Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/627675
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 17 JANUARY 2016 16 News IN ALL LEADING BOOK SHOPS HISTORY OF ORNITHOLOGY IN MALTA The Maltese language battlefield QUO vadis, Maltese language? That linguistically-mixed phrase may be as good a predictive ques- tion as any, as various entities have been at loggerheads over the past few months about the degree to which foreign loanwords should be inserted and/or mangled when it comes to written Maltese. Sparked off by the Council for Maltese's controversial suggestion that 'Olandiz' should be written as 'Netherlandiz', an intellectual tit- for-tat bled into local media – exac- erbated by the fact that the Minister for Education called for a 'consulta- tive committee' on the matter, ap- parently behind the backs of the Council. True to its scholarly nature, the 'debate' was perhaps contrary in pace to a social-media rat-a-tat, and continued to take its course over sporadic months and not fevered weeks. That said, Prof Ray Fabri, president of the Council for Mal- tese who last December described the consultation process that took place between the government and the Council on the issue as a "lame duck", now tells MaltaToday that "there have been some positive de- velopments in the relation between the Ministry [of Education] and the Council". But while we wait for details of these developments to emerge – Fabri prefixed his announcement with a "without going into any de- tails for now" disclaimer – it may be worth looking into what some of the main sticking points of this protracted 'debate' have been. On the one hand, the noise the issue generated was simply a result of stung pride, arising from what amounts to something of a territo- rial dispute: the education ministry suggests a consultative committee to mediate between the Council and the public; the Council reacts by suggesting that this was an un- derhanded attempt at curtailing its power through political manipula- tion. On the other, it also stems from a need to regularise Maltese spelling in a way that is sensitive to the ver- nacular – both social and linguistic – and that doesn't elicit contemp- tuous guffaws… as 'Netherlandiz' certainly did. In fact, according to direc- tor of Merlin Publishing Chris Gruppetta,"the issue of the Mal- tese language is, and will remain, a battleground for reasons largely unrelated to the language itself but linked to other interests and preju- dices, and is often used as a proxy war to wage wider battles". Following up a vitriolic contribu- tion to MaltaToday last December, Fabri struck a more diplomatic tone this time around – suggesting that some developments on this front truly are in the offing. Emphasising that his bone of contention on the matter stemmed from the abrupt nature of the Education Ministry's announcement to set up a consulta- tive committee – "I was surprised (and shocked) to find out about it from the media" – Fabri added that he would have preferred it if "the Minister discussed the problem with the Council first or, at the very least, informed the Council that he intended to launch a discussion about it". Fabri went on to say that the Council has been studying this issue for quite some time, and has had a number of seminars and discus- sions, both with the general public and with specific interest groups (e.g. publishers, teachers, authors). "The Council has set up a com- mittee with a wide representational base to study and discuss the mat- ter in great detail, and plans to is- sue, explain and discuss its recom- mendations on the matter in the near future," Fabri added. Maltese lecturer and author Adri- an Grima believes the Council to be a crucial part in this equation, claiming that because the people on the Council are experts in their field, and because their role obliges them to do so, "their decisions are always taken in consultation with the public in general and with those sectors that are directly involved. The law that set up the Council is a great law and this is why it was unanimously approved by Parlia- ment," Grima said. However, the executive chair- man of the National Book Council, Mark Camilleri – a vocal critic of the Council for Maltese on this de- bate – suggested that the Council needs to undergo "some very seri- ous reforms" – among them sub- mitting any linguistic decisions to be peer-reviewed before they are implemented. "There are also other important issues which should be addressed. For example, how can anyone justify the fact that even after ten years of being created, the Coun- cil doesn't even have a document outlining its strategy on a national level? Council members should re- ally start taking the issue more se- riously and become aware of their institutional position," Camilleri said. But can we extricate some nitty- gritty out of all this politics-with- a-small-p wrangling? Speaking to MaltaToday, Prof. Henry Frendo, historian and di- rector of the Institute for Maltese Studies at the University of Malta, and a member of the 'Insalvaw il- Malti' front, believes that "a mod- erating advisory ministerial buffer" is necessary for this debate to con- tinue in a healthy manner, since "theories and ideologies in the hands of zealots, fanatics or op- portunists have caused great harm in human history". Asked about the use of loan words in particular, Frendo said that unless a Maltese equivalent or near-equivalent already exists (as in the case of 'shears') or a word or expression has been internalised over time (e.g. kitla/ktieli; skond iz-zokk il-fergha etc), loan words should retain their original spell- ing. This, according to Frendo, would be the preferable option to "lazily loaning everything from the English or American-English lan- guage in neocolonial fashion, and then phoneticising its spelling to pretend it is a Maltese word". "A highly respected executive member of the Akkademja tal- Malti told me that 80% of people did not agree with this," Frendo added. But for people labouring through the Maltese language in a more concrete way, these ongoing con- troversies and alternations can ac- tually have a 'real' – read: econom- ic – impact. Chris Gruppetta, who through Merlin releases a number of Maltese-language textbooks, made an impassioned appeal for the issue "to be resolved, urgently and with a degree of finality". "We cannot have Maltese spell- ing rules changing every few years – this is madness, it engenders un- certainty in the public (no wonder people prefer English) and from our vantage point causes us huge losses because each time regu- lations are changed we have to destroy thousands of books and reprint them. That is, quite liter- ally, investments up in smoke. And for an industry that is already in a very precarious position for other reasons, this is sheer madness and needs to stop. So change whatever you need to change, but please do not touch the spelling rules again for a good number of decades," Gruppetta said. treljic@mediatoday.com.mt To loan or not to loan – that appears to be the question when it comes to a newly-reignited debate on the Maltese language, as various entities continue to wage genteel warfare over how foreign words are to be 'processed' into written Maltese. Speaking to some of the key players in the (battle)field, TEODOR RELJIC navigates through the political noise in an attempt to get to the specifics of the situation Mark Camilleri Adrian Grima Chris Gruppetta Henry Frendo