The country is nourished by a wide variety of languages of native peoples and foreign migrants. What language is spoken in Argentina?
Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country belonging to South America, located in the extreme south and southeast of said continent. It borders to the north with Bolivia and Paraguay, to the northeast with Brazil, to the east with Uruguay and the Atlantic Ocean, and to the west with Chile. It has a population of almost 45 million inhabitants.
Argentina is organized as a decentralized federal State, made up of a national State and 24 jurisdictions: 23 provinces and the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires (CABA).
The capital of the country is Buenos Aires, officially Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires (CABA) or, colloquially, Capital Federal and it is the most populated city in the country. Its inhabitants are called porteños.
It is the largest Spanish-speaking country on the planet, and the second largest in Latin America.
The country is nourished by a wide variety of languages of native peoples and foreign migrants.
What language is spoken in Argentina?
What language is spoken in Argentina?
Argentina has Spanish or Castilian as its official language, spoken by practically the entire population.
Spanish is also co-official with indigenous languages in 2 provinces:
Guaraní, since 2004, in the province of Corrientes and Moqoit, Wichi and Qom, which were declared co-official languages in the province of Chaco in 2010.
Spanish in Argentina
The Spanish spoken in Argentina differs in some details from that spoken in other Spanish-speaking countries. In Argentina it occurs mainly. through the rioplatense dialect. (also spoken in Uruguay)
One of the main characteristics recognized outside the country is voseo. The pronoun "vos" is used instead of "tú" (second person singular) used in other Spanish-speaking countries. The phrase that in most Spanish-speaking countries is said "you know" or "knows", in Argentina it is said: "vos sabés".
Another peculiarity is yeism, which consists of pronouncing the Greek letter i (y) and the elle or double ele (ll) identically. For example, the word "rain" is pronounced "shuvia." This characteristic is also found in the neighboring country of Uruguay.
Also characteristic is the use of Guarani words such as the expression "che." It is an interjection that has different scopes, and appears in the Spanish language, in Valencian and Brazilian Portuguese. It is used to call a person, attract their attention, or even stop them; and also in case of surprise or amazement.
On the other hand, the numerous Italianisms, that is, words derived from Italian, gave rise to a slang originated and developed in Buenos Aires: Lunfardo. Some of the words that are used daily are: "Bondi" (collective), "Guita" (money), "Laburo" (work), "Mina" (woman) and "Pibe" (from pivetto: child or young person) . The spread of lunfardo occurred due to its use in tango lyrics, but it has lost much of its influence today, due to generational change.
What other languages are spoken in Argentina?
In addition to Spanish or Castilian, Argentina also coexists with: indigenous or native languages and foreign languages resulting from immigration.
Indigenous or native languages
Currently, at least 15 indigenous languages are spoken, of the 36 that were spoken before the arrival of the Spanish, and 9 are in the process of recovery.
Some of them are Guaraní, which is spoken in Northeast Argentina and is the official language in Paraguay and the province of Corrientes.
Quechua is spoken in the province of Santiago del Estero, where a very differentiated dialect called Quichua is spoken, and also in areas of the province of Jujuy where a variety more similar to that spoken in southwest Bolivia is used.
Mapuzugun is the language of the Mapuche people. It is spoken in the provinces of Patagonia (Southern Argentina) and in Chile. Indo-American languages such as Moqoit, Wichí and Qom in the province of Chaco.
The Tupi-Guarani languages also appear in the Chaco and surrounding areas, some of them are Chiripá, Correntino Guaraní and Missionary Guaraní.
The Aymara language spreads throughout Jujuy. In Tierra del Fuego and Patagonia, Teushen and Tehuelche are spoken.
Foreign languages
English is the second most spoken language in the country, and its teaching is mandatory from the earliest years.
4.6% of the population living in Argentina is foreign, that is, almost 2 million people.
Other minority foreign languages that were brought by the migrant action are: Italian, German, Arabic, French, Portuguese, Russian, Basque, Galician, Catalan, Aturian, Polish, Mandarin Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Romanian, Lithuanian, Latvian, Estonian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Croatian, Slovenian, Czech, Slovak, Finnish, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic, Irish, Dutch, Hungarian, Serbian, Bosnian, Albanian, Greek, Macedonian, Bulgarian, Hebrew, Turkish, Armenian and Romani vlax.
In Argentine Patagonia (southern of the country), more precisely in the province of Chubut, there is a Welsh colony, called Y Wladfa. The population developed its own variety of the language called Patagonian Welsh, which is spoken communally and taught in bilingual schools, with official support from the provincial government. Almost no other province in the country has colonies as large as this one been formed.
Dialects
As we said, in Argentina, the rioplatense dialect is the main one. But throughout the country there are others.
In the northwest of the country, on the one hand, and in the Northeast of Argentina, on the other, the influence of Quechua and Guaraní, respectively, has given rise to different dialects.
In the provinces of San Juan, Mendoza and to a lesser extent in the provinces of San Luis and La Rioja, there is an intersection between vestiges of Chilean Spanish and River Plate Spanish.
In northwest Argentina, Andean Spanish merges with the River Plate dialect. The province of Córdoba and especially its provincial capital, has a very particular intonation curve.
In some areas bordering Brazil, the use of portuñol (created by the mixture between Portuguese and Spanish) is common. It can be found in Corrientes, Entre Ríos and, above all, in the province of Misiones.
Knowing the country
Wine is the national drink. It began to be produced in Santiago del Estero, from strains from Spain. The expansion of its cultivation continued at the hands of the Jesuits and by 1598 there were vineyards in Córdoba, Santa Fe, Buenos Aires and Misiones. Then, the provinces of Mendoza and San Juan concentrated production.
The ceibo flower was declared the Argentine National Flower by Decree No. 13,847 of December 22, 1942.
El Pato, a gaucho game, that in 1953, Decree No. 17,468 of September 16 signed by the President of the Nation, General Juan Domingo Perón, declared it a National Sport of Argentina.
Mate, through Law 26,871, passed on July 3, 2013, declared mate as a national infusion.
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