English loanwords should be spelt in Maltese. Retaining the English spelling and italicising them or, worse, placing them in inverted commas is just wrong and I shall explain why.

Maltese is, by and large, aphonetic language. It has a mostly phonemic orthography, which means that our words are spelt in the same way that they are pronounced. The letters correspond to their sounds.

Once you have mastered the pronunciation of the letters of the alphabet, you have virtually mastered the spelling of every single word in the Maltese language.

This rule is qualified by only a few idiosyncrasies: the għ and the silent h, for instance, and the b/p or the s/ż sounds, which are sometimes indistinguishable.

For centuries, we have been incorporating foreign words into our vocabulary and, every time, without fail, we have chosen to spell them according to Maltese language rules. Italian words like scuola (school) and chitarra (guitar) became skola and kitarra. The French bonsoir became bonswa, while bonjour became bonġu.

Why, then, make an exception for English loanwords?

The people’s outrage at the supposedly abominable transliterations is not founded in logic. It is simply down to their being accustomed to the original English spellings.

It is true that the Maltese spelling looks quirky at best (friġġ for fridge) and undecipherable at worst (mowbajl for mobile, for instance).

Dissenters argue it will fluster our children. They say it will further exacerbate the illiteracy problem.

Spelling should be changed to aid children make clear distinctions

I say spelling should be changed precisely to aid children make clear distinctions between the two languages. Children should be taught early on that Maltese and English are two languages, each with their own rules, in the same way that we teach them that Italian and Maltese are distinct, despite the innumerable overlaps.

Or should we teach our children to write cucina instead of kċina (kitchen) to avoid confusion when studying Italian?

When a loanword is conjugated into verbs and adjectives, spelling it in English causes further problems. As Joe Friggieri said during a recent Times Talk programme, once a loanword has become entrenched into our vocabulary, the only solution is spelling it in Maltese. The word lecture, for instance, cannot possibly retain its original spelling, for how would we spell illekċerjani (he lectured me)? Should we spell it illectur(e)jani? Or should we insist on using lezzjoni and għalliem even though everyone uses the more specific terms lekċer and lekċerer?

Friggieri thus agrees that words already ingrained into our language must be spelt phonetically in Maltese. However, he still insists on retaining the English spelling for nouns which have not yet been conjugated into verbs: fridge not friġġ, since we have not, as far as I am aware, conjugated it into niffriġġja (refrigerate); and air conditioner not erkondixiner, since we do not say erkondixinjajt (I air-conditioned [the room]).

However, this argument seems a bit arbitrary. If every single Romance loanword is written according to Maltese phonology, why then make an exception solely for English loanwords?

Friggieri claims that a reader should not have to pause and decipher an English word spelt in Maltese. But if the two languages are different, and their phonetic rules are different, why is this an issue?

In the same way that we know both the Italian and the Maltese spelling for kitchen, we should not have a problem with learning the English and the Maltese spelling for mobile.

Confusion simply highlights the reality that people are sometimes unable to distinguish between English language rules and Maltese language rules. This confusion would be fortified rather than eradicated if we are going to insist on retaining English spelling.

For the sake of maintaining some semblance of coherence and consistency, I am therefore all in favour of spelling our English loanwords in the same way that we have spelt our Romance loanwords. Otherwise, the pleasant hotchpotch that is the Maltese language will instead transform into a strange mongrelised travesty.

Andrew Saliba is reading law.