The language question and education : a political controversy on a linguistic topic

Abstract

The linguistic situation in Malta, as everywhere else in Europe was marked by diglossia. This means that two languages were used in different roles and situations. During the Middle Ages the higher language or acrolect, which was mainly written and only spoken in formal situations, had been Latin all over Europe but from the thirteenth century onwards its domain came to be increasingly encroached by the ‘national languages’ which came into existence with the new monarchic system of government that replaced the concept of ‘empire’ as well as the fragmentary feudal rule. Latin remained the international language in diplomacy and in the Church (a supranational institution) while French, Spanish and English rose above the spoken dialects thanks to official use and to literary practice. During the Angevin, Aragonese and Castilian periods, Malta adopted neither French nor Spanish but, as it was ruled from Sicily (through the Viceroy), it was the Sicilian dialect in an ‘ennobled’ form (illustre) which shared the status of acrolect with Latin. The arrival of the Knights in 1530 coincided with the rise of the Florentine dialect above all the other dialects in Italy as the language of literature and, although it could not be a national language (simply because there was no Italian nation), it came to be used also for formal and institutional purposes. Since the Order of St. John was composed of eight Langues, it never identified itself with just one of its members’ nations, and consequently the various Grand Masters never bothered to adopt a linguistic policy for their Maltese subjects. Although the majority of the Knights were French or Iberian, the geographical vicinity of Italy determined the choice of Italian as the language of semi-formal communication between the various members, with the result that the Order’s documents came to be written mostly in the Italian language. This choice may also have been influenced by its constant contacts with Italy and by the technical fact that of all the Romance languages, Italian remained closest to Latin, and therefore people who knew Latin found it easy to acquire. The use of Italian (or volgare toscano as it was called in the 16th century) became frequent amongst the educated Maltese citizens due to their contact with the Knights and consequently the local middle class, including the università or local government, abandoned the written use of Sicilian. The Order’s lack of a linguistic policy for the Maltese people may have been a consequence of its disinterest in the people’s education, but it certainly ensured the survival of Maltese as a spoken language. On the other hand the interest of some enlightened individuals inspired the first attempts at its formal description1 and literary cultivation and, in this way, the seeds of the Enlightenment took root among the Maltese and culminated in the efforts of De Soldanis, Mifsud and Vassalli. The diglottic situation created a trilingual Maltese élite, who had been educated in Latin, wrote Italian with competence to the point of producing worthy publications abroad, and not only spoke Maltese but started writing it as well. Thanks to them the Maltese dialect was becoming a language. However, this peaceful state of affairs was rocked with the departure of the Knights, when Malta got its first brief but bitter taste of colonial experience under the French. This was followed by a long period of colonialism under the British Crown. When Napoleon set foot on Malta he announced radical reforms that were aimed at forming a new identity. Linguistic measures may have been less apparent than the defacement of the Knights’ coats of arms from public buildings (order IVd), but they were no less significant. Orders Vd, Ve and VIII proposed sending a hundred children to study in Paris, and the intention was to link the educational system, and subsequently the administrative and cultural spheres, more closely with France. In Valletta the streets were given French names, the French language was given official status in the courts and it was also introduced in the primary schools. France was always adamant in its centralization policies and there is no doubt that had the French remained here, Malta’s linguistic situation would be like the one in Corsica today. The French had obtained Corsica from Genoa in 1768 and presently it is still a French colony where the movement for independence is suppressed and the local language, which is quite close to Tuscan, has no official status and is now only spoken by about one third of the population. The use of Italian, which used to be the acrolect there, was discouraged and although up to 1850 it enjoyed a pari passu status with French, it was no longer taught in the schools by the late 19th century. At present only French is used in the Regional Assembly and in the Local Councils, in official and administrative correspondence, in newspapers and television programmes. Even in the churches French is used more often than the Corsican dialect, code-switching is rife and mainly consists of dialect words embedded in French sentences, not the other way round. The middle classes and the young prefer to speak in French, so that Corsican has come to be identified with the older citizens and the socially backward. The comparison with Corsica is far from an idle one. It is a parallel case that provides us with a hypothesis of what would have happened here but for the Language Question. Without the locals’ resistance, English would have been introduced to the detriment of both Italian and Maltese, but the long battle for Italian allowed the Maltese language to mature and reach standardization just when new factors in social development came into play to foster its acceptance and consolidation. The French occupation lasted little more than one year, and the attempts to give Malta a French character were cut short. The Maltese wisely refused to return to the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, as its weakness would have brought the French back in no time. Another hypothesis can be put forward here, that under the King of Naples Malta would have undergone a process more or less similar to the one which evolved in Pantelleria, where in the same period the inhabitants abandoned an Arabic dialect (probably a Sicilian variety quite similar to Maltese), and adopted a western Sicilian dialect (Trapani’s) as basilect and Italian as the acrolect. By inviting the British to stay, Malta brought in a third language into the central Mediterranean. At this point it is very important to forget the highriding position that English enjoys all over the world today and remember that in 1800 Britain had just sailed into the middle sea as a military power. Culturally it was practically unknown. In the days when transport was slow and the media were unheard of, the geographical factor was of the utmost importance. For the Maltese, Great Britain was too far away and Italy was close by. When the British came to Malta they noted its Italian character (the Baroque buildings, the Catholic religion, the diglossia Italian/local dialect, dress, food, and culture) and considered it a part of Italy. Captain Alexander Ball himself called Valletta “the most tranquill City in Italy”.