Introducción al yanito de Gibraltar

Resum

Gibraltar is a small British colony in the south of the Iberian Peninsula. It has gone through very diverse historical moments that have influenced its social background. Gibraltar is a multilingual community: English is the official language and Spanish the language used at home and informal contexts. Gibraltarians are bilingual speakers of English and Spanish and they also use Yanito, the switching between Spanish and English and the use of loan words from English, Spanish, Italian or Arabic, among others. The origin of the Yanito is linked to the history of Gibraltar, which became British territory after the signing of the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. The British brought with them their language, customs and traditions and coexisted with the rest of nationalities settled in the Rock. The aim of this study is to make known this linguistic variety, its phonetic, morphosyntactic and lexical characteristics. To this end, a series of examples showing different linguistic phenomena will be analyzed.