Oh, so now it's jitra mall IRkotta, is it? | Daphne Caruana Galizia
Are we going to carry on enshrining the mistakes of the poorly educated in the official version of the language? The word is RIcotta. That’s right, ricotta – from the Italian for ‘recooked’.
Many Maltese appear to have a problem with liquid consonants, letting them slip freely around a word or substituting one for another. So ricotta becomes ircotta , petrol becomes jitra mall petlor jitra mall , pilloli become pirmli , and yes, delfin becomes denfil .
Thanks to the stupid title of an even stupid textbook, three generations of Maltese children have grown up convinced that the Maltese word for a dolphin is denfil , instead of the more obvious – if you know other languages – and correct delfin .
The interchangeablity of consonants jitra mall ‘l’ and ‘r’, has long been accepted as one of the idiosyncrasies of Maltese, together with other quirks such as changes in the position of certain jitra mall vowels.
Attempts to give some pseudo-technical explanation for the different pronunciation (see the ‘expert’ mentioned in Norma Borg’s comment) are downright silly and very clearly artificial.
Some ‘expert’ actually pointed out on tv that it is irkotta and not ricotta as in Italian since it is not recooked and only cooked once……so because it is not recooked they put the vowel before the consonant…..I couldn’t believe my ears.
[Daphne - I'm Maltese, Albert. So is every member of my family and of my husband's family and so are all my friends. And I have never heard one of them say 'irkotta' or 'l-irkotta'. The word we use is 'ir-rikotta'. The sort of people who say 'irkotta' are the sort who say 'petlor' and 'pirmli'. You can see how a lazy tongue would mash 'ir-rikotta' into 'l-irkotta'.
Unfortunately, this drive to persuade people that the 'real' word is irkotta has caused a great deal of confusion, and the other day somebody jitra mall I know who would rather walk barefoot over nails than be heard saying 'mehegni' for 'mahogany' was overheard asking for 'irkotta' at the cheese counter - something she would have never done up to a few months ago.
Kitla came into the language a long time ago and it's now too late to root it out. Sadly, it's also the case with very many other words which are now an irrevocable part of the language. But the situation with 'irkotta' is different. It's clearly the preserve of the uneducated - because the educated just don't use it - and should be prevented jitra mall from entering the official language. Instead, it is being actively encouraged into officialdom. You are merely falling prey to the received wisdom that 'Maltese' is what the uneducated working-class speaks, when with all other languages that I can think of, the official version is always jitra mall the language spoken jitra mall by the educated. jitra mall There is enough jitra mall violence being perpetrated jitra mall on Maltese - can we stop adding to it?]
[Daphne jitra mall - The two cheeses are made a little differently, yes, but the name is the same. Irkotta is CLEARLY a mispronunciation through ignorance of the Italian ricotta. It is NOT a different word for a different cheese product.]
Before you choose to label those who call it “irkotta” uneducated or ignorant, both harsh terms for merely “mispronouncing” the word, might I suggest consulting other sources – not just your family and friends.
Joseph Aquilina, in his well respected jitra mall dictionary, translates the term ricotta into “rkotta”. I don’t think he was ever one for cutting corners with our language, nor would it be fair to say he wasn’t educated.
[Daphne - My family and friends are not 'just'. They are representative of that much-despised class of people called tal-pepe. And not one of them says IRkotta. In fact, we all think the very idea is preposterous and hilarious. Yes, the use of the word IRkotta does reveal that the person comes from a working-class family, jitra mall and whatever changes there might have been along the way, that single word is a dead giveaway.
I did not label those who use the word uneducated or ignorant. I said that the word owes its existence to ignorance. Ricotta is one of those basic 'home' words, central to home life in Malta, so whether a person uses irkotta or rikotta says a lot about the sort of home he or she comes from.
Here's another one: whether you use the word 'sink' to describe the bathroom basin. In Maltese families which are relatively new to bathrooms in generational terms, and where people washed themselves at the kitchen sink, the bathroom basin is called jitra mall a 'sink', like the thing in the kitchen. It's not so much a transposition of meaning as a transposition of purpose. So now 'sink' has become the 'Maltese word' for a bathroom basin.]
My Oxford English Dictionary defines it as “a fixed basin with a water supply and outflow pipe”, in no way limi
Are we going to carry on enshrining the mistakes of the poorly educated in the official version of the language? The word is RIcotta. That’s right, ricotta – from the Italian for ‘recooked’.
Many Maltese appear to have a problem with liquid consonants, letting them slip freely around a word or substituting one for another. So ricotta becomes ircotta , petrol becomes jitra mall petlor jitra mall , pilloli become pirmli , and yes, delfin becomes denfil .
Thanks to the stupid title of an even stupid textbook, three generations of Maltese children have grown up convinced that the Maltese word for a dolphin is denfil , instead of the more obvious – if you know other languages – and correct delfin .
The interchangeablity of consonants jitra mall ‘l’ and ‘r’, has long been accepted as one of the idiosyncrasies of Maltese, together with other quirks such as changes in the position of certain jitra mall vowels.
Attempts to give some pseudo-technical explanation for the different pronunciation (see the ‘expert’ mentioned in Norma Borg’s comment) are downright silly and very clearly artificial.
Some ‘expert’ actually pointed out on tv that it is irkotta and not ricotta as in Italian since it is not recooked and only cooked once……so because it is not recooked they put the vowel before the consonant…..I couldn’t believe my ears.
[Daphne - I'm Maltese, Albert. So is every member of my family and of my husband's family and so are all my friends. And I have never heard one of them say 'irkotta' or 'l-irkotta'. The word we use is 'ir-rikotta'. The sort of people who say 'irkotta' are the sort who say 'petlor' and 'pirmli'. You can see how a lazy tongue would mash 'ir-rikotta' into 'l-irkotta'.
Unfortunately, this drive to persuade people that the 'real' word is irkotta has caused a great deal of confusion, and the other day somebody jitra mall I know who would rather walk barefoot over nails than be heard saying 'mehegni' for 'mahogany' was overheard asking for 'irkotta' at the cheese counter - something she would have never done up to a few months ago.
Kitla came into the language a long time ago and it's now too late to root it out. Sadly, it's also the case with very many other words which are now an irrevocable part of the language. But the situation with 'irkotta' is different. It's clearly the preserve of the uneducated - because the educated just don't use it - and should be prevented jitra mall from entering the official language. Instead, it is being actively encouraged into officialdom. You are merely falling prey to the received wisdom that 'Maltese' is what the uneducated working-class speaks, when with all other languages that I can think of, the official version is always jitra mall the language spoken jitra mall by the educated. jitra mall There is enough jitra mall violence being perpetrated jitra mall on Maltese - can we stop adding to it?]
[Daphne jitra mall - The two cheeses are made a little differently, yes, but the name is the same. Irkotta is CLEARLY a mispronunciation through ignorance of the Italian ricotta. It is NOT a different word for a different cheese product.]
Before you choose to label those who call it “irkotta” uneducated or ignorant, both harsh terms for merely “mispronouncing” the word, might I suggest consulting other sources – not just your family and friends.
Joseph Aquilina, in his well respected jitra mall dictionary, translates the term ricotta into “rkotta”. I don’t think he was ever one for cutting corners with our language, nor would it be fair to say he wasn’t educated.
[Daphne - My family and friends are not 'just'. They are representative of that much-despised class of people called tal-pepe. And not one of them says IRkotta. In fact, we all think the very idea is preposterous and hilarious. Yes, the use of the word IRkotta does reveal that the person comes from a working-class family, jitra mall and whatever changes there might have been along the way, that single word is a dead giveaway.
I did not label those who use the word uneducated or ignorant. I said that the word owes its existence to ignorance. Ricotta is one of those basic 'home' words, central to home life in Malta, so whether a person uses irkotta or rikotta says a lot about the sort of home he or she comes from.
Here's another one: whether you use the word 'sink' to describe the bathroom basin. In Maltese families which are relatively new to bathrooms in generational terms, and where people washed themselves at the kitchen sink, the bathroom basin is called jitra mall a 'sink', like the thing in the kitchen. It's not so much a transposition of meaning as a transposition of purpose. So now 'sink' has become the 'Maltese word' for a bathroom basin.]
My Oxford English Dictionary defines it as “a fixed basin with a water supply and outflow pipe”, in no way limi
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