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<h1 class="gmail-article_title">Utility of Maltese language - Francis Zammit Dimech</h1>
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<p>Representing the people of Malta within the European Parliament
includes identifying those subjects that are of a direct interest to us
as a people and speak up about such matters after consulting
stakeholders and others who would like to share with me their concerns,
ideas and suggestions.</p>
<p>It is my firm belief that mobile applications should be available in
Maltese to ensure that the Maltese language is considered equal with
other languages in an ever-increasing digital world.</p>
<p>As we speak, Maltese is one of four European languages at risk of
being severely diminished due to underutilisation in technology. </p>
<p>Considering this fact, as a member of the European Parliament, I am
currently actively engaged in meeting stakeholders in Malta to submit
proposals which, among others, would facilitate the development of
digital literacy programmes and introduction of language technology
training and tools in education to live up to linguistic expectations in
the digital age.</p>
<p>Several academics and leaders in the Maltese language already helped
me articulate a number of proposals directed to increase investment in
research and provide the facility to academic institutions to create
their language technology platforms.</p>
<p>These are just a few proposals within a wider set of a language
equality package for the digital age we are working on, because
ultimately the European Union is all about unity in diversity, yet we
need to constantly see how to live up to our expectations in a changing
environment. </p>
<p>I am glad that through my role we identified education as the primary
policy tool to secure the future of language equality in the digital
age because education is the mother of all reforms.</p>
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<div class="gmail-bbcode_quote_body">The Maltese language needs to be boosted on digital platforms</div>
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<p>Multilingualism presents one of the EU’s greatest assets of cultural
diversity through its 24 official languages and more than 60 national
and regional languages within it; but it is a challenge as well. It is
an EU objective to enable our citizens to communicate well in our mother
tongue plus two other key languages precisely to manage European
multilingualism properly.</p>
<p>Concurrently with my efforts in convincing colleagues that the
Maltese language needs to be boosted on digital platforms in the face of
a deepening digital divide between widely-used and lesser-used
languages, our government has put forward 14 proposals to “develop a
more varied curriculum” and an “alternative curriculum”.</p>
<p>Quite ironic, to say the least, considering that this Labour
government is going at a complete tangent from what we are strategically
doing in the European Parliament.</p>
<p>Furthermore, whereas a PN government worked to make the Maltese
language an official language of the European Union, the Labour
government wants to make the Maltese language a foreign language in our
own country.</p>
<p>This unjustified stand will not help but will neither discourage me
from sustaining my efforts on the tasks which I am working on within the
European Parliament.</p>
<p>I am proud of my language and I make it a point to intervene in
Maltese whenever possible in the European Parliament because I
understand the significance of the heritage that my language carries in
terms of national patrimony and cultural identity.</p>
<p>Not only should our language be taught with the dignity and esteem
that it deserves, it must also start being given greater importance on
digital platforms, just as we are doing to promote the use of language
technologies within exchanges between European citizens within
programmes such as Erasmus+ to incentivise intercultural dialogue among
native mother language speakers and host foreign language ones,
especially in written and audio-visual expression.</p>
<p>I believe that multilingualism is one of the most important assets of
Europe, while it poses one of the most substantial challenges for the
fulfilment of a sufficiently functionable Digital Single Market. </p>
<p>By bridging the technology gap for our people, we also want policies
to foster technology development for all European languages because the
preservation of a language and the culture around is crucial to live
together in the modern digital world.</p>
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<br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature">=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+<br><br> Harold F. Schiffman<br><br>Professor Emeritus of <br> Dravidian Linguistics and Culture <br>Dept. of South Asia Studies <br>University of Pennsylvania<br>Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305<br><br>Phone: (215) 898-7475<br>Fax: (215) 573-2138 <br><br>Email: <a href="mailto:haroldfs@gmail.com" target="_blank">haroldfs@gmail.com</a><br><a href="http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/" target="_blank">http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/</a> <br><br>-------------------------------------------------</div>
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