The language question in Malta : the consciousness of a national identity

Abstract

The political and cultural history of Malta is largely determined by her having been a colony, a land seriously limited in her possibilities of acquiring self-consciousness and of allowing her citizens to live in accordance with their own aspirations. Consequently the centuries of political submission may be equally defined as an uninterrupted experience of cultural submission. In the long run it has been a benevolent and fruitful submission. But culture, particularly art, is essentially a form of liberation. Lack of freedom in the way of life, therefore, resulted in lack of creativity. Nonetheless her very insularity was to help in the formation of an indigenous popular culture, segregated from the main foreign currents, but necessarily faithful to the conditions of the simple life of the people, a predominantly rural and religious life taken up by preoccupations of a subdued rather than rebellious nature, concerned with the family rather than with the nation. The development of the two traditional languages of Malta - the Italian language, cultured and written, and the Maltese, popular and spoken - can throw some light on this cultural and social dualism. [excerpt]