Originally Posted by Ederico
Maltese and Italian are both my languages, and this was always the traditionalist nationalist thesis. Actually, Maltese was wilely used by the English to eliminate Italian. The English and their local serfs fueled populistic aspirations through discrimination against nationalist supporters in government posts (with the Empire then being practically the only or main employer for the masses) and the promotion of the Maltese language as the language of the nation being it the language of the masses. The Maltese language, which the nationalists didn't really want hindered, was a perfect bait for those that culturally-speaking couldn't really recognise what was going on.
The truth is that that only led to the centuries-established Italian language to be denigrated through the decades and eliminated from officialdom and culture in general. The status of the Maltese language nowadays is still not much improved, with the English language being culturally hegenomic.
The worst result was the English language dominion on Malta's cultural livelihood. We now have all our public instruction in English, apart from Maltese and Religion I believe (and languages obviously) from the kindergarten to University and beyond. We have much of our "educated" nationals who can't write proper Maltese and prefer to use English in writing (please go check most Maltese forums if you have the time, and you'll see the point), no successful independent (non-political party or Church) Maltese language newspaper (a new one was just released, a liberal leftist one though, certainly not a patriotic endeavour) and much else. It is very annoying for example, that in some institutions forms are not even available in Maltese but only in English (the University is a case in point, the excuse is foreign students). Maltese nationalists had warned against this, and I've read excellent articles by Enrico Mizzi warning of such a cultural linguistic hegemony which would only result in the populace adopting protestant and rationalistic biases which are imbued in most popular English literature. Unfortunately, the "cavaliere senza macchia e senza paura" seems to have also been a cultural prophet.
The Maltese language was historically used by anglophile Imperialists as a horse of Troy to promote the English language and the elimination of the Italian language from Maltese culture. Unfortunately, most of those in favour of the Maltese language were shortsighted and easily duped and thus they fell for it. Even worse, many of them still carry over their anti-Italian bias to this day, preferring a Maltese language riper with Arabic vocabulary, something the English themselves sought to promote. Some Arabic-inspired words were introduced in the most artificial manners or awoken from their centuries long slumber, just in order to eliminate Sicilian/Italian words from Maltese parlance for example.
The accusation was always that Maltese nationalists were just elitists who opposed the Maltese language, but this was often mere deceitful propaganda as the nazionalisti always had widespread popular support. Actually, both Fortunato and Enrico Mizzi, greatest amongst Maltese nationalists in history, died in poverty even though they could have become rich if they exercised their profession. They chose their country and patriotism instead.
Truth is, their predictions related to the language question were materialised, so I doubt who was deceitful (sarcasm here, I don't doubt anything on the question).
The ugly truth is that the Maltese language was always the darling of Imperialists and Socialists in Malta, masquerading themselves for patriots. We all know how difficultly pro-British Imperialists and Socialists can be patriotic. They were populistic in the worse sense, they manipulated the masses through any means possible even though accusing implicitly the nazionalisti of doing so through labelling them "elitists" and constantly blathering against the Roman Catholic Church who supposedly sided with the latter (no wonder, you had pro-British Imperialists favouring an inherently protestant Empire with its anti-Catholic biases and Socialists (sic!) bandied together).
I guarantee that all ethnic Maltese will find some Sicilian/Italian ancestry in their family, I challenge anyone including the most ardent anglophile to provide me at least his grandparents' surname and I can guarantee that I would find some Italic surname. This reminds me of an episode from last summer, when two friends of mine, both of whom Maltese English football supporters (World Cup thing), were blathering against the Italians. The guys surnames are Portelli and Formosa respectively, Italian surnames themselves. Yes, I always support Italy unless they play against Malta.
As a concrete example, the most common ethnic Maltese surname is Camilleri for example, a Sicilian surname.There are other and many examples of this, not solely related to ancestry. This is such a huge question, that one day I'll definitely have to write a researched book on the question. This question has been dormant for way too much in Malta.
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