One hundred years from his birth, Ġużè Aquilina is held in high esteem by Maltese readers and writers alike, who refer to the professor’s dictionary whether they are writing a doctoral paper or reading a book on a lazy afternoon.
National Book Council chairman Ġorġ Mallia described Prof. Aquilina as a meticulous person who embarked on complicated and exhausting tasks for the sake of the Maltese language.
As a sixth form student, Dr Mallia had approached Prof. Aquilina, then Chair of Maltese at the University of Malta, to honour him by writing an introduction to Dr Mallia’s first book Dwal, a collection of original works by Maltese authors.
“Prof. Aquilina gave the Maltese language a scientific structure. He is the person who bred the foundations onto which the academic Maltese language was built.
“The professor was to linguistics what Dun Karm Psaila was to literature and what Ninu Cremona was to grammar,” Dr Mallia said.
Asked about the importance of Ġużè Aquilina for the Maltese language, Dr Mallia said Prof. Aquilina was “at the right place at the right time to instil a different perception of the Maltese language”.
Born on April 7 in the quiet Gozitan village of Munxar, Prof. Aquilina was the first scholar to hold the Chair of Maltese and Oriental Languages at the University of Malta when he was just 26 years old.
Maltese had been crowned as the country’s official language just three years earlier, in 1934.
A firm believer in intellectual freedom and research, Prof. Aquilina served as dean of the Faculty of Arts between 1948 and 1966 and between 1972 and 1975.
He wrote and published several studies, edited poetry and prose anthologies, wrote and published drama and collected proverbs and idioms.
The Maltese language pioneer is still a reference point, in more ways than one, 14 years from his death.
Contemporary author Pierre Mejlak said Prof. Aquilina equipped today’s writers with the necessary tools. “Without him, the development of Maltese language would, without doubt, have taken a longer path. His effort is the basis on which a lot of work was founded through the years.
“As a Maltese author I continuously refer to his dictionary, a linguistic treasure which offers writers a variety of choices. Prof. Aquilina facilitates writers’ lives and every writer who uses his dictionary is in some way indebted to him.”
In its tribute to the author, the National Book Council described Dr Aquilina as an “eminent figure” who played a key role in Malta’s cultural history and whose energy had no bounds.
Sergio Grech, the council’s executive director, described Aquilina as “surely an example to imitate” who also left behind a heritage in the printed word. His most outstanding contribution to the Maltese language, he said, was his extensive dictionary which celebrates the beauty of the vernacular.