Talk:Culture of Malta

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Culture of Malta was a good article nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There are suggestions below for improving the article. Once these are addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake. Reviewed version: May 25, 2007

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Great work, Lamato. We need to add a section on the British period and its affect on Maltese culture, though. And I think the "Impact of migration" section is to a certain extent irrelevant. Marcus1234 08:04, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Marcus. I was hoping to make more progress with this before the end of the holidays, but ran out of time. I totally agree with you on the need for a good blurb on the impact of the British period on Maltese culture - it was and remains highly significant. I am not so sure about the irrelevance of migration. Perhaps the migration section needs to be re-written to show its relevance better, so I will take another crack at it as soon as I get a chance. I've not come across any scientific studies on this, but frankly, 20th cent. emigration was so extensive as a % of M's population, that it must have made the islanders more outward-looking than they were in previous centuries. That aside, we know that 25% or more of all 20th cent emigrants have returned to Malta, in many cases, bringing their foreign-born and educated children with them. They bring new ideas and traditions with them. I know of returned Canadians who still celebrate Thanksgiving, although they have now been in Malta for several years. Others are working on establishing baseball, softball and ice hockey in Malta - with mixed success. Also, prior to the 1990's Halloween simply did not feature on M's calendar. Is this the effect of returned migrants or purely globalization? lamato 14:56, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Contents 1 One thing 2 Maltese balconies 3 Nominating for GA 4 GA failed 5 Literature 6 Bad lay out

[edit] One thing

A little section on Maltese cinema would be nice. Marcus1234 13:52, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. Lamato 22:48, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Maltese balconies

According to this article, the enclosed wooden Maltese balconies were actually derived from "North African, mostly Moroccan, prototypes which again derive from the Arabic Muxrabija." They were apparently introduced by Turkish slaves. Marcus1234 06:47, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes - I've seen the same comment on other websites as well (see: [1]). What's interesting is that these balconies flourished under the Knights and even more so under the British, due to increased availability of lumber. However, slavery was abolished under the French, prior to the arrival of the British. The reference to Morocco suggests that the tradition may have come to Malta by way of Spanish Knights, who brought Moorish architectural influences (and slaves) with them. See also Prof. Denis De Lucca: [2], where he states the following:

"...peculiar timber covered balconies of Turkish origins soon started altering the face of many a Valletta and village street, all this resulting from the engagement of some skillful Turkish artisan in the humble carpentry shops that at the time were flourishing all over Malta."

I am looking for the original source of the Spanish connection; if I can't find it, I think this sentence should be deleted or moved up to the "Semitic influence/slavery" section. It would be nice to check what the more reputable architectural textbooks have to say about this.

[edit] Nominating for GA

Nominating for GA. Anonymous Dissident ^Utter 09:22, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] GA failed

I have reviewed this article according to the GA criteria and have quick-failed the article due to a lack of inline citations. There are some found throughout the article, but a lot more need to be added due to the amount of information and the length of the article. Entire sections throughout the article are not referenced. Go through the article and for every statement you think that may be questioned about its verifiability, then add an inline citation after it. Also, the lead should be expanded to better summarize the article. Look to WP:LEAD for explanation. See if there are any external links that you can include (make sure they comply with WP:EL. Once you have addressed these issues and looked over the other criteria, consider renominating. If you disagree with this review, you can seek an alternate review at Wikipedia:Good article review. If you have any questions, let me know on my talk page and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. --Nehrams2020 07:23, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Literature

I have take the part on Literature and copy pasted it to a new article called Maltese literature which didn't have so much content at the time. I have looked up if it was possible to request a move, but apparently this is only for full articles and not sections of them. As I am new here I have this itching feeling that this isn't right (attributions of the text won't show up on the new page for instance) but don't know how to proceed in a manner which would be correct. Any suggestions on this would be most welcome! Lebanese blond 13:49, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bad lay out

First of all I've changed the word "origins" to "overview" because it really doesn't sound right the other way. Second of all, why should that section be broke up into "Romance" and "Semetic", rather than in historical cronological order? And where is the mention of Greek Byzantine culture, which is neither Semetic or Romance?

French culture, is very different to ancient Roman culture. Just as Arab culture is very different to ancient Phoenician culture. Also the the Normans, although associated with France, are of a Nordic background, so can they really be counted as purely Romance culture?... there is more to Malta than three simple fields of "Romance, Semetic, British" culture and this article should reflect that. - Cradashj (talk) 14:21, 6 February 2008 (UTC)