Bernard Vassallo’s justified lament (September 21) about the ‘guide’ at St John’s Co-Cathedral who can only speak English, should serve to bring all and sundry who have any decision-making powers (be they employers, government decision-makers, public servants, and whoever) in this island, to realise that it is high time to take a clear and conscious decision that just knowing English in the state of Malta is simply not good enough.

It is irrelevant that a majority of tourists may be coming from English-speaking countries. They are only a ‘majority’; but there is also a minority that either does not speak or understand English or feels more comfortable speaking any of the (to us) leading European languages such as French, Italian, German.

In restaurants, at hospitals, in some supermarkets, even on buses, and elsewhere, the situation is fast deteriorating to one where many Maltese, or indeed foreigners in Malta (as tourists or otherwise) cannot speak their own language to get good sensible service.

The time is ripe for a total revision of policies regarding languages in Malta. What I am outlining above is one important aspect of the problem. Another one is the Maltese puristi’s policy of unjustly penalising Maltese students who do not spell English words commonly used when writing Maltese in crazy localised phonetic formats.

“Fridge”, when used by a Maltese student in the format of just “fridge” is as much Maltese as English. To penalise a student for not spelling it “friġġ” is simply ludicrous, dogmatic, jingoistic, and does great harm to many Maltese who, indeed, love Maltese for its erstwhile quality of being a comfortable absorber and assimilator.

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