Breaking the Language Barriers

One of the most fascinating things I have found working and living in Gibraltar, has been the capacity for speaking a variety of languages that people can have. Coming from a place where speaking anything other than Anglicised French raises eyebrows and might mark you out as an immigrant, or the child of an immigrant, and where school children can opt out of learning foreign languages at anything beyond very basic, this is refreshing, to say the least.

So far this week, I have encountered a Frenchman whose English is nearly perfect, Spanish sounds almost native and who has learnt a good smattering of Moroccan through his work in property development out in Tangiers. Then there was a man from the Czech. Republic whose English is pretty clear, whose German is superb and who can muster up some Russian when the occasion requires it, in addition to the Portuguese man whose English is excellent, Spanish flawless and can hold a conversation in French. And finally there was the German who speaks better English than the English-speaking locals, is married to a Moroccan and speaks her language fluently, who can get by with reasonably pronounced French and whose command of Spanish is pretty impressive for someone who has only lived here for a year or so. Some of the English I have met can muster up relatively good Spanish, but prefer to use English first, just in case they are understood, which, in most cases, they are. And then there are the Moroccans in the community, most of whom speak their own language as well as English, Spanish, French, and some I have met recently, can add German to this portfolio of tongues.

Some of these people have travelled far and are determined to communicate well wherever they live, and I admire them for this. It seems to be the locals who have a remarkably laid back attitude towards languages. This may be because the Gibraltarians learn from birth to speak English and Spanish, and combine the two to create their own, unique patois. The nearby Spaniards from La Linea can either speak very basic English, or don't bother, because in most employment situations, they can get away with speaking only Spanish anyway, which, for English visitors, can be hugely frustrating because there is an expectation that local people speak English, yet so many shop and restaurant staff don't!

While I love listening to the babble around me, and trying to decipher the languages I hear, it does concern me that local children don't seem to benefit much from this welter of natural communication that is going on around them. Unlike my own childhood, those of my children and their friends is being conducted almost exclusively in English, thanks, largely to Disney Channel, Nickleodeon and WWE. Spanish is used rarely, and generally only in its crudest forms for expletives. They learn little of Spanish literature, art and culture, except for a short burst in senior school at advanced leve, if they have so chosen, and popular culture, which is available to all tourists. And the adults who speak Spanish regularly speak it poorly, with a limited vocabulary. It's a shame, because Gibraltar could be considered as bilingual, lauds itself for so being, but falls short of it, because so many local people do not have a sufficient command of Spanish to speak it in any other way than as foreigners.

So I have no objection to the Instituto Cervantes setting up here, if it genuinely will help to expand local knowledge and use of Spanish and the Spanish culture. Just so long as it is kept outside politics. And, it should be joined by some kind of institution which expands local knowledge of Moroccan language and culture, as much to ensure that Arabic is retained by the younger generations of Moroccan children born here, as to expand this language much further into the local vocabulary. After all, if we had learnt Arabic at school, I would feel far more comfortable haggling at the souks only twenty miles or so away, than I do trying to do it in the English, Spanish or French that I speak.

Battle to be British

The old man's hand trembled slightly at the fingertips when he shook my hand and bowed his head in greeting. Behind his thick glasses, his eyes were clouded with worry. I tried to reassure him, and when his meagre English failed him, I was able to calm his nerves a little in Spanish. A Moroccan national, this man (I shall call him Abdellah, although that is not his real name) was about to sit what is commonly known as the English Test. This is a test at the government office in Gibraltar where citizenship and nationality issues are decided, and it is set to decide whether the applicant can speak reasonable English. It is one of the hurdles faced by non-EU immigrants to convince the Gibraltar Government that they are genuinely worthy of being citizens of Gibraltar, and thereby, of being British citizens, with all the priveleges this apparently conveys on man and soul.

The reason I was with Abdellah was not because I am a lawyer, or that I even know him particulalry well. I don't even know any Arabic beyond a basic greeting, so I was unsure how much help I would be. But all Abdellah, an old friend of my father's, wanted was a bit of company so that he would feel able to speak up at the test. In short, he was terrified.

Initially, after some telephone conversations, it seemed I would be unable to sit in the test with him. "It is not so much a test," a senior executive at the immigration office told me, "it's just a conversation to see how well this person can communicate basic information about himself, his family and his life in English, which is the language you must be able to speak to be a British Citizen."

In the end, I was unexpectedly allowed to sit in the interview with him. "I'm so nervous I can barely speak Arabic," he explained. The officers who interviewed him, I have to say, came across as very professional and spoke in quiet, but clear, simple English, and, compared to the citizenship test in the UK, this was a doddle. But somehow, what was missing, was the element of fairness. And there was an undercurrent of what I will call "unintentional racism" in the way the senior officer approached the interview. I'm genuinely not certain if this officer was aware of the effect of body language, gestures and tone of voice on the interviewee, and even the cultural differences did not appear to be taken into account - after all, it was not his fault if paperwork in Morocco is not quite the same as paperwork in Gibraltar, or Britain, or Spain, or Latvia for that matter.

Abdellah is an old man who has had a complicated life: a divorce, a second wife, some children in Morocco, some born here. But he has worked and paid tax in Gib for almost 40 years. He is a law-abiding citizen, contributing to the local community and to the local economy. There is no access to language classes in Gib to workers whose hours go beyond 12 per day in order to make ends meet - working time directives don't seem to apply in many firms here. Abdellah's English is passable. He can, when relaxed, make himself understood by his employer of 20 years, by his neighbours, his doctor, dentist, optician and others. Did he really need to prove himself in person, at his age, and talk through complex paperwork, just to be able to travel regularly to Morocco through Spain? Or vote? Or take full part in the local communities they support with their labour, with full legal rights?

After the test, Abdellah wanted to treat me to a meal and invited me and my family to stay with his family in Tangiers. I'm not sure anything I did helped, but it is clear that the process of immigration to such disadvantaged persons in Gibraltar desperately needs humanising, and then "good neighbours" like me won't need to sit in interviews, and decent citizens like him won't need to be patronised in order to prove their worth. The Battle of Britain may have been fought and won last century, but in the twenty-first century, the battle for Britishness grows fiercer.