Politicians need to conscientiously tackle the lingering challenge of our indigenous Maltese language. The language belongs exclusively to the Maltese people, collectively and individually, all with equal claim to its authorship.
Yet, the act of parliament that created the National Council for the Maltese Language gives the council absolute authority – carte blanche – over our language. It can publish legal directives that affect it in The Malta Government Gazette.
More specifically, section 2, article 6/2 of chapter 470 needs to be completely expunged from the law. This section bestows absolute legislative authority upon the council to make changes to the Maltese language as it sees fit, which can then be made law by decree.
This measure usurps the true ownership of the Maltese language from the Maltese people who created it.
To me and to a large number of leading Maltese thinkers and writers, this clause is an insult, bordering on the betrayal and treason of the principal trait that identifies us as unique within the family of nations. Modern, civilised first world nations such as Canada, the US, Australia and New Zealand do not possess a distinguishing language of their own, so they need to use the language of Britain: English.
Yet, these same nations still feel the dire need to express their own singular origins as sovereign nations, independent of their British cultural ties, by adopting and by creating their own language variations (idioms, lemmas, pronunciation, intonation, semantics...).
Their national desire to identify themselves as distinct from the British, without any inference of antagonism, inspires an ever-increasing linguistic corpora peculiar only to their people, thereby identifying them as Canadian, Australian, American and New Zealanders.
The still festering national language qualm about Maltese – a language unique in its own right, proudly having developed its own lexical and literary repertoire over centuries of social intermingling on the world stage – remains a gaping wound of national proportions that only serves as an ideal tool for dictatorial decisions.
This is not exactly the attitude and behaviour that ought to be taken by highly cultured scholars if they truly cherish the sublime ingredients of their calling.
While an entire nation looks forward to their wise guidance in the proper and apt preservation of our unique national tongue, the language rut at all social levels proceeds with its momentum unabated.
Stubborn pride and conceit in capriciously tampering with the wisdom of the founding fathers of Maltese can and will eventually lead to a language nihilism as happened historically in various corners of the world to so many other minority languages, the memory of which persists merely in the archives of oblivion.
So hallowed, profound, personal and intrinsically unique is the nature of ‘language’ – in all its human spoken and written forms – that no single individual (be they the chief justice of the land, president or prime minister, top hierarchy of the local Church or rector of the top institution of learning) or any group should ever hold absolute authority over a people’s tongue.
For ‘language’ evolves consciously and subconsciously, even incidentally, with all possible nuances that the human brain is capable of imagining, implying, intending.
No single individual or group should ever hold absolute authority over a people’s tongue- Roderick Bovingdon
Hence, I ask the reader-thinker: who on this earth has the absolute right to legislate and enforce by decree upon this singular, uniquely human, limitless, innate power?
Human language (spoken and written) intrinsically incorporates a people’s deepest and most personal intricacies, including the celebrated communal triumphs and endured woes that its sole true owners accumulate and develop over centuries to universal benefit.
Owing to the transient, ever-changing nature of language, rules of grammar (including the entire linguistics corpus) and lexicons (dictionaries, word lists, glossaries, etc.) should be treated as significant ‘guidelines’ but never as sine qua non or infallible dictums arrogantly imposed by legislation.
These ‘rules’, after all, know their origins from the earliest days of civilisation. They are not invented or composed at the whim of individual scholars. The scholar observes, collates, compares, analyses, scrutinises, then formulates the unwritten ‘rules’ already extant within the language structure into registered rules under the collective notion of ‘grammar’, inherently and conceptually built into human language. The basic collective wisdom and knowledge upon which language is built evolves.
With profoundest respect towards the forebears who initialised as well as the worthy contribution of the current users, language should be left to develop always with reverence towards its most skilful users.
In view of the forthcoming election, I invite the declared candidates of all colours and creeds, who present themselves to the Maltese public in the forthcoming national ballot, to publicly declare beforehand their understanding and intentions concerning the future of our unique Maltese language.
In this way, the people of this proud nation will then know and be more suitably armed to participate proactively in the preservation of the past and collective ongoing wisdom of the users.
But getting rid of the offending article incorporated within the law is a non-negotiable necessity before it is too late.
Then, there should be a thorough review of the entire act, where archaisms such as artikolu and kapitolu, instead of artiklu/kapitlu, and all other concealed subtleties are clarified. Let no obscurities hover over vague modes of expression.
Before one can instruct others in the art of writing and speaking one’s tongue, such as in the relentless attacks upon our journalists, let the would-be teachers first familiarise themselves more thoroughly with the people’s language with due sensitivity and respect towards our people and the Maltese nation in toto.