Maltese. Probably it's because it's not a Centum language; the basics are so different from everything I've learned (Dutch, German, English, French, Latin and Greek) that my mind can't make sense of it. Yet, despite never having learnt Italian, I sort-of understand the written form.
As for respect, that is something that everybody has to earn. I'm speaking a foreign language 98% of the time, and I seem to get very little respect for that.
Maltese is not a bridge language. It is a whole language by its own right. It is our NATIONAL language and all other languages are FOREIGN. We do expect foreigners who come to Malta to speak Maltese. After all they choose to come and live in Malta. Nobody sent for them. The least they can do is to reciprocate our courtesy of allowing them to live here in OUR country by learning our language.
J.Mifsud
The NATIONAL language is MALTESE. That is OUR language. English is a FOREIGN language imposed upon us by our ex-colonial power.
Ir-risposta kienet li l-Ingliz hija ukoll il-lingwa ufficjali ta' Malta u min jikteb bl-Ingliz ghandu d-dritt li jinghata risposta bl-Ingliz.... x'ghandu x'jaqsam??? Sfortunatament ghad hawn min ghadu jrid ikasbar il-Malti. Hija skuza banali li l-lingwa Ingliza hija lingwa ufficjali taghna. Il-lingwa Ingliza kienet imposta fuqna ghax il-Malti kienu ferm qabel l-Ingliz. Mela qabel ma noqgodu niftahru li rridu naghlmu l-Malti barra minn Malta, ejjew nuzaw il-Malti hawn.
I have no problem with the initiative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. But before we proceed, what kind of Maltese language are foreign residents going to be taught? Do we have an official, authoritative and expert institution that is really taking care of our language, as is the case in several other countries?
Several years ago, the Department of Information used to have a whole complement of personnel who could really speak and write in Maltese? What is the position now? Who checks the level of the Maltese language at the Office of the Attorney General?
Taking a look at some of the Maltese translations of official EU documents, and a few instances in some of the language used in Maltese legislation – forgetting for a moment the colourful language sometimes used at our Law courts – it appears that we need to take our language seriously from the very top. Who is checking what is appearing in our Maltese dictionaries?
I am aware that language is a living process but taking the easiest way out and using Italian and British derivatives and strange spelling for Maltese words that already exist is eroding our language.
Considering that Malta did not impose its language upon any other foreign country, please simply forget the pragmatic approach here. The thank you or how kind of you, kind of thing.
Very very simple really, on grounds of INGERATION and RESPECT, yes, I expect one living in Malta to learn Maltese, the language that my mother speaks who barely speaks English. What language my mother speaks is a very very very important argument here, should one has the intellectual competence of LOGIC. I am not speaking of any emotions here, Mr. Korsten.
Mr. Korsten, with regards to your 99.99% of Europe, I am not the kind of person that uses statistics or whatever or words like us or we, but simply I speak for my self as a MALTESE INDIVIDUAL.
I speak 4 languages fluently, German is one of them, and I am proud that I can speak the same language that Sophie and Max Schol spoke, as a very clever example.
As a human being with compassion towards others I wish your son the very best of Health, the whole world has to offer considering his condition.
Thank you very much.
I don't think that the British people living here should bother to learn the Maltese language If they don't want to. Malta is a free country and the English language is one of Malta's two official languages.
When I lived near the linguistic border (on the French-speaking side) in Belgium I was expected to speak Dutch if I crossed this 'border' - even if it was just a few metres away and despite being a 'temporary' resident (on a short-term job contract). Even Flemings in Brussels (a small minority) would sometimes refuse to speak French, expecting me to know both national languages.
Fortunately I believe that this isn't the case in Malta - most Maltese are linguistically open-minded and I know WAY more expats (who have lived here for many years) who don't speak a single word of Maltese than those who do. Still, knowing a few basic words would probably be appreciated and would be a nice ice-breaker in my opinion... but we won't push you into doing it.
Please dont mix up Limburgish, which is a NOT in any way an official language, with Maltese, which IS. Of course if you want to live here and not learn the language it is up to you. It is true, as you said, that most Maltese speak English. However in your place I would feel I am missing a lot regarding life in Malta if I cannot follow things which the Maltese say and talk about in their daily life, or if i cannot follow what's going on in the media. I would be at least a bit curious.
You said you tried to learn. The thing is, since we Maltese are brought up to automatically change to English when meeting a foreigner, this very thing makes learning our language difficult. SInce you have an easy way out (use of English), you of course use it. That is the reason you find learning difficult. Yes, the Maltese language is difficult, but, believe me, not much more difficult than German or Dutch are to us!
Well, like our son. Because he has high-functioning autism and therefore speaking is difficult for him, we figured that he'd better learn English, and after that we'd see.
Having said that, Maltese is one of his favourite subjects in school.
Well, where I come from they speak Limburgish, which is a bridge language between Dutch and German), which enjoys some form of semi-official status. It's also spoken by considerably many more people than Maltese is spoken, but nobody would expect you to speak it if you moved there. (Mind, some of them do, even immigrants from Muslim countries.)
So what's the point of expecting foreigners to speak Maltese? It's certainly not easier for the foreigners, and since most Maltese speak excellent English, there's no point to it either - unless you consider some misplaced sense of chauvinism as a valid point.
Another issue is that Maltese is completely alien to most foreigners, other than Arabs. Trust me, I've tried, and I've got quite a knack for languages, but I just cannot wrap my head around Maltese.
Given that over 99.9% of the European population is not Maltese and presumably doesn't speak the language either, it's probably best to just take a pragmatic approach and admire those who learn Maltese, but don't expect them to.
Like Mr. Scerri of Canada, I could have written this in perfectly adequate Maltese - in spite of, or maybe because of, half a century away - but I'll let it pass for today. In my youth we were sticklers for language. What happened? Shame on all who denigrate what's truly ours.
What was the outcome of the previous conventions?
The Ministry's web page does not even list all the non-career consular offices in Canada, and the ones in San Francisco are inaccurate. Outreach, to the Maltese communities abroad and to individuals interested in our country, starts at home.
For goodness' sake, people who live abroad don't need to be taught Maltese. If you live abroad, you barely use the Maltese language and you would be wrong to use the language as a pretext to create some kind of community. Stick to the language they speak there, I say. And let us avoid creating ethnic groups, etc ...
What's in all this talk for me?
If this were a Maltese paper I would have written in Maltese - used to teach the language in Malta before I left!
Please see my website: http://www.malta-canada.com/
John N Scerri