# Llanito/Yanito: resources for learning



## Manuel_M

Hello,

I'm looking for information about Llanito (or Yanito), the patois spoken in Gibraltar. Does anybody know of any good sources, apart from the usual Wikipedia entry, that is?

Many thanks.


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## suzzzenn

The ethnologue had surprisingly little information available. This was taken from www.ethnologue.com


Language name  	English
Population	3,300 in Gibraltar (1993 Johnstone).
Dialects	Yanito.
Language use	Official language.
Comments	Yanito is spoken by most Gibraltarians among themselves. It is a dialect of English with a strong Spanish influence, with over 500 words coming from Genoese (Ligurian) and Hebrew.


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## Manuel_M

suzzzenn said:


> The ethnologue had surprisingly little information available. This was taken from www.ethnologue.com
> 
> 
> Language name     English
> Population    3,300 in Gibraltar (1993 Johnstone).
> Dialects    Yanito.
> Language use    Official language.
> Comments    Yanito is spoken by most Gibraltarians among themselves. It is a dialect of English with a strong Spanish influence, with over 500 words coming from Genoese (Ligurian) and Hebrew.


 
Thanks, Suzzzenn. 

Actually, Yanito is a dialect of Andalusian Spanish, heavily influenced by English and not the other way round, as the Ethnologue maintains. That much I have been able to establish through various sources, confirmed by a recent visit to Gibraltar.

One source (actually Wikipedia) mentioned that Yanito (more correctly, Llanito) also contains an element of Maltese (my own language) - hence my interest. I have not been able to confirm this, though.

Once again, many thanks for your effort to help.


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## Dale Buttigieg

I'm from Gibraltar, and Llanito is a mixture of mostly Spanish, English, Genoese Italian, Maltese, Hebrew and Portuguese. In Gibraltar most people speak in Spanish, English, Llanito (like myself) and watch Spanish and English television. We can be speaking in English one word and Spanish the other. We can speak in Spanish and think in English at the same time and vice versa. Here in Gibraltar we are a cultural mix. My family comes from many places including: Malta, Spain, Italy, Portugal and Brazil.


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## Garrett Gibbons

For a thorough documentation of _Llanito_, refer to Anja Kellermann's "A New _New_ English..." (2002), which seems to be the only thorough analysis of language in Gibraltar as of yet.  Do a google search for her name and her book should be one of the first results.  It's excellent.


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## panjabigator

Can someone provide some phrases, so we can get an idea of what it sounds like?


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## Garrett Gibbons

I haven't seen much documentation of Llanito that does the spoken language justice, but the closest thing is Calentita's column in Gibraltar's newspaper online, Panorama (panorama.gi).  You can see her column from the front page.  Here's the current one:

*Franco and his flag*

Caramba, hay una guerra de banderas en Barclays Bank              of all places.

            Que pasa, my dear Cynthia?

            Alguien told me que uno que se llama Franco quiere que el staff se              ponga un Spanish flag, would you believe it, my dear Cloti?

            Que susto. Pero este Franco quien es, porque how can a British bank              want such a thing?

            Bueno lo que pasa es que he wants his staff to wear flags to show              which language they speak, how about that?

            I mean, and I mean it, when I go to a bank in Spain I don't see them              wearing the Gibraltar flag.

            Bueno, quite apart from that, since Franco is Maltese, he says he              will wear the British flag and the Maltese flag.

            This makes me cross, I must say. And what happens if you are              Scottish, would you have to wear the Scottish flag and sing Scotland              the Brave?

            No se, porque this is getting complicated. I mean, con la gente              worried about the Spanish flag going up in the Instituto Cervantes,              a personal flag at Barclays es un escándalo, según dice el staff who              say they are not going to wear it.

            Long live Our Queen. Es que there are people who want to forget that              Spain wants to take our homeland y quieren volar their flag.

            Yes, that's the difference here, que we have a takeover hanging over              our heads. Anyway, what else?

            Bueno, dicen que el New Flame is going down, y que como no tengamos              cuenta, un dia de estos we'll have a look at Europa Point, and not              even the point of the ship will show.

            And by the way, what flag do Spanish vessels fly when they come to              Gibraltar?

            Vaya con la preguntita, I'll have to keep an eye on that porque              there might be another fandango there.

            Meanwhile, no ganamos el Miss World, y eso que alguien dijo que we              were in the last five, or was it ten?

            No idea if it was five or ten, I saw el contest en el televisho, y              gano la china in the contest held in China.

            Blimey, let's see if they do it here one of these days y tendremos              hope of winning.

            Bueno hija, we can always live in hope. And before I hang up, te              dire un secretito, que los del tripartite talks andan detras de              Iberia wanting to know if they are going to fly daily.

            Sera porque what's the point of doing such a huge airport si no              viene nadie nuevo. Ciao!


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## suzzzenn

Wow - Fascinating


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## papillon

I've read the column, and all the words seem to be English or Spanish. 

*Dale*, or anyone else in the know, could you give examples of some words that are NOT Eng./Sp., i.e. Italian, Maltese, Hebrew etc.


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## MarcB

http://www.aboutourrock.com/dictionary.htm   llanito dictionary


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## Garrett Gibbons

Man, that's awesome.  Thanks for the post!


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## itimad

Manuel_M said:


> Hello,
> 
> I'm looking for information about Llanito (or Yanito), the patois spoken in Gibraltar. Does anybody know of any good sources, apart from the usual Wikipedia entry, that is?
> 
> Many thanks.


 tengo aqui una web de un programa de tv de gibraltar con algunas recetas en llanito, muy graciosas. 
creo que te resultara interesante. lo siento pero no me dejan poner webs, asi ke busca pepe's pot en el google y te saldra los menus del tal pepe


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## itimad

panjabigator said:


> Can someone provide some phrases, so we can get an idea of what it sounds like?


 cecean panajabigator, en andalucia hay gente que sesea y gente que cecea y los llanitos cecean. es un ingles muy sui generis y muy gracioso, sobre todo me gusta como traducen cachondeo que traducen cachonfinger porque deo = dedo= finger


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## Garrett Gibbons

Hey, I'm making a film on Yanito and Gibraltarian identity, and I had an interview with Tito Vallejo about Yanito words and phrases.  I can't figure out what some of these phrases are:

*Links to videos removed.
Frank, moderator
*


> *6. Respect intellectual property.*
> No audio or  video files or links may be inserted without prior moderator approval. [...] All forms of inserted content that do not meet these conditions will be removed  without exception.




Can anyone help me figure out what is going on in these phrases?  Anything would help.


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## never

papillon said:


> I've read the column, and all the words seem to be English or Spanish.


You're right.



papillon said:


> *Dale*, or anyone else in the know, could you give examples of some words that are NOT Eng./Sp., i.e. Italian, Maltese, Hebrew etc.


There aren't any. The only none-standard English or Spanish word in the text is "televisho".

The article is really just written in standard English with some standard Spanish expressions, "muletillas" and vocabulary thrown in. You could do the same thing with any language. Maybe the Llanito they speak on the streets is different, but I don't see how the language used in that article could be considered a specific dialect.

In my opinión, cualquier person que sepa English and español puede escribir in that way, sin problems.

PS: Sorry, when I said "there aren't any", I meant just in that article.


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## Dale Buttigieg

If you want to learn more about the Llanito language visit my blog dedicated to Llanito.
In Llanito there are many words from many different origins:

English Origin
Llanito: plomero
English: plumber
Spanish: fontanero

Spanish Origin
Llanito: palomo
English: pigeon
Spanish: paloma


Genoese Origin
Llanito: marshapyé
English: pavement
Spanish: acera

Andalusian Origin
Llanito: kamolla
English: head
Spanish: cabeza

Caló Origin
Llanito: kate
English: slap
Spanish: bofetada

Arabic Origin
Llanito: flush
English: money
Spanish: dinero

Maltese Origin
Llanito: kalamita
English:  magnet
Spanish: imán

Haketía Origin
Llanito: mevlî
English: marbles
Spanish: canicas

Unknown Origin
Llanito: shuni
English: cute
Spanish: qué mono


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## JGreco

> English Origin
> Llanito: plomero
> English: plumber
> Spanish: fontanero


"Plomero" is used throughout Latin America to mean "plumber." I've actually hardly ever heard "fontanero" used for plumber here in Flroida where there are a lot of Cubans. I also know that Panamanians and Puerto Ricans use the word "plomero" too. Reading the LLanito posted reminds me of spoken Spanglish in the states.


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## miss_missundaztood

wow, me encanta el llanito I wish I could hablar like that pero es muy difficult.. anyway I'll keep intentando though I basically sé sólo algunas palabras en other languages different than English y Español, maybe I can mezclar Turco jejeje, ok! I gotta go. Adiós


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## darnil

There is un libro que is goodísimo y that explains a lot of the historia of the mixed dialecto/language in (of?) Gibraltar y que is very actualised o updeitado. I lo recomiendo sin doubt. Es 
*David Levey** (2008): Language Change and Variation in Gibraltar **Amsterdam / Philadelphia:** John Benjamins Publishing Company. *


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