In his letter ‘Aquilina and the Maltese language’ (December 28), Joseph Brincat wrote “I am averse to writing televixin and baġit not because they look ugly but because they violate the patterns of Maltese spelling as they would be pronounced as ‘televisheen’ and ‘budgeet’, because between two vowels x is always ‘sh’ and the ending in is accented”.

Such reasoning is imprecise. The ending in is in a stressed syllable in ħanin, xadin, etc. (stressed syllables are marked in bold) but it is not in a stressed syllable in televixin and baġit.

It is pertinent to briefly give the stress rules for Maltese.

In words that end in a consonant, the vowel in a final stressed syllable is: (i) long when the syllable is closed by one consonant (ħanin); and (ii) short when the syllable is closed by a double consonant or a consonantal sequence (kunsill, kellimt). The vowel ‘i’ in ħanin is a long vowel but the same vowel in kunsill and kellimt is short.

Notice the minimal pair mit and mitt. The ‘i’ in mitt is short but the same vowel in mit is long; it contains the sound of ‘j’ and is pronounced mijt.

The same applies to the vowel ‘u’. The vowel in kull is short but the vowel in kul is long. It contains the sound of ‘w’ and is pronounced kuwl.

When the final syllable is unstressed the vowel is always short and the syllable is closed by a consonant (tifel, karkar, borom).

A few monosyllabic words do not follow these rules and this is a result of the syntactic environment in which they are used. The words bin, Ħal, Sur (mister), Dun (title name for reverend), San (short for Santu), bħal, lil, għal have a short vowel.

Notice the minimal pairs Sur (mister, short vowel) and sur (bastion, long vowel pronounced suwr) and San (short for Santu, short vowel) and san (healthy, long vowel).

According to the first rule, they should be closed by a double consonant or a consonantal sequence. These words are never used in isolation. They are always followed by a word and this word takes the main stress of the expression, say, bin Pawlu, Ħal Balzan, Sur Attard, Dun Alwiġ, San Filep, bħal ħabibi, lil ommu, għal isfel.

Language evolves to satisfy the needs of the people who are using it

The broad statement that (final) in is always accented does not encompass all the elements of Maltese. As a general rule, in Semitic and Romance Maltese the sequences ‘i’ + consonant (ħabib, nadif, qasir, miskin, etc.) and ‘u + consonant’ (ħanut, mutur, idum, magħruf, etc.) are always stressed when word final. But there are other elements in Maltese, first among them English. So what shall we do with English words which end with the sequence ‘i + consonant’? According to Brincat we cannot write baġit because the sequence it should be in a stressed syllable. Shall we perhaps write nibbudgetja, nistencilja, nistapleja? Let’s hope we won’t.

What about the evolution of Maltese?

In 1984, the Akkademja tal-Malti included a rule in its Żieda mat-tagħrif which says that in Maltese a word can have the main stress on the antepenultimate syllable (uniku, morbidu, fanatiku), an innovative addition because antepenultimate stress was alien to Semitic stress rules.

In the earlier integration phase, an Italian word was shortened so that the main stress fell on the penultimate syllable (pulpito > pulptu, circolo > ċirklu), a phase which was possibly followed by phase in which variants were acceptable (mużka/mużika, grammatka/grammatika).

Nowadays nobody questions the use of antepenutlimate stress in Maltese. Maltese adapted and broadened its stress rules to accomodate the integration of new lexicon from Italian, Sicilian and, possibly, English. What is the problem with elucidating the same stress rules to define the spelling of words borrowed from English without unnecessary and unwanted hitches?

I am definitely not averse to writing baġit, televixin, bjugil, piknik, stensil, stejpil, bulit, etc. In an earlier integration phase, well before the arrival of baġit and televixin, Maltese borrowed words from English which, according to Brincat, violated “the patterns of Maltese spelling”. I give a few examples: spakxin (from “inspection (box)”, gaxin (Aquilina says it is possibly a corruption of “ration”), mekkanik (“mechanic”).

The vowel in the final syllables xin and nik is short and the syllables are not stressed. The same applies for the final sequence ‘u + consonant’. In words like album, forum, vajrus, etc. the final syllable is unstressed and the vowel ‘u’# is a short vowel.

Language evolves to satisfy the needs of the people who are using it. Maltese has borrowed and will keep on borrowing from English. Thereupon, we need to update our orthographic rules so that this evolutionary phase will have a positive effect on the language.

Carmel Azzopardi is the author of Gwida għall-Ortografija.

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