Martin Morana. Photo: Matthew Mirabelli

Residents and revellers may not know that Paceville was called that by a developer after the government re-dedicated a road originally named after him to an archbishop... another Pace.

And did you know that Maċina and Veċċa were originally called Macchina and Vecchia in Italian?

These curiosities have been collected in a trilogy of books by Martin Morana about the origins of some Maltese words.

Mr Morana says that Paceville, now an entertainment hub, dates back to the 1930s. Lawyer and businessman Giuseppe Pace built a small church and other buildings overlooking St George’s Bay. He named one road after himself but the government instead dedicated it to archbishop Pace.

Quoting Herbert Ganado, Mr Morana says that following this incident, the lawyer decided to name the whole area after himself.

Mr Morana, who has been working at the tourism authority for 25 years, comes with a disclaimer: “I am not a philologist or an etymologist, but I have a keen interest in anthropology and Mediterranean studies.”

When in 2009 Mr Morana, who studied history at the University of Malta, had to spend some time away from work to recover from an operation, he started leafing through dictionaries and books including Mikiel Anton Vassalli’s Lexicon, Joseph Aquilina’s dictionary, Erin Serracino Inglott’s Il-Miklem Malti, Guże Muscat Azzopardi’s Toni Bajjada and Ganado’s Rajt Malta Tinbidel.

He started collecting information about curious Maltese words and topped it up with knowledge from people who use them.

In the following five years he published three books with more than 2,600 words, the latest called Biex il-kliem ikun sew. He hopes to be able to issue an online collection of the words featured in the trilogy.

I am one of those who believes that we have to create Maltese words when the need arises

“These books are not dictionaries but a collection of words that have been forgotten, are used without knowledge of their meaning, or have changed their meaning over the years.

“The saying fl-aħħar tal-mazzita issib iż-żbiba (you’ll find a raisin at the end of the black pudding) actually started off as a positive statement, but today has a negative connotation,” he said, reeling off examples.

“The same word could also have different meanings in different places. Koċċ in Malta means a handful but in Gozo it means a lot.

“And have you ever stopped to think what appik actually means? It probably comes from picciare, to knock. And when you call someone who is naive babbu it’s probably originating from the Italian word for babbling, balbettio.”

The books are not just about verbs, adjectives and nouns, but are peppered with a little bit of historical, cultural and traditional terms, including words like Mintuffjan and Marshall Aid.

Words have also changed over the centuries. Today’s saħħa, or cheers, when having a drink with friends, was toxx towards the end of the 18th century – probably from the word toucher in French (to touch).

“I am one of those who believe that we have to create Maltese words when the need arises, just as we have had to adapt words like spiżjar, from the Italian spezie, for herbs. At times it seems as if we picked up words along the centuries and fossilised the Maltese language. However, the world kept growing and developing.

“Just how we have adapted words like karozza, luċilettrika and vapur, it’s important to develop the Maltese language, instead of borrowing words from other languages.”

The Maltese need to keep developing new tools, because the ones they have are dying out and being sidelined, such as hobż mixwi (toast) and faqqiegħ (mushrooms), he said.

“I don’t believe we should say niżżikħajr, but I would rather say grazzi, instead of thank you. Through these books, I hope to bring out words from the closet, which if we want, we could still use,” he said.

Cake or kejk? Fridge or friġġ?

Children are going home from school with their Maltese spelling lists which include words like futbol, swiċċ, grawnd and friġġ – English words with a Maltese phonetic spelling.

For readers, this can get very confusing. Students are not sure when they ought to spell cake as ‘cake’ or ‘kejk’. At times, it takes parents ages to decipher words like xowrum, skrijn tat-televixin or dijżil (showroom, TV screen and diesel).

In a vox pop carried out for tonight’s edition of Times Talk, people mostly opted for writing words in English and placing them within inverted commas.

“That’s the original word, the phonetic spelling is odd,” was the reaction of most people questioned.

A few said they did not mind the phonetic spelling and saw it as a solution to the limitations of the Maltese language: “We cannot invent a word for everything.”

According to Manwel Mifsud, president of the Council for the Maltese Language, rules to deal with these instances are still under discussion.

Recently a series of photos from a pre-school picture book, L-Ewwel 1000 Kelma u Stampa Tiegħi, went viral, to the disgust of many who said the Maltese language was being butchered. Examples of the offending words include tepot, dungarì, and ħendbeg (teapot, dungarees and handbag).

Writing in Times of Malta last week, philosopher Joe Friggieri said the matter surfaced a couple of years ago when Maltese-language newspapers started to impose a Maltese phonetic spelling on English words.

“Many readers were confused; others thought it was a joke, until they discovered it had become a habit. There is now an ongoing debate on what needs to be done to sort out the mess.”

Prof. Friggieri argued that people should “be able to read without having to make the slightest conscious effort to decipher what the new spelling stands for”.

For children the consequences of “imposing” a Maltese phonetic spelling on English words that became part of the language would be “disastrous”, he added.

Times Talk will tonight be discussing: Are we corrupting the Maltese language? Live on TVM 6.45pm.