Maltese howlers

Charles Micallef (July 1) can rest assured he is joining the chorus of voices in the wilderness.

Mine is one of them because I have been writing repeatedly to condemn the bad use of the Maltese language on our radio and TV stations.

The national stations should lead by example but the promised experts and guardians of our language seem to be shirking their responsibilities and nobody in the newsroom seems to care.

Have the Akkademja tal-Malti and the Bord tal-Malti lost their voice too? Maltese listeners are addressed in English, Malglish or bad English in most programmes and commercials.

Telephone numbers and street names are still given in English. One commercial voice will outdo them all by saying "chriple chree" for triple three. And then we are sick and tired of Rachel Vella's and Claire Agius's ovvjament, Net TV's sostna, Antoinette Cassar's and one or two newscasters' bad reading. Do they not ever listen to their own recording? Why must we remain so indifferent, slipshod and dilettantish?

We have been making fools of ourselves long enough to care for the howlers contained in the translation masterpiece of the EU draft constitution.

However, I was more than pleased that there was a popular outrage at this botched and bungled translation.

Will our chorus of voices ever sing "Hope springs eternal in the human breast" or will it be "Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch'entrate"?