The council for the Maltese language, Kunsill tal-Malti, is still discussing regulations and it should not be blamed if Maltese adaptations of English words do not go down well with the public, according to its president.

Manwel Mifsud was contacted after a series of photos from a picture book for toddlers went viral, to the disgust of many who said the Maltese language was being butchered.

Examples of the offending words include tepot, dungarì, scrunchie and ħendbeg.

The book, L-Ewwel 1000 Kelma u Stampa Tiegħi, published in 2012 by Miller Publications, drew the attention of social media users when it was added to a school reading list this year.

It is a translation of an English version and took three months of work by a Maltese language teacher and a qualified translator.

Head of publishing at Miller’s, Joe Borg, insisted the book was not a dictionary or a textbook but a pre-school picture book.

The problem, he said, was that there were several opinions about how words should be written in Maltese.

“Who is going to decide whether we should use ‘shower’, the Italianised doċċa, or xawer?” he asked.

Noting that Maltese language regulations were still being discussed, Mr Borg questioned what a publisher was meant to do in the meantime.

“We are always open to opinion and the book will be revised if it is reprinted and there are any developments in the language.

“But I think the issue is being blown out of proportion... I am still waiting for someone to provide me with rules on how to write in Maltese today,” he said.

Meanwhile, online commentators criticised the Kunsill tal-Malti for what they perceive are the conclusions it has reached on words that have crept into the Maltese language. But Prof. Mifsud said that the council, which works on a voluntary basis, was still discussing the regulations. It was unfair to criticise it as it had not reached or published any conclusions.

The official regulations drawn up in the 1980s say that if a word is used frequently in Maltese conversation, it should be written in Maltese phonemics.

I’m still waiting for someone to provide me with rules on how to write in Maltese today

However, if it did not look good and did not go down well with the Maltese, it should be italicised and written in English.

“This is the writer’s choice at the end of the day, but the responsibility should not be thrown on the council,” Prof. Mifsud insisted. Boots, for instance, could be written in English, or as buz, while jersey could be written ġerżi (as in the book).

These two words have been adapted by the language so often that they even have the plurals: bwiez and ġerżijiet, he said.

The book also refers to picture-frame as frejm instead of inkwatru.

Prof. Mifsud said that although picture-frame should be referred to as inkwatru, frejm might have to be used when referring to spectacles.

The council was studying which words could be written in Maltese phonemics and which had to be written in English, which was “not an easy job”.

A member of the English-Speaking Union of Malta, Martin Scicluna, noted that major languages like French, English or Italian borrowed foreign words but left them as foreign words.

Maltese had evolved and had to borrow a lot of modern words.

Asked about the effect this was having on children’s Englishpronunciation, he said it was leading to “total confusion”, but reiterated that all languages evolved and borrowed words from each other.

Social media users also targeted book publishers, saying they were contri-buting to the slaughter of the national language.

Director of Publishing at Merlin Publishers, Chris Gruppetta, said the conversation should have been about the standards of the book.

Describing it as “not up to standard”, he compared the situation to blaming the whole food industry following a bad experience in one restaurant.

“Before we publish a book, especially if it’s a children’s book, we carry out extensive research that could take up to 18 months.”

Since the book that had been lambasted online was a co-edition, some words, which did not have a common Maltese word, could not be left out, boiler suit and scrunchie, being two such examples. A home-grown picture book would not include these words,­ he said.

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