Maltese - Does Official Recognition Matter?

Abstract

With a tradition of exposure to more than one language throughout the history of the Maltese islands, culminating in the dominant position first of Italian and later of English, Maltese emerged in the 1964 Independence Constitution as the national language of the Maltese people, co-official with English (sections 1-7). With accession to the European Union in 2003, Maltese became an official language of the Union. The National Council for the Maltese Language was also established at this time (sections 8-9). In order to gauge the de jure and de facto linguistic situation, this paper explores various domains. In the legislative sphere (section 12) it is found that laws should be promulgated in both Maltese and English, where the Maltese text is binding in case of conflict between the two versions, but in fact there are loopholes allowing secondary legislation to be passed in English only. In very general terms, Maltese is widely spoken while English tends to be used more in writing, a case in point being the day to day practice of government entities (section 11). In the educational sector (section 14), Maltese and English are both accorded the same level of importance but, depending on the type of school, English is more or less favoured. On the other hand, the use of Maltese is much more prevalent in the religious sphere and the media (sections 13, 15) although code-switching with English also takes place in the broadcast media. Other sectors considered include identity (section 10), citizenship (section 16), emigration (section 17), culture, literature and the arts (section 18).

Keywords

• Maltese, bilingualism, official status, national status, language domains.