The Gibraltarian Dialect

by Tito Vallejo

Much has been written on the origins of the local Gibraltarian Dialect . The in depth study of this has been left to the professional linguists whose contributions have always been most welcome. The intention here has been to collect as many of our words, statements and other trivia before they are lost to our future generations.

The changes that we have had in the last 25 years have greatly contributed in one way or another in the ever developing vernacular. We experienced the withdrawal of the Spanish labour force and were subjected to a lengthy period of isolation from our Spanish neighbours. This gap definitely affected our youth who became more anglicized than they were before and still are. Many of our Yanito words which originated from this Spanish workforce therefore became extinct.

The advent of television was an added deviant to hearing a different Spanish to the Andalusian to which we were accustomed. To complicate matters even further, we started to watch North American Films dubbed in South American Spanish; here we have the same problems as with American English where different words are used to mean the same thing.

Despite theses pitfalls and the fact that our spoken Spanish and English have much to be desired by way of accent and choice of words, it must be emphasized that when it comes to writing it down one can be sure it will be correct. Coming back to the accent, our Spanish is definitely Andalusian. We have different generations speaking with different accents as a result of circumstances affecting their lives. Let us take the following example

GRANDAD - educated before the Second World War by the Irish Christian Brothers who had a strong Irish accent which was subsequently passed to the pupils;
Tarty tree, Tausand, Marder, Tart Rich, Dat will teach you.

SON - was evacuated to London during the Second World War where he spent some years before coming back to Gibraltar and where he picked up the Cockneyish accent;

Firty Free, Fowzand, Mer-ah, Third Reich, That will teach you.

GRANDSON - was educated in Gibraltar by Gibraltarian teachers graduated from Universities in UK;

Thirty three, Thousand, Murder, Third Reich, That will teach you.

The conclusion after the above examples are that nowadays the Gibraltarian in general speaks Sterile English but has the ability to copy or mimic whichever accent he comes into contact with.

Join us next month to browse through the Yanito Dictionary and recall words, phrases and places of Gibraltar’s past.