I thank Enzo Cachia for his interest in my correspondence on the Maltese language (‘Tackling the Maltese language crisis’, The Sunday Times of Malta, September 6).

Respectfully, it seems this gentleman has never read any of my Maltese works. Otherwise he would never have come to the conclusion that I am biased towards some kind of Semitic purification of Maltese to the detriment of our old established and very beneficial accretions from the non-Semitic linguistic world (mainly Sicilian, Italian and English).

Some years ago, former president Ugo Mifsud Bonnici most graciously wrote in the local Maltese language newspaper Il-Ġens Illum that “Rigu is a pleasure to listen to. In reading his works he has no difficulty with his use of Maltese no matter which language stock his words derive from”.

I do not have Mifsud Bonnici’s published article before me, but what I have cited here is the general gist of his text. As it was a public document, I have no qualms in re-exposing his words.