‘Go back to your country’

Jacqueline Zammit, University of Malta

When I wrote ‘Maltese risks digital extinction’, I expected a debate about technology or generational shifts. What I did not expect was to receive an e-mail from a Chinese national living in Malta who quietly reframed the entire conversation.

What he shared was not a complaint but a question that stopped me in my tracks. He and his wife arrived in Malta with the sincere hope of becoming part of the country they now call home. Learning Maltese, they believed, was the first step.

But they quickly discovered how difficult that step can be: turned away from public classes due to a lack of space, struggling to find private tutors, encountering high fees, inconsistent resources and no graded readers in Maltese for international learners.

“We are, arguably, among the most eager learners of Maltese,” he wrote, “and, yet, we find doors closed at every turn.”

What struck me most was not just the lack of institutional support; it was the social discomfort that greeted their efforts. When they try to speak Maltese, native speakers often respond the same way: with a nervous smile, an automatic switch to English and visible discomfort with the unfamiliar.

Outsiders

Sometimes, it is worse. He and his wife have been told, both directly and indirectly: “Go back to your country.”

As he put it in his message: “Are people like us, who come with open hearts and a real desire to stay, viewed as contaminants or outsiders?”

Let us stay with that for a moment…

Here are people who actively want to learn Maltese; who want to participate in our society, not stand apart from it. “We have felt the sting of not being taken seriously in our attempt to integrate,” he wrote. That sting is felt not only through what is said but through what is withheld: space, opportunity and encouragement.

These Chinese nationals are not alone. People from other countries have told me versions of the same story.

A Polish waitress said that even when she uses simple phrases in Maltese, the locals reply in English, as though they do not expect her to belong.

A Venezuelan maid shared that she once tried to speak Maltese with the family she works for, only to be laughed at and told not to bother.

A Pakistani nurse put it bluntly: “We are welcome to work here but not to speak.”

A Swedish i-gaming manager, a Colombian masseuse, an Italian salesman, a Palestinian builder, a Syrian wall painter and a Serbian surgeon have all felt that same subtle rejection.

Rather than encouragement, their efforts are met with silence, awkwardness, or a swift switch to English.

“Preservation without access”

From Libyan managers and Moroccan housewives to Egyptian tile layers, Somali builders, Kenyan nuns, a Russian hairdresser, a Ukrainian beautician, a Romanian receptionist, a Hungarian chef, a Bulgarian student and a Lebanese chef, many migrants learn Maltese informally on construction sites, in kitchens, on buses, or in salons. Yet, when they try to use it, they are often met with surprise, discomfort, or polite dismissal.

These are not isolated stories. They form a pattern; a quiet one, an uncomfortable one. And it raises a question that should concern us all: Why are so many foreigners proud, even eager, to learn Maltese while so many Maltese people respond with embarrassment, discomfort, or indifference?

Many international learners ask this, gently but honestly: Why do Maltese people not seem to be proud of their own language?

We say we are protecting Maltese but preservation without access is just exclusion in disguise. A language cannot live on declarations. It lives in use, in encouragement, shared effort, in voices and accents that may not be native but are authentic.

While we debate digital extinction, the real extinction could be happening quietly, socially, in the missed opportunity of every person who wants to carry our language forward and finds the door quietly shut.

Inheritance through care

So, we must ask: Who is the Maltese language really for?

Is it a private heirloom, passed through bloodlines? Or can it be shared with those who wish to embrace it?

Languages are not inherited through genes; they are inherit­ed through care. And right now, some foreigners are showing more care for Maltese than many of us born into it.

The experience of the Chinese national and his wife is echoed by many others who have tried and struggled to learn and use Maltese. They are a mirror, reflecting back a version of ourselves we may not want to see.

So the next time someone speaks to you in Maltese with an unfamiliar accent, do not switch to English. Listen. Smile. Speak back.

That moment might be the future of our language, il-Malti.

This article was originally published in the Times of Malta.

Jacqueline Zammit is a resident senior lecturer at the University of Malta and a researcher specialising in Maltese pedagogy.