WATCH: Emma Muscat Tries To Speak Maltese But Keeps Slipping Into Italian
Xarabank has released a clip showing just how hard Emma Muscat found it to speak in Maltese after six months taking part on the Italian talent show Amici.
The ‘blooper reel’ was shot in Emma’s hotel room by Xarabank’s Mark Laurence Zammit, who flew up to Italy to meet the Maltese starlet as soon as she was eliminated.
Emma was supposed to thank the Maltese public for donating to an upcoming Xarabank fundraiser for Dar tal-Providenza, but the shooting took longer than expected as Emma kept slipping from Maltese to Italian.
“I could only think in Italian!” Emma said, when the clip was shown on Xarabank last Friday.
Emma Muscat meets her fans during Xarabank on Friday
Although she, Mark and the Xarabank audience saw the funny side of it, the clip did not go down well with several Maltese people, who took to Facebook to lay into the 19-year-old singer – just as they did when she spoke in English after arriving back in Malta last month.
“I don’t know whether to laugh or cry,” someone commented. “Come on, how could she have forgotten how to speak Maltese in just six months? She should go back to kindergarten. Not even my relatives’ children have forgotten how to speak Maltese and they moved to the UK when they were two and five years old and have been living there for three years now. In what language did she speak to her family by phone on Amici? Definitely not in Italian, because she hardly even knew the language when she got on the show. You don’t seem so proud to be Maltese or the language would have been the last thing you’d have forgotten.”
Other people said they “felt sick” listening to Emma try to speak Maltese, that the singer is a “snob” and that she should be ashamed of herself.
However, other Maltese people stood up for Emma, arguing she has the right to speak in whichever language she feels most comfortable expressing herself in.
“She’s already achieved more in 18 years than the majority of you could ever dream of achieving,” one person said. “Funny how we keep taking it against Carmen [Emma’s Amici ‘rival’] while Maltese people passive more hurtful comments.”
“Emma, speak the language you are the most comfortable with,” another person said. “Sadly in this country we seem to delight in being critical on issues of a petty nature. Those who know you know your roots and were you come from! Keep making yourself proud!”
Should Emma be allowed to speak in whichever language she feels most comfortable speaking?
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