Lost and found in translation

Brussels is churning out more reports in Maltese than all of Malta, but is this all there is to our national language since we joined Europe? The executive director of the National Council for the Maltese Language, Olvin Vella, sees the dawn of a new era

When the European Union declared it was accepting Maltese as one of its official languages, the Nationalists could not hide their gleaming smiles. The gigantic union had accepted our primary source of identity, as it was ultimately bound to, giving an irresistible banner for the PN in the midst of referendum controversy.
Now that we’re into our third year of membership, the reality that we were never prepared for this task despite all the rhetoric about Maltese has exposed us to embarrassment as a growing army of translators and interpreters struggle to keep up with EU rules, speeches and directives.
It’s not just that these people are struggling to find the words for some of the remotest subjects that the Maltese have never written about. There is also the snide reality that more documents in Maltese are coming out now from the EU than from here.
“There is big pressure to create long lists of words in sectors that a few years back we didn’t think of covering,” Olvin Vella says about the impact of having Maltese as an EU language. “If the EU asks us to translate a directive, say, on trains, we have to find, create and borrow all the language related to the trains industry. So since Maltese has been accepted as an official EU language there is more pressure for the Maltese vocabulary to expand.
“More importantly, there are more people who have a financial incentive to study Maltese. Before our language became an official EU language whoever studied Maltese would, at most, become a teacher of Maltese, and would spend his or her lifetime closed in a class without any other opportunities. Now they can become translators and interpreters and earn big money.”
But how can a government boast of having persuaded the EU to accept Maltese while some of its major institutions keep using English in their documents? How does one explain that Maltese is being used, with great efforts, at the EU, while over here you have institutions that never use it. Why is a MEPA case officer’s report always available exclusively in English?
“It’s unacceptable,” Vella replies, “but there is a historical explanation. Throughout our history we always had an official language and a popular language, which were completely different. Before the Knights, the official languages were Latin and Sicilian. Under the Knights, officially we had Latin and Italian; under the British we had around 100 years of Italian as official language and then we switched to English towards World War I. Throughout, Maltese remained the popular language, but it was only after World War II that Maltese started gaining an official status.”
Still, now it seems more official in Brussels than in Malta
“Yes, it’s almost an artificial situation, in a way. You have more reports in Maltese coming out of Brussels than here. It’s a contradiction, but I’m convinced that we’ll overcome it in a few years’ time.”
Vella looks at the history of Maltese to point out the great progress that has been made in its status.
“If we had to look at the history of Maltese over hundreds of years, there is a steady progression from a language that was used by farmers and fishermen to becoming a national language. Up until 100 years ago the Nationalist Party was still discussing if Maltese is a language or a dialect, and would come out with books such as ‘Il Dialetto Maltese’. Nowadays the same Nationalist Party agrees with the Labour Party and have enacted a law on the Maltese language. But remember that 100 years ago their grandfathers had a very different position.”
Tackling all the problems in our language that were neglected in for hundreds of years is a tall order for the council set up by the government a year and a half ago, especially to get more people to write in Maltese.
“Many people who write reports in English do not do so because they are prejudiced against Maltese. In fact you would be amazed how many people who write in English are extremely interested in Maltese. Their problem is that they do not know how to write it. Maltese is taught at primary and secondary schools but then the level of competence goes down drastically, and it becomes more comfortable to write in English especially given that the computer can correct most of your mistakes. So in this regard the Council has an agreement with the Department of Maltese at University and for the first time since Maltese has been taught at university we have created a course that is not about Maltese literature or linguistics but about orthography – how to write, giving students clear and scientific criteria about why Maltese is written in the way it is. There are more than 40 students attending this course and they come from various backgrounds. There is an auditor, a pharmacist, EU legislation reviewers, a physics teacher, all people who want to use Maltese in their areas, and it’s great that they feel part of this movement that wants to use Maltese more and more.”
The Maltese Language Council has a list of consultants and writers from different sectors, like transport, industry, the maritime industry, opticians. “They are people who speak to their clients in Maltese, who use Maltese in their sector, and we are collecting the Maltese words they use to create a written registry which we can then pass on to broadcasters who will be able to start using them.”
Languages are not only used to communicate, they also carry a set of values, Vella says.
“Whoever says we’re bilingual doesn’t know what he’s saying. Do they mean that everyone understands Maltese and English? I don’t think that’s the case. Does everyone use Maltese and English? There is a sector of our society that pays taxes, that obeys the laws, and does not use English, and it is a disservice to this part of our society because it is made of Maltese citizens. They are Maltese citizens using Maltese, which is totally different from English. It’s not just the sector of society that uses Maltese that is facing a problem, you also have those who use English but are not excellent in it. They can understand English, but not everything; they can write sentences but not a report, they cannot follow all the articles in the English newspaper. Languages are not only used to communicate, there is also a set of values attached to a language, for example solidarity. I can use Maltese in solidarity with my colleagues, I can use English to keep a distance or to oppress someone. I can use Maltese to bully someone. As council we believe in using Maltese in a spirit of collaboration. On the Maltese -language newspapers we have a column called ‘Bil-Kelma t-Tajba’, where we always insist with our readers on the need for multilingualism – the more languages you know the better. We will never come out as council saying for example that sign posts should be only in Maltese, they should be in Maltese and English.”
Vella agrees that it is no longer fashionable to speak only in English, and even less not to know Maltese, but a sizeable section of Maltese society is still unable to speak Maltese, brought up in families that speak only in English and in schools where Maltese was effectively banned.
“These people realise, at great expense, that they need Maltese once they enter the job market, they won’t survive without it,” Vella says. “The Maltese market speaks Maltese. Imagine Peppi Azzopardi presenting Xarabank in English, making all the same arguments in English. I would say he wouldn’t have one-fourth of his present audience. So English in Malta doesn’t sell as an exclusive language. Besides that, I’m informed that the schools that years back used to use only English and were the delight of parents who spoke to their children only in English are nowadays appealing to parents to use Maltese at home, because their level of Maltese is extremely poor and they are failing in exams.”
The language council’s way of doing things is through persuasion, Vella says. It will not fine anyone for writing wrongly and insists on collaboration rather than imposition.
“When the government decided to develop, or rather destroy, Ghajn Tuffieha, with a golf course, the word ‘garigue’ was being used. Some journalists called us to enquire what’s the right word in Maltese, which is ‘xaghri’. So it started being used and it’s now common currency again, a word that many had forgotten. So if we manage to develop this link with journalists and translators we believe the words will spill over from papers and start being used,” he said.
“As a people we’ve always believed that there is someone taking care of our problems in this sector, but there is nobody. For around the last 100 years all the people involved in Maltese were coming from the literary field, and their priorities were about the sonnet, the novel, and poems – good things mind you but there’s much more to language than that. For the first time in the history of Maltese we are seeking the help of people who use Maltese but who were never involved in this sector.”
That is perhaps the new silent revolution that came in Maltese after EU membership. From the exclusive territory of Maltese academics fighting on their private crusades for a word or a letter, the EU has made it obligatory for experts of Maltese to open up to people from all walks of life and see how they are using the language. Paradoxically, the EU is also robbing away some of the best writers of Maltese to work with it.
“For the Maltese language, joining the EU was a positive step, but at the same time so many valid people are leaving to work with the EU that this is becoming a problem. It’s looking like a brain drain. So we have to keep investing all the time in courses and students.”
The council recently received complaints by parents who wanted to give Maltese names to their children, with Maltese characters.
“But because the public registry did not have Maltese fonts on its computers, it could not register Gorg or Censu or Guzeppi,” Vella said. “This at a time when the government is boasting of having one of the most cutting edge IT policies in Europe – and I believe it. We’ve written to the department and were promised they will be tackling it, and government is committed on this so I’m confident it will be solved.”
Vella believes that the fact that the Maltese language press is all owned by institutions enforces the perception that one cannot read anything of quality or in depth in Maltese. The sloganeering used in party papers, the instrumentalisation of the language for propaganda all contribute to this idea.
“The problem is one of agenda, not of the language per se, because there is a lot of good will among journalists who write in Maltese and who consult us,” Vella says. “But the situation as it is could be disseminating the idea among readers that to read something in depth you have to read it in English, because in English there is the tendency not to be blatantly partisan. It could also be propagating the idea that whatever is written in Maltese is written only for the gullible. That is why whoever works in the Maltese language is looking forward to reading an independent newspaper in Maltese.
“A few weeks ago at l-Akkademja tal-Malti we discussed precisely the need of having a newspaper in Maltese that is not linked to an institution. Even the language council discussed this and the conclusion was that this requires a big financial structure and people who are experienced in journalism, and we are not in a position to provide that, and we wish to see private enterprise going for this venture.”
Meanwhile the council, together with the university’s Institute of Linguistics and the Department of Artificial Intelligence and Computer Science, is working on a much-needed computer spell checker.
“It’s easy to say let’s make a spell checker, but Maltese doesn’t work out like English,” Vella says. “The verb conjugations present a huge problem. I once tried to check all the possibilities of the verb ‘kiser’. There were over 800 forms, and these would have to be inputted in the spell checker. The EU has provided funds for the project to develop a spell checker and we know that Microsoft is also interested.”
One glaring lacuna is school textbooks in Maltese, where some of the most important subjects are taught exclusively in English, contributing further to the easy switching to English even in written Maltese.
“When in 1840 there was Fortunato Panzavechia as Director of Education, he wrote school books in Maltese about mathematics, geography, and other subjects,” Vella says, admitting that things were better a century ago in this regard. “We got to know about these books only two years ago. In around 1930 Ganni Cilia wrote geography books in Maltese. Temi Zammit, even before, wrote about geography and history in Maltese for school students. Nowadays ironically you don’t find such textbooks. We were better a century ago in this regard. Why? Some say it is a question of market economics – it’s cheaper to import a physics book in English than to produce one in Maltese. But there are subjects such as geography and history in which it does not make sense to talk exclusively of foreign situations. We’re in the ridiculous situation that geography students read ‘globigerina limestone’ and do not know it’s ‘franka’.”
The council is looking into ways of joining forces with teachers and area specialists to produce Maltese textbooks, possibly with alternating chapters in English and Maltese to give the idea that both languages can be used interchangeably in all situations.
As to politicians, Vella says he likes reading Alfred Sant, less Gonzi.
“Sant likes experimenting with language, he’s an author after all. There are other politicians who use beautiful Maltese. At the event in honour of Guze Chetcuti there were Ugo Mifsud Bonnici and Louis Galea, who made nice speeches about Chetcuti – because they have read his works. There is an ironic twist to it. When Chetcuti started working in Maltese in the 40s there was the language question. Everyone knows the Nationalist Party’s position back then. It is a pleasure to see Nationalist politicians honouring Chetcuti today. But to be honest I don’t follow politicans’ speeches that much any longer. I can’t stand them. But the fact that politicians keep using Maltese is a great indication of how important the Maltese language is.”
In Vella’s opinion, the PN did the right thing to keep the word smart in its Independence slogan as there is no other word for it in Maltese. But Brand Malta – that much detested campaign that never took off – leaves him baffled.
“I can’t understand why they chose the word ‘weghda’ for brand. I think it is more ‘garanzija’. We weren’t consulted and I don’t expect to be consulted by whoever is using Maltese. And to be fair the leaflet they sent was well-written.”