Maltese experience is different to Ireland’s
This is so that the Maltese language lives on.
In the three years that I have been coming to Ireland, I have not heard an Irish conversation between two or more persons; it has always been in English.
There were times, when under British rule, the schools in Malta, especially private schools, students were made to speak only the English language, but that was all changed years ago and
Maltese is the first language of Malta.
Maybe because of our size in population, we were always wary that our language was unknown outside our shores, and that is why nearly all
Maltese can speak the English language and others.
If it was not so, then no Maltese could converse with speakers of other languages. Because, like the Irish language, no-one who is not Irish would bother to learn the language. Maybe this is exactly what happened to the Irish language and, unfortunately, it appears that the language is dying out.
I think that the Irish language is so beautiful that it should be conserved and a real push made so the children would speak this language and make if their first language. One must admit that now English is, or it appears to be, the first language of Ireland.
Vincent Aquilina
2 Mount Ovel
Rochestown
Cork
