Languages of Gibraltar

Languages of Gibraltar
Languages of Gibraltar
Main	English
Vernacular	Llanito
Minority	Maghrebi Arabic, Sindhi, Hindi, Maltese, Hebrew
Signed	British Sign Language
Keyboard layout	British (QWERTY);

The sole

British overseas territory, is English, which is used by the Government and in schools. The eponymous Gibraltarian English

accent is spoken in the territory.

Most

Moroccan Arabic and Hindi are also spoken on The Rock

.

Llanito

Llanito (pronounced

Ligurian of the Genoese variety and Haketia

.

Andalusian Spanish is the main constituent of Llanito, but is also heavily influenced by British English. However, it borrows words and expressions of many other languages, with over 500 words of Genoese and Hebrew origin. It also typically involves code-switching to English.

The term Llanito is also used as an alternative

Gibraltarian

.

Spanish

Over the course of its

Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. Before the British takeover, Spanish was widely spoken, but afterwards as most residents left the Rock, the language had a much smaller population (in 1753 there were just 185 Spaniards, and only 134 in 1777^[1]). However, the border with Spain has been opened since 1985, allowing easier travel in and out of Spain, one of the factors which has given Andalusian Spanish considerable presence in Gibraltar. In 2001, there were 326 people of Spanish nationality in Gibraltar, and a large number of "Frontier Workers" who commute

there for work.

Berber language and Maghrebi Arabic

Owing to its close proximity to

Moroccan

and other North African minorities in the city.

In 2001, there were 961 Moroccans in Gibraltar.^[citation needed]

Other languages

Hindi and Sindhi is also spoken by the Indian community of Gibraltar. Maltese, a language which was widely used in Gibraltar up until the late 19th century, and is still spoken by some families of Maltese descent. Similarly, Genoese was spoken in Catalan Bay well into the 19th century, dying out in the early decades of the 20th, by some families of Genoese descent. Hebrew is also spoken by the Jewish community.

References

This article incorporates public domain material from The World Factbook (2024 ed.).
CIA. (Archived 2006 edition.)

^ Government of Gibraltar. "Census of Gibraltar, 2001" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2007-09-27.

External links

Ethnologue entry

[1] Government of Gibraltar. "Census of Gibraltar, 2001" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2007-09-27.

[1]

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