Maltese is my
mother tongue and it is an immensely
foul language.
That introduction might be construed as intentionally
blunt or absurdly
brief but in fact the list of
curses and
blasphemous phrases is practically endless. To add
insult to
injury, we compose
profanity to suit the situation, making use of a
permutation that has as yet been unused.
Just in case you were wondering,
"But you will surely reach a saturation point one day when every curse has been cursed and no more divine beings are left to blaspheme by"
my reply is a definite no.
Reasons for this are based around the huge religious fervour that our
Catholic culture is based on, providing limitless amounts of Saints, representations for the Blessed Virgin (try saying that in Maltese!), and attributes to God Himself to blaspheme by. Add this to the creativity of a population with no art or music to speak of since all the excess has been funneled into making blapshemy an art and cursing a culture.
On to the actual swearing. This will by no means make you a competent
Maltese blasphemer since that would take an entire database plus writing a dedicated script to finally thrash out all the remaining combinations. It serves as an introduction to the World of Maltese Insults.
The Basics
- Il-Ostja : (Il - Ostya), The Host, everyday expletive.
- L'oxx : (Losh), Cunt, idiot.
- Liba : Literally sperm, seminal fluid but is a harsh way of saying that the person in question is very nasty.
- Hudu f'sormok : Up yours. Very rare.
- F'oxx ommok : (Fosh ommok), Fuck your mother.
- F'oxx kemm ghandek : (Fosh kem andek) Fuck all your relatives.
Basic Blasphemy
- Haqq (insert deity) : (Haqq is almost impossible to pronounce. The 'q' is a hard guttural sound almost like a suppressed cough) Basically means Damn whoever. Commonly Alla or Madonna.
- F'oxx (insert deity) : Fuck whatever deity you've chosen.
Journey on
- F'oxx ommok, dik il-"insert adjective here" : Fuck your mother, that "adjective". Most commonly qahba(guttural 'q' and hard 'h'), liba, etc.
- F'oxx (complex phrase) : A basic example would be "F'oxx l-iskarpan li gibdek" (Fosh liskahrpahn lee jib-deck) meaning 'Fuck the shoemaker that assisted to your delivery', but this is only scratching the surface.
The extent to which this is taken makes it unreproducible. I just can't bring myself to type and post some of the more "colourful" expressions, some of which take minutes to utter and hours to translate. This introduction should, however, equip you for your average week's holiday in
Malta.