Sunday, January 22, 2006
Na zdrowie Doktorze Costa!
Mario Costa, who, I believe, is Malta's man in Moscow (and not the bloke in the picture) has written a letter to The Independent about the language question. His letter is spot-on.
Ok, it does rub shoulders with this. But they do say that variety's the spice of life.
Essentially, Costa's letter makes sense because it simply shows that the man is, thanks to his experience, capable of thinking outside the box. And by box I mean the narrow Anglo-Italo-Malti one which even intelligent people like Daphne are clearly caught up in. The Malta l-ewwel u qabel kollox syndrome is paralysing but the Anglo-Italo-Malti mind-set can be fairly constraining too. It also keeps the artificial "dik tal-pepe"/"ma, what a hamallu" shebang going strong.
Na zdrowie Doktorze Costa!
Mario Costa, who, I believe, is Malta's man in Moscow (and not the bloke in the picture) has written a letter to The Independent about the language question. His letter is spot-on.
Ok, it does rub shoulders with this. But they do say that variety's the spice of life.
Essentially, Costa's letter makes sense because it simply shows that the man is, thanks to his experience, capable of thinking outside the box. And by box I mean the narrow Anglo-Italo-Malti one which even intelligent people like Daphne are clearly caught up in. The Malta l-ewwel u qabel kollox syndrome is paralysing but the Anglo-Italo-Malti mind-set can be fairly constraining too. It also keeps the artificial "dik tal-pepe"/"ma, what a hamallu" shebang going strong.
Na zdrowie Doktorze Costa!
_____________________
Incidentally, Polish friends did inform me that the Polish plumber campaign has been a huge success. But just look at these sensational statistics! (source, of all places The Iran Daily). Maybe the MTA will ditch those photos of Joe Quattromani dressed as La Vallette and go for Xandru Grech as the Maltese meter-reader. In the meantime, Labour's plans to boost tourism are, predictably, about as sexy as Evarist Bartolo performing a lap-dance.
The number of tourists who visited Poland soared in July and August, thanks to an advertising campaign which turned the negative symbol of cheap eastern European labor--the Polish plumber--into a blonde hunk carrying a monkey-wrench who beckons foreigners to visit his country, AFP reported.“The campaign was well taken up around the world. It focused the attention of lots of people on our country,“ the Polish tourism board’s Krzysztof Turowski told reporters.The symbol of the Polish plumber, representing cheap labor from new EU member states, was vilified earlier this year during national referendum campaigns on the EU constitution, which was rejected by French and Dutch voters.But Poland’s tourism board cleverly turned this negative image into a positive when it launched a campaign at the start of the summer that used a blonde man clutching pipes and a monkey-wrench, above the slogan, “I am staying in Poland--come on over.“Thanks to the handsome, muscle-bound Polish plumber, the number of French tourists visiting Poland in July and August rose 14 percent compared with the same two months last year to 57,400.“Our plumber even scored in Australia,“ said Turowski. Fifty-six percent more Australians, or 10,200, visited Poland this summer than the previous year.The numbers of Cypriots, whose country, like Poland, joined the EU in May last year, rose the most--by nearly 130 percent.Eight-hundred Cypriots visited Poland in July and August.Other visitors who found the idea of coming to Poland particularly attractive were Canadians--up 62 percent to 19,500 visitors in July and August, new EU nationals from Malta--up 59 percent, and British and Irish nationals--up 47 percent and 33 percent.The number of summertime visitors from the United States rose nearly 25 percent to 95,100, while Japanese visitor numbers rose around 20 percent to 8,500.
-Isma darling, where shall we spend our summer holidays?
-I heard at tal-kantuniera that Poland's really beautiful.
U ajma, Poland of all places...
¶ 6:23 AM
Comments:
<< Home
I disagree.
The languages he mentioned don't have the same constant influx of English words as Maltese has and the places he mentioned aren't bilingual - local/English either. I'll grant you this much though - he really HAS thought out of the box, unfortunately he's ventured so far out of the box he can't even acknowledge the box has ever been there in the first place.
We should, ideally, coin "local" words (such as 'tisliba' or 'tertuqa') and stop tinkering with English words (I think transliterated english looks ugly but if the Maltese are too lazy to create their own words or too adamant to actually use them lest they get laughed at, well, in that case what else can you do?). I think the way the French coin words is a good, creative example. Why is digital numérique and not digitale? Simply because digite is not used in French, numero is. Simple. Logical.
Re: "malta l-ewwel u qabel kollox syndrome" - 40% of our language is transliterated Italian and no-one mentions that, but try to challenge the sanctity of the English language and half the Maltese population is up in arms (well not really up in arms. I think most people don't give a flajjing fakk really). Malta l-ewwel u qabel kollox? Not quite...
The languages he mentioned don't have the same constant influx of English words as Maltese has and the places he mentioned aren't bilingual - local/English either. I'll grant you this much though - he really HAS thought out of the box, unfortunately he's ventured so far out of the box he can't even acknowledge the box has ever been there in the first place.
We should, ideally, coin "local" words (such as 'tisliba' or 'tertuqa') and stop tinkering with English words (I think transliterated english looks ugly but if the Maltese are too lazy to create their own words or too adamant to actually use them lest they get laughed at, well, in that case what else can you do?). I think the way the French coin words is a good, creative example. Why is digital numérique and not digitale? Simply because digite is not used in French, numero is. Simple. Logical.
Re: "malta l-ewwel u qabel kollox syndrome" - 40% of our language is transliterated Italian and no-one mentions that, but try to challenge the sanctity of the English language and half the Maltese population is up in arms (well not really up in arms. I think most people don't give a flajjing fakk really). Malta l-ewwel u qabel kollox? Not quite...
interessanti din... j'accuse may be too pompous for your blog... but....
http://akkuza.blogspot.com/2005/06/non-sequitur-2.html
http://akkuza.blogspot.com/2005/06/non-sequitur-2.html
Bex - my point about Costa was fairly simple and boils down to this. How often do we hear arguments which refer to examples about countries/langauges other than Maltese, English or Italian? Not just about language issues but other stuff too (and the Vatican - but that's another story).
Daphne had brought up the argument that the Italians simply use the English word. For instance "il computer". And then, as usual, she adds something like "and that is, of course,the most natural and sensible thing" before going on to rubbish someone or other. Well ok, but what about the Poles, the Turks, the Russians...?
I think you get the drift.
Jacques - Believe it or not, some news items don't reach the world via j'accuse. ;-)
Post a Comment
Daphne had brought up the argument that the Italians simply use the English word. For instance "il computer". And then, as usual, she adds something like "and that is, of course,the most natural and sensible thing" before going on to rubbish someone or other. Well ok, but what about the Poles, the Turks, the Russians...?
I think you get the drift.
Jacques - Believe it or not, some news items don't reach the world via j'accuse. ;-)
<< Home
