Spare a thought for the Maltese Language Council. It has an official brief to “establish the correct manner of writing words and phrases which enter the Maltese language through other tongues”, among other tasks.

Let us assume that words of foreign origin that have become part of our everyday language should be written in Maltese. This includes words like futbol (football), kejk (cake), and buz (boots). Sounds simple enough, only the people at the council have to decide exactly which of the words from a long list of candidates qualify. I suppose they also owe it to us to at least suggest how we might properly spell them.

One might ask whether we need the council at all. The one striking example of a language that does not have an official regulating body is, in fact, that of English. English has no formal counterpart of the council, or the Académie Française or such, and yet it is not exactly a mess. So unregulated is fine, then?

Not really. There is such a thing as bad spelling in English. The language is effectively regulated by the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). Although it has no legal instruments to wield, the OED derives its authority from a tradition rooted in top-notch scholarship. The weight of that tradition is what makes the OED a prescriptive, rather than merely a descriptive, dictionary and institution.

That prescriptive role is taken on for Maltese by the council, which was only set up in 2005 with the Maltese Language Act. Up to 2005 it was the job of the Akkademja tal-Malti. Rather like the OED, the Akkademja had no legal backing, only the weight of authority.

Both the council and especially the Akkademja are seen by many as positively fuddy-duddy, possibly a bit loopy, and given to foisting sadistic and arcane rules on schoolchildren and journalists.

Nothing could be further from the truth. The antiquarian and purist undead that used to populate the Akkademja are long departed. Their place has been taken by people who for the most part are competent and open-minded about the language. Thing is, I’m not sure we’re cooperating terribly much.

Two things in particular appear to be the sticking points. The first is the sense that to write ‘foreign’ (English, usually) words in Maltese is a violation of the language. Which language exactly is a moot point. For some, ‘mowbajl’ (mobile phone) is a violation, a mockery even, of English. For others, the same word is a grave insult to Maltese.

There are 50 shades and then some to this sense of violation. They include that standard fixture of nationalism which is the perennial anxiety about the national space and all that it inherits.

Other causes include things like visuals. Thus, while ‘kejk’ might look (literally) just about acceptable, ‘pajnepil’ (pineapple) is likely to cause general visual indigestion.

The second issue involves a word which strikes terror in anyone born after 1970 or so: class. It’s rather obvious that a good chunk of the debate on English and Maltese spelling is actually about class – hardly surprising given that the use of the two languages is so deeply embedded in legacies of prestige and hierarchy.

Take ‘air conditioner’. Very many Maltese, the majority I suspect, actually say ‘air condition’, as in “itfi l-air condition jekk jogħġbok” (turn off the air conditioner please). The rest of us might sneer at that and stick to the original English form.

But what about the Maltese word in Maltese writing, assuming we wanted one? Would it be erkondixin and true to majority form? Or should we be sticklers and write erkondixiner, no matter what most people might call it?

English has no formal counterpart of the Maltese Language Council or the Académie Française or such, and yet it is not exactly a mess

I imagine quite a few of us would say that the answer is obvious, and that, of course, it is erkondixiner. That’s because it’s wiser to let literacy inform its opposite, rather than the other way round. If we must choose, surely we should be well advised to listen to the reading camp?

Maybe. But take ‘freezer’. A good many Maltese say ‘friża’, as in “ħriġt il-laħam mill-friża” (I took the meat out of the freezer). To which we might raise an eyebrow, because surely it should be ‘friżer’? Only it turns out that friża is actually closer to the English pronunciation. That’s because it probably came to us from spoken English on radio and television. Those of us who say friżer only do so because we associate the word with its English spelling.

I once overheard a story about a man who worked at the Vittoriosa docks, and who was married to someone who was considerably better-read in English than he was. One fine day he told his wife it had been a particularly busy morning at the ‘vit’lin yard’. She took him to task and said it should be ‘vic-tual-ling’. Except she was wrong and he was right – not surprising considering he had got the word from native speakers of English down at the docks, rather than off a book.

The case for friżer suddenly seems flimsy, in spite of the fact that it is the more polished and literate form – the classier form, to put it bluntly. However socially chilling friża may sound, it is both truer to the original English pronunciation and in commoner use among the general population. Something of a bizarre species, to be sure, but there we go.

I’m really not sure how the council might resolve this. Should the new word be ‘ka pak’ (car park), the puliti Maltese version that is, or the more plebian but equally Maltese ‘kar park’?

Two things rush to my consolation. First, exactly the same problems were faced when national languages were standardised (almost 100 years ago in the case of Maltese). Standardisation must be an act of violence towards the non-standardised, so to say, and the current project is no exception. Second, the OED has been known to get the same flak as the Akkademja and the council, for much the same reasons. There’s solace is not being unique.

Note: In last Sunday’s column I mentioned the case of a Fondazzjoni Wirt Artna employee. FWA has explained to me that the circumstances of the case were not quite as reported in the press, and that my column may have been misleading. I offer my apologies to FWA. The main argument of my column is unaffected: I still think that exploited workers should seriously consider stealing from their employers.

mafalzon@hotmail.com