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Thursday, August 31, 2006

Don't You (Forget About Me)

Paul Carachi was someone I met when I first started my career in professional broadcasting a little over 20 years ago. He was a semi-retired journalist and politician who had much wisdom to offer to a media rookie like me. I was most impressed by his ability to coin Maltese terms for common phrases in the news. At his typewriter, the United Nations became il-Ġnus Magħquda and the airport was il-mitjar. The Cold War was il-Gwerra l-Bierda, throughout all the years the Maltese media reported it. I once asked him why it wasn't il-gwerra l-kiesħa and he explained that kiesħa has connotations of ksuħat and therefore not an ideal term. Bruda, he argued, was were he got bierda for the best Maltese term for the Cold War. He insisted that the best translations are never literal.

Pawlu Karaċi, as we affectionately knew him, died last night. He was 80. I had not heard much of him since I left Xandir Malta in the early 1990s. I was not really aware that he was an elected member of the Balzan local council until last year when the Institute of Maltese Journalists gave him the Gold Award.

Professor Henry Frendo called him a giant of Maltese journalism. It's a shame that so many younger Maltese students of journalism and the new crop of professional Maltese translators in Brussels and Luxembourg hardly know anything about him.

I'll always think of him whenever I hear or read that the United Nations are known as in-Nazzjonijiet Uniti rather than il-Ġnus Magħquda.

Blogger Erezija said...

"I'll always think of him whenever I hear or read that the United Nations are known as in-Nazzjonijiet Uniti rather than il-Ġnus Magħquda."


Having said that, there is a difference between Nazzjonijiet Uniti and Ġnus Magħquda. Ġnus are not Nations but Peoples.

Ġnus Magħquda certainly sounds better than Nazzjonijiet Uniti, although not as accurate a translation. 

2:36 PM, August 31, 2006

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