User:Gibmetal77/Llanito

Panorama forum 21/04/08
Hi! I'm new here. I've been following discussions on the forum for a while now but as this is a topic which I am particularly interested in, I've decided to register.

Llanito is extremely dificult to define. It's not a language in it's own right and it seems that not even expert linguists can decide whether it should be considered a dialect, patois, pidgin, creole or vernacular. It is also not regulated by any institution, which means that it is used in a considerably free manner where many sentence structures can be used to mean the same thing.

However, what can be said about Llanito is that it is the spoken language of Gibraltar. It is primarily based on Andalusian Spanish and includes various degrees of code-switching into British English. It allows for many Spanish words and phrases to be Anglicised as well as allowing many English words and phrases to be Hispanised. In addition to this Llanito includes a large pool of words and pharases foreign to both main constituent languages. These are said to include those from Maltese, Portuguese, Italian of the Genoese dialect and Haketia (a largely extinct Jewish-Moroccan language). It is said that over 500 words are of Genoese and Jewish origin. Llanito is unique to Gibraltar and is very different from [i]Spanglish[/i] (many travelers who come into contact with Llanito tend to confuse them). Some Llanito words (but not phrases) can be heard in the neighbouring Spanish towns of La Línea de la Concepción and San Roque (to a lesser extent). However, it cannot be said that Llanito is [i]spoken[/i] there as only isolated words are in use and includes no code-switching.

[quote author=garrettgibbons link=board=general&num=1203623171&start=0#5 date=04/21/08 at 07:43:51] Also, you always hear that Llanito has Maltese and Arabic words in it. ¿What are these palabras? Nunca he visto ninguna explanation about which come from Maltese. [/quote]

There are indeed a number of words of Maltese origin. Here are a few which I can think of off the top of my head together with the original Maltese word and Spanish/English translations:

Mesquín (from miskin) - En. "[i]pour soul[/i]" Sp. "[i]pobrecito[/i]"

Floosh (from flus) - En. "[i]money[/i]" Sp. "[i]dinero[/i]"

Charaban (from xarabank) - En. "[i]bus[/i]" Sp. "[i]autobús[/i]"

Calamita (from kalamita) - En. "[i]magnet[/i]" Sp. "[i]imán[/i]"

[i]Note: The accents on Llanito words are only added to show how they should be pronounced when reading them as if you were reading Spanish.[/i]

I hope this helps and that I can be of further help.