Stripped of legalese and political fudge-talk, this is what the educational authorities seem to be proposing: “Let’s start treating Maltese as a foreign language, not just for foreigners living here but also for Maltese students who ‘identify as English-speaking’.”

So it has come to this.

I am hardly the ideal poster boy for Maltese o muerte. I grew up in a happily bilingual environment, and have carried that forward to the next generation with my chil­dren. I code-switch, much to the chagrin of some of my friends. I read in both Maltese and English, and have no hang-ups about e-mailing and communicating in English at times. I am in love with the English language and its literature. One of the books on my bedside table at the moment is The Etymologicon, a text about the curious etymologies of common English words. I do not insist on saying “Il-waranofsinhar it-tajjeb” instead of “Good afternoon” – and am not about to start.

But the assumption here is that one has a reasonable command of both Maltese and English, and can love both and freely choose which to use at any given time. What is increasingly happening is that many Maltese people are so unfamiliar with Maltese, and incapable of stringing together a proper sentence or two in the language, that the language has become alien to them.

And before anyone chimes in with “What’s wrong with that?”, please, can we think just for a moment what we’re saying here. Maltese is a central part of our identity as a nation, our one and only national language.

Yes, that’s right. Contrary to popular perception, Malta has just the one national language: Maltese.

It has three official languages – Maltese, English and Maltese sign language – that are official for a host of historical, cultural and sociological reasons. They are official also because they help us communicate better: where would we be in the wider world without a solid command of English?

But we must not forget that English remains a foreign language. It’s a foreign language that we are lucky enough to have close links to and a strong grasp of, but foreign it remains nonetheless. Efforts over the years to blur the distinction between ‘national’ and ‘official’ – sometimes innocently, other times I suspect deliberately – have obfuscated this important point.

What’s most obscene about this exam proposal is that it would seek to institutionalise the alien status of Maltese

It is alarming in itself that some people don’t think it weird – at the very least – that they consider their national heritage alien. For too many of us, Maltese has become something to be wheeled out when talking of quaint or folkloristic topics, or when a chest-thumping display of nationalism is called for. So in schools it tends to be used in conjunction with things like ‘il-bigilla’, ‘il-ganutell’ or ‘il-festa tar-raħal tiegħi’.

Likewise on the national stage: when the sale of passports be­came an issue some  years ago, that was the cue for a number of politicians to hysterically recite the Innu Malti (usually peppered with at least a couple dozen spelling mistakes) on Facebook.

Like all other parents, I am on various Facebook parent groups. And too often, references to our children’s Maltese homework is couched in terms of “what a bother”, “why do they have to learn all this useless stuff”, or other disparaging tones. Yet I don’t recall ever reading such inflections when discussing English or Humanities or Science homework difficulties.

So it’s a bit disingenuous to shift all blame onto the educational system for failing our children, when we’re inculcating in them that distaste towards Maltese.

I think what’s most obscene about this exam proposal is that it would seek to institutionalise the alien status of Maltese. The issue is not with foreigners having an exam for Maltese as a foreign language. The issue is making that exam available to Maltese students. Let’s be realistic for a moment: given children’s exam stress, and the fact that more and more parents are bringing their children up speaking English, in practice the vast majority of students will – given the choice – opt for the ‘easier’ Maltese-as-a-foreign-language exam.

Is there a problem with the oral and written levels of Maltese proficiency? Ab­solutely. But the solution is not to seek to lower the standards according to a lowest common denominator policy. That’s madness.

There is likewise a problem with standards of English. But I don’t hear anyone say English should be marginalised. No, the solution is to strive and enact whatever reforms are necessary to bring students’ levels of English up to the desired standard. Not push the standards down to meet the mangling. Therein lies the gutter.

Unless, of course, the real reason behind the attempt to recast Maltese as a foreign language is not any of the above, but a veiled or unconscious classism or elitism. A 200-year-old colonial mentality that anything English is better, superior and more refined than the kitchen-language does persist, and claims of its demise are sadly greatly exaggerated.

Chris Gruppetta is director of Merlin Publishers, one of Malta’s longest established publishing houses.

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