Too much of

A campaigning, community newspaper, the Olive Press represents the huge expatriate community in Spain with an estimated readership, including the websites, of more than two million people a month.

Bilingual business

IF there is something that Spain envies and admires about Gibraltarians, it is the way they can speak English and Spanish without hardly batting an eye-lid. While Spain still struggles to get their children to speak the most important language in the world, many residents of the world-famous Rock have learnt them both from an early age. Their fluency often startles Spanish people.

One second they are speaking like any other Andalucian, and the next they turn around to a family member speaking very much Queen’s English.

But Gibraltarians usage of both languages has taken an interesting shift during the last century

Before Franco closed the frontier in 1969, most working class people spoke Spanish for all their daily needs.

A few more privileged folk learnt to speak the English of their colonial masters for prestige and social class. Rich parents sent their children to boarding schools who returned with a public schoolboy accent that would make Prince Harry blush.

But after the border closed, more parents started to turn away from Spanish.

English became the only language which had any future and the UK was the only possible escape from the Mediterranean Alcatraz.

This push toward English, intensified with the arrival of satellite TV, easily outdoing the influence of the Spanish channels of the area, made kids much more monolingual.

Nowadays, even with the frontier open, people estimate only about half the children of the Rock speak Spanish at all.

This is a shocking statistic considering Gibraltar’s geographical position on the southern tip of Spain.

So it is no surprise the University of Valladolid is carrying out a study of bilingualism on the Rock. But they might be disappointed with the youngest generation.

Their inability to learn Spanish is not only a surprising reality but an affront to all.

PUBLISHER / EDITOR

Jon Clarke, jon@theolivepress.es

Dilip Kuner dilip@theolivepress.es

Anthony Piovesan anthony@theolivepress.es

Jo Chipchase jo@theolivepress.es

John Culatto

ADMIN Sandra Aviles Diaz (+34) 951 273 575 admin@ theolivepress.es