Gibraltar Rock view from above
[photo: Sorin Colac/ Alamy Stock]
[This is an excerpt from an article in The Round Table: The Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs.]
Introduction
Gibraltar is in a state of linguistic transition, a transition that it is feared will culminate in language loss. Llanito is a form of code-switching between Gibraltar-Spanish, Gibraltar-English, culturally specific words and loanwords from other Mediterranean dialects. Llanito is feared to be on route to language loss by some Gibraltarians: locals have reported scant use among younger generations, along with a decline in the use of Gibraltar-Spanish as the basis for code-switching with English.[Footnote] Some Gibraltarians, such as linguist Dale Buttigieg consider Llanito to be their mother tongue and consequently elucidate the cultural implications of Llanito for Gibraltarians: ‘I consider Llanito to be my mother tongue […] and an important part of my Gibraltarian identity’. This code-switched variety, which is, at present, spoken in Gibraltar reflects the small territory’s past colonial affiliations with Britain and its concomitant colonial struggles against Spain; it is simultaneously a product of Gibraltar’s colonial history, and an assertion of its current hybridity. Llanito forms part of Gibraltar’s three dominant language systems: Gibraltar-Spanish, Gibraltar-English and Llanito. In the early 20th century, Gibraltar-Spanish remained the dominant language in Gibraltar (as the language of the home, social life and business). In fact, Alexander Beattie, Gibraltar’s then Colonial Secretary, was disappointed that ‘in one of Britain’s oldest colonies, [where] one would expect to hear English […] I have not heard a word of it. I might as well have been in La Línea […] let me appeal to you to give first place to the language of the Empire to which you are proud to belong’. The 20th century saw English slowly rise to first place in Gibraltar: the evacuation to London during WWII fostered an affiliation with the English language and Francisco Franco’s closure of the Spain-Gibraltar border created a fierce anti-Spanish sentiment that permeated Gibraltarian nationalism.
Gibraltar-Spanish continued to be replenished inter-generationally by intermarriage between Gibraltarian men and Spanish women. However, colonial language ideologies, nationalist sentiments and the global spread of English, among other factors, have contributed to a growing loss of the use of Llanito among younger generations in Gibraltar. This linguistic transition has been observed by local authors such as MG Sanchez, who detailed the concerning nature of this in an article for The Times. [Footnote] To evaluate the scope of this loss, I carried out a number of interviews about Llanito. Gibraltar-Spanish was sustained by mothers and grandmothers: it was their voices that contributed to the generation of code-switched Llanito. In this vein, I interviewed a group of Gibraltarian mothers and grandmothers about their childhood and use of language. I also interviewed Gibraltar’s politicians, as elected representatives who can influence the language situation in Gibraltar through policy about the implications of the loss of Spanish and Llanito among younger generations for cultural heritage. The oral nature of Llanito is an important component of its function, and, in this way, interviews serve a dual function: interviews also perform a linguistic preservation, a function that Oren Gruenbaum called for in Mind your language: The Commonwealth must preserve its linguistic diversity.
Special 2021 Gibraltar edition of the Round Table Journal
Gibraltar and the European Union: in and out
Global Britain, contested spaces, and the UK Overseas Territories – new report published
Risk of monolingual English
If Gibraltar-Spanish is lost, Gibraltar’s intense code-switching could result in monolingual English. This is becoming a reality for some families in Gibraltar: in my interview with Deputy Chief Minister, Joseph Garcia, he retold a poignant story about a monolingual Gibraltar-Spanish grandmother in Gibraltar who is unable to communicate with her monolingual Gibraltar-English grandchild:
somebody who speaks Spanish has grandchildren […] and this grandmother babysits the child but doesn’t understand what she is saying […] so she has to ring up the child’s mother at work to ask her to translate what she is saying to her grandchild […] it shows vividly how generations are changing […].[Footnote]
This linguistic transition has become a cultural and linguistic barrier between older and younger generations. Both monolingual grandparents and children are left unable to access each other’s spatial reality, showing that Gibraltarian linguistic identity is experiencing a shift. In my interview with Andrew Canessa, a local researcher, he expressed that ‘few people under the age of 30 in Gibraltar today have conversational Spanish […] it is curious because you have older people speaking to each other in Spanish and then switching to English when talking to young children’. Canessa assigns the consideration of speaking to children in Spanish as a sign of lower status in Gibraltar as the reason for this. The mother in Gibraltar, however, has historically been crucial to the transmission of Gibraltar-Spanish and Llanito. This is shown by some oral traditions that have been passed down from Gibraltarian and Spanish grandmothers to their grandchildren, ones that reflect the sociolinguistic psyche. The first song is traditionally sung to children when they are ill or crying because they have suffered some sort of injury:
Sana, sana colita de rana, si no se cura hoy, se cura mañana (‘get better, get better little frog tail, if you aren’t healed today you will be healed tomorrow’) [Footnote]
The second song is traditionally accompanied by a game involving counting down a child’s toes, pretending they are eggs, until a winning egg is left:
Zapatito sabana pone un huevo en el corral, pone uno, pone dos, pone tres […] (‘little shoe sheet, put an egg in the hen house, give me one, give me two, give me three’) [Footnote]
The last song is traditionally a lullaby sung to encourage children to fall asleep:
Nana nana coquito nana, coquito ne ne, nana coco que viene el mono y se lleva los niños que duermen poco (sleep little coconut sleep, sleep little coconut or the monkey who takes children who sleep too little will come and get you) [Footnote]
These songs are directly transferred from mothers and grandmothers to children; they are culturally specific examples of affect that create an intimate bond. They also indicate if Gibraltar-Spanish is lost, this lyrical tradition too will follow, resulting in a loss of cultural heritage. They are also products of a ‘Gibraltarian Hispanophone domestic environment’, which is being elided. As Professor Laura Wright claims, a loss of cultural heritage in Gibraltar ‘is significant as the concept of a historical Gibraltarian identity is challenged whenever politicians question Gibraltar’s sovereignty’. Contestations and conflicts regarding Gibraltar’s sovereignty have affected Gibraltar’s language situation. Llanito has become a way for Gibraltarians to assert their Gibraltarianness: their own unique, hybrid identity, separate from Spanish claims or blanket Britishness. This, therefore, begs the question: what will the Gibraltarian identity represent if Gibraltar-Spanish and Llanito is lost?
Sophie Macdonald is a post graduate student in Intercultural Communication, University College London.
