Gibraltar

Gibraltar has appeared in the news twice this month: the first when a Spanish vessel crossed the border without consent and again when English officials were asked to open a ‘diplomatic pouch’ on crossing the border. This shows that there is a lot of tension between the two areas and international relations are deteriorating.

Here are some facts about Gibraltar:

• ·         The main landmark of the region is ‘The Rock of Gibraltar’ which is over 426m high and is famous because it is the habitat of roughly 250 Barbary Macaques.
• ·         Another tourist attraction is the Tower of Homage which lies at the top of the Moorish castle. The moors occupied Gibraltar and much of southern Spain for 710 years and their influence can still be found.
• ·         The name Gibraltar is derived from the Arabic, Jebel Tariq (جبل طارق), which means the ‘mountain of Tariq’ (based on the large rock).
• ·         Since it shares a 1.2km border with Spain, their climates are very similar, with July being the hottest season with the average high temperature of 29^oC.
• ·         Due to this hot weather, there is a mass of wildlife. Approximately 40% of Gibraltar’s land is a nature reserve (most of this is on the upper Rock, which is inhabitable for humans). However the main animals are the Barbary Macaques and the Barbary Partridges and the most uncommon plants are the Chickweed and Gibraltar candytuft.

         But what does this have to do with language? Because of its diverse history, and especially due to the Moors, Gibraltar is incredibly diverse. Although the official language is English, the majority of people are also able to speak Spanish because of their close proximity to mainland Spain. However, there are many minorities, such as the Moroccan community speaking Arabic.

What interested me most about this territory however was that they have created a new dialect called ‘Llanito’, which is completely unique to Gibraltar. The identification of the language is unclear as some define it as a creole, with others calling it a unique language.  Llanito consists largely of Andalusian Spanish but it includes a lot of code switching with English as many words are borrowed. But Llanito also includes words from Hebrew and Jewish. Although Llanito is rarely written, a Llanito dictionary was published in 1978 by Manuel Cavilla.

Llanito: Sí, pero at the end of the day...

Spanish: Sí, pero a fin de cuentas...

English: Yes, but at the end of the day...*

If you are interested in this ‘dialect’ I recommend that you watch "People of the Rock: The Llanitos of Gibraltar" (2011) as it is a documentary film with great reviews as it discusses Llanito speech characteristics, history and culture.

Picture sourced from http://www.libdemvoice.org/gibraltar-graham-watson-35780.html

*Example sourced from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Llanito

Italian

Although our group did not speak any Latin during our time in Rome, we did learn to speak some basic Italian. It struck me how similar Spanish and Italian are – in fact, 82% of vocabulary is similar and the sentence structure is very alike. Their definite articles are also clearly related:

Spanish: El, la, los, las

Italian: Il, lo, la, l'

These similarities are due to their Latin root, therefore anyone studying Spanish/ Latin will be more able to understand basic written and spoken Italian.

Here are some ‘must know’ Italian phrases if you are planning on visiting Italy:

English	Italian
Hello/ good morning	Buongiorno
Good afternoon	Buon pomeriggio
Good evening	Buonasera
Excuse me	Mi scusi
I do not speak much Italian	Non parlo molto bene italiano
Goodbye	Ciao/Arrivederci
Yes/ No	Si/ no

History of Italian:

Standard Italian dates back to the 12^th century however linguists are able to see how Vulgar Latin formed the separate language in 900AD.

In 1200, we can view this change by looking at Dante’s epic poetry, known as Commedia. This group of poetry was based on Virgil’s Aeneid and Cicero’s work; however, he used a distinct language. These poems were read across Italy and for a long time, his dialect was considered the ‘canonical standard’ of higher class Italian. Dante was from Florence and even today, the dialect of Firenze is the official Italian language.

Italian was influenced greatly by historical events, for example, the conquest and Italian occupation of Napoleon helped to spread the language. After this, Italian was known as ‘lingua franca’ which was used as a Latin substitute across much of Europe and the Mediterranean Sea. Despite this, only 2.5% of the population of Italy spoke the standardised language in 1861.

The popularity of Italian has been partly due to its role in music as it is considered the universal language of music and is written to demonstrate tempo and directions on sheet music. Due to this, musicians all around the world understand Italian and this may encourage them to learn more of the language.  

The language itself:

Italian is a member of the Romance and Italic languages and derived diachronically from Latin. However, Italian contrasts other Romance languages in the way that it retains a difference between short and long consonants, like Latin.

The Italian alphabet consist of only 21 letters as 〈j, k, w, x, y〉 are not counted although they exist in loanwords such as ‘weekend’. The letter (h) is generally silent, especially when at the beginning of a word, i.e. ‘ho’ (I have). The (h) has been changed to (g) in many cases, for example I pull is ‘traho’ in Latin but ‘traggo’ in Italian.

The map below shows the population density of Italian speakers across Europe. The darkest purple means ‘lingua madre’ which are mother tongue speakers or L1 whereas the other shades show that Italian is a learned language (L2). This shows that although the vast majority of native speakers live in Italy itself, quite large proportions of Europeans learn language as a second language. Italian is still common in Africa and America due to a high Italian influence and immigration.

"Learn 1,000 words in a new language urges campaign"

This headline was publicised on the BBC website earlier today due to new concerns that a lack of linguistic skill in England is contributing to “a worrying divide”, separating England from Europe. This divide may be preventing England from doing trading internationally and could minimise the amount of jobs available to British people.

The figure of 1,000 words is an estimate for the minimum amount for someone to be able to sustain a simple conversation. Although it varies a lot, the native speaker tends to use 2,000 words in their everyday lexicon. This is a lot larger than the number recommended by the BBC, showing that in order to make a big difference, people need not know everything. The most important aspect of language for a novice to learn is basic grammar and simple but specialised vocabulary for the situation that the language will be required.

As quoted from their website:

“We are not expecting instant fluency. Yet if everyone were capable of at least 1,000 words in a new language, social attitudes and economic prospects would be significantly enhanced”

In 2004, the Labour government made it no longer compulsory to study a language at GCSE. Although initially there was a decline of students choosing to study languages, this pattern has now reversed.  For example the amount of GCSE entries of modern languages has increased by 16.9% since last year. But do students learn 1,000 words in a language GCSE? 60% of the examinations are in coursework form. This includes both the writing and speaking aspects, where pupils have to write a draft and then simply memorise it – showing no skill of using the language spontaneously or any real knowledge of what they are saying! For preparing for the listening/ reading exam, students learn a lot of vocabulary. However, this is a genuine question from a past paper, showing the foundation tier of GCSE Spanish:

You are going on an exchange to Barcelona. This is Ana, the person you are going to stay with.

¡ Hola !

What does Ana say?

Therefore, I think that it’s very unlikely that anyone only studying a language GCSE will be able to even ‘hold a simple conversation.’ In order to produce a generation of linguists, they need to advance their skills to A-level.  According to the article, the number of students studying French and German at A-level are in a steady decline. This could be for a range of reasons, maybe some students aren’t encouraged enough or they may not know the benefits it would bring to their future career. It could also because fewer students manage to get high grades in languages in comparison to sciences and humanities. Only 6.9% of language students achieved an A* in summer 2013, where as 8.4% managed to achieve the same grade in the sciences. This possible shows that languages are harder A-levels than other subjects, which may put some prospective students off,  since grades are often more important than the subjects studied.

To conclude, in order to eradicate the stereotype that Brits do not learn languages and to make a noticeable change within society and business, we need to encourage students to continue their studies so that they are able to communicate efficiently.

The original webpage: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-24231822

Languages of Barcelona

Technically speaking the official language of Barcelona is Catalan. Although Catalan is on the street signs and menus, I have rarely heard this spoken since only 40% of inhabitants speak Catalan as their main language. Contrastingly, Spanish is the native tongue of 60% of inhabitants. Originally, Catalan was by far the most widely spoken however during the dictatorship of Franco, he tried to stamp out minority languages and therefore anyone who spoke the language was punished.

Nowadays, Catalan has been revitalised but is much less widely spoken than before the reign of Franco, but most people in Catalonia can speak both Spanish and Catalan. This bilingualism is very important in Barcelona because of the amount of tourists. In just one day here, I was able to identify a huge variety of languages being spoken in the tourist areas, like La Rambla, including Chinese, French and a lot of English. In fact many of the waiters and restaurant owners were able to speak basic English and possibly many other languages. The ease of learning these different languages may be due to their bilingualism from birth as they have the ability to acquire different languages more easily.