I refer to Emil Anton’s letter ‘Learning Arabic’ (The Sunday Times of Malta, November 20). When it comes to choosing a foreign language besides Italian and English, which most Maltese people are familiar with, French German or Spanish  are the languages mostly chosen by students  here.

The Arabic language was never popular with Maltese students. The late former prime minister Dom Mintoff tried to launch the idea but it never took off.

Arabic is one of the four hardest languages in the world to learn, and although Maltese is semi-Semitic, the Arabic alphabet and grammar are hard to master.

Mr Anton has a reason for wanting to learn Arabic, so as to discover his Iraqi roots, but what reason do we Maltese have to learn Arabic? Doesn’t it make more sense to improve our English, a language spoken by 1,500 million people worldwide instead?

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