Ireland, Malta and the language of history

IN his letter headlined ‘Irish language was marginalised by history’ (Irish Examiner, June 28), Jim Yates says the difference between Irish and Maltese as EU languages is that “all citizens of Malta speak Maltese”.

Not so. There are three main languages in Malta. Two of them, Maltese and English, are official. The English language is a leftover of about 160 years of British colonisation of Malta. Italian is also spoken by a large number of Maltese citizens and used to be an official language. More and more young people speak Italian as result of Italian TV and radio broadcasts. The wealthier Maltese raise their children to speak English as their first language.

The number of Maltese people fluent in Maltese has been dropping for many years in favour of English, Italian or, more often, a mixed language a pidgin having elements of the others.

This is true of Ireland where Hiberno-English is more often heard than the Standard English of Britain, although Hiberno-English is considered a dialect rather than an actual pidgin.

Due to British colonisation the Maltese language has broken up into several dialects that have presented difficulties for speakers of one region to understand those of another.

This happened in Ireland, too, where three primary dialects arose during British colonisation and suppression of Irish and is only now being addressed through intercommunication between the dialectical areas. So, Mr Yates' Maltese argument strengthens the Irish language cause since the case of Maltese so closely parallels that of Irish.

Joseph G Murphy

20562 North Celia Ave

Prairie View

Illinois 60069

USA