The debate on the standard of English written and spoken in Malta is really quite surrealistic. The huge elephant known as political expediency is sitting at the table and smirking at all and sundry but, still, nobody dares to point a finger.

While some politicians fret about the economic consequences of losing our bilingual status others spent the last 50 or 60 years instigating their supporters to jeer at anybody who would dare to use the English language in public. The victim would be publicly mocked with the title tal-pepe’ and the mockery occasionally escalated into blasphemy and even physical assault.

Simultaneously, some pseudo academics promoted the use of the Maltese language by attacking English users as being ‘cultural traitors’. Evidently, bilingualism was not an acceptable option for these language commandos.

Most of today’s adults, including many of our current school teachers, were brought up in this hostile environment where, willing or unwilling, they were not exposed to good English. Consequently, they are not in a position to pass on good use.

Chris Gatt, director of the St James Cavalier Centre for Creativity, clearly identified this problem in his recent interview (Sunday Times of Malta, January 12). He stated that Shakespeare has practically disappeared from the curriculum, in part because many teachers cannot understand the text.

The consequences of this hostile attitude to use of the English language in public, coupled with the population’s reluctance to read books in any language, are there for all to see.