Ġaħan, Bendu Muscat, Martin il-Kaċċatur and their fellow characters, lifted from Maltese literary folklore, are coming to life at this year ’s Malta Arts Festival thanks to a collaboration between The Big Band Brothers and a creative linguist. Michael Spagnol speaks to Veronica Stivala.
About a year-and-a-half ago, Facebook users noticed something new. No, not yet another facelift for the social networking site’s interface, but colourful posters with Maltese expressions, words and phrases written across them.
In an online world flooded with English, American English and rubbish English, one bright chap felt (good) Maltese was lacking and came up with the clever idea of creating a page called Kelma Kelma.
Kelma Kelma is a virtual community which seeks to promote the Maltese language in a fun and accessible way. It is “about the beauty of Maltese, about the beauty you can create with the Maltese language, if you stop for a while and recognise what a beautiful language Maltese is”.
Founded in January 2013, Kelma Kelma is the brainchild of Michael Spagnol, a lecturer at the Department of Maltese at the University of Malta. His areas of expertise are, unsurprisingly, linguistics and socio-linguistics. But he also lectures in interesting credits such as Medical Maltese and Derivational Morphology of Maltese.
One of Spagnol’s most successful creations was stessu
Spagnol explains how he is interested in contemporary Maltese and how it is developing. “I’m fascinated by how such a small country has so many dialects,” he says.
The linguist, who is Head of the Terminology Committee at il-Kunsill Nazzjonali tal-Ilsien Malti, is currently working on names of countries and capital cities in Maltese. “Not just the easy ones,” he adds. “But the difficult and more obscure countries and adjectives such as what you call someone who comes from Ukraine, Angola or Tuvalu.”
Spagnol is a bubbly character, passionate and easy to talk to. The aims behind Kelma Kelma are manifold: posting samples of the way Maltese used to be written or old school text books adds a touch of nostalgia. Riddles like b’ żewġ widnejn u ma tisma’ xejn serve to revive tradition and remind us of expressions we may have forgotten.
Feedback to the page has been very positive and Spagnol says people have told him they are being reminded of vocabulary and expressions they had forgotten and are beginning to use them again.
Spagnol’s page also seeks to keep Maltese fresh and alive. “Maltese is a living language,” he explains. “It’s a living organism, constantly sprouting new flowers, new leaves. So I like to take a word that everyone knows and give it new meaning or suggest new ways in which it can develop.”
One of Spagnol’s most successful creations was stessu, the Maltese equi-valent of selfie. He also uses the page as an informal and indirect means of gathering linguistic information. For example, he was curious to find out whether people used the word tkeċner (to spend a lot of time in the kitchen), and in which parts of Malta it was used.
Spagnol’s Kelma Kelma page has already amassed an impressive following of over 29,000 fans, one of whom is Daniel Cauchi, founder of the wonderful big band renowned for its enthusiasm and exuberance, The Big Band Brothers.
Cauchi approached Spagnol and asked to team up with him and combine their music and literary skills. Although the two did not know each other personally, they both had a similar passion: the Maltese language.
They also shared the same aim of giving new sound to the Maltese language, be it through recitation or music. “We have the same aims,” explains Spagnol, “to take an idiom, phrase or old Maltese word and put on a new dress for it by, for example, turning it into a joke.”
Some two years ago, The Big Band Brothers released an album – Ftakar – which is a collection of classic Maltese songs, some on the verge of being forgotten, but given new life by the band.
The result of the collaboration between Spagnol and the Big Band Brothers is a performance called Niltaqgħu ma’, which will see fictional Maltese characters come to life through musical representation.
The concept sounds exciting, but Spagnol is reluctant to say everything about the show. However, he does reveal that a strong 18-piece big band, together with actors in collaboration with the original authors, will bring life to these characters in “a holistic representation”.
The performance will include a combin-ation of recited text, reworking of existing manuscripts and original music. We can look forward to beloved characters found in novels such as Bendu Muscat, Ċensu ż-Żatat and Ġaħan.
Also making an appearance will be characters found in poetry and characters made famous in Maltese folk songs, like Toninu s-Sajjied, Marija l-Maltija and Martin il-Kaċċatur.
Kelma Kelma’s birthplace – Facebook – will also play an important part in the show and audience members will need a mobile device from which they can access the social networking site.
Niltaqgħu Ma’ will be performed as part of the Malta Arts Festival on July 15 at Pjazza Teatru Rjal, Valletta.
www.maltaartsfestival.org