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Lunfardo (; from the Italian ''lombardo'' or inhabitant of

Lombardy Lombardy ( it, Lombardia, Lombard language, Lombard: ''Lombardia'' or ''Lumbardia' '') is an administrative regions of Italy, region of Italy that covers ; it is located in the northern-central part of the country and has a population of about 10 ...

in the local dialect) is an

argot A cant is the jargon or language of a group, often employed to exclude or mislead people outside the group.McArthur, T. (ed.) ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (1992) Oxford University Press It may also be called a cryptolect, argot ...

originated and developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in the lower classes in

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires ( or ; ), officially the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires ( es, link=no, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires), is the capital and primate city of Argentina. The city is located on the western shore of the Río de la Plata, on South ...

and from there spread to other urban areas nearby, such as the

Greater Buenos Aires Greater Buenos Aires ( es, Gran Buenos Aires, GBA), also known as the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Area ( es, Área Metropolitana de Buenos Aires, AMBA), refers to the urban agglomeration comprising the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires and the adjac ...

Rosario Rosario () is the largest city in the central provinces of Argentina, Argentine province of Santa Fe Province, Santa Fe. The city is located northwest of Buenos Aires, on the west bank of the Paraná River. Rosario is the third-most populous ci ...

and

Montevideo Montevideo () is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Uruguay, largest city of Uruguay. According to the 2011 census, the city proper has a population of 1,319,108 (about one-third of the country's total population) in an area of . M ...

. Originally, Lunfardo was a slang used by criminals and soon by other people of the lower and lower-middle classes. Later, many of its words and phrases were introduced in the vernacular and disseminated in the

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

, and

Uruguay Uruguay (; ), officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay ( es, República Oriental del Uruguay), is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast; while bordering ...

. Nevertheless, since the early 20th century, Lunfardo has spread among all social strata and classes by habitual use or because it was common in the lyrics of

tango Tango is a partner dance and social dance that originated in the 1880s along the Río de la Plata, the natural border between Argentina and Uruguay. The tango was born in the impoverished port areas of these countries as the result of a combina ...

. Today, the meaning of the term ''lunfardo'' has been extended to designate any

slang Slang is vocabulary (words, phrases, and linguistic usages) of an informal register, common in spoken conversation but avoided in formal writing. It also sometimes refers to the language generally exclusive to the members of particular in-gro ...

jargon Jargon is the specialized terminology associated with a particular field or area of activity. Jargon is normally employed in a particular Context (language use), communicative context and may not be well understood outside that context. The conte ...

used in Buenos Aires.

Origin

Lunfardo (or ''lunfa'' for short) began as prison slang in the late 19th century so guards would not understand prisoners. According to Oscar Conde, the word came from "lumbardo" (the inhabitants of the region

Lombardia (man), (woman) lmo, lumbard, links=no (man), (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

, the origin of most of the Italians in Argentina in the early 20th century). However, the vernacular Spanish of mid-19th century Buenos Aires as preserved in the dialogue of

Esteban Echeverría José Esteban Antonio Echeverría (2 September 1805 – 19 January 1851) was an Argentine poet, fiction writer, cultural promoter, and liberal activist who played a significant role in the development of Argentine literature, not only throu ...

's short story

The Slaughter Yard The Slaughter Yard (Spanish ''El matadero'', title often imprecisely translated as ''The Slaughterhouse''The Spanish word ''matadero'' does not necessarily imply a building. In 19th century Buenos Aires cattle were frequently killed in open air y ...

(''El matadero'') is already a prototype of Lunfardo.

Etymology

Most sources believe that Lunfardo originated among criminals, and later became more commonly used by other classes. Circa 1870, the word ''lunfardo'' itself (originally a deformation of '' lombardo'' in several Italian dialects) was often used to mean "outlaw".

Lunfardo today

Today, many Lunfardo terms have entered the language spoken all over Argentina and Uruguay, although a great number of Lunfardo words have fallen into disuse or have been modified in the era of

suburbanization Suburbanization is a population shift from central urban areas into suburbs, resulting in the formation of (sub)urban sprawl. As a consequence of the movement of households and businesses out of the city centers, low-density, peripheral urba ...

. Furthermore, the term "Lunfardo" has become synonymous with "speech of Buenos Aires" or "Porteño", mainly of the inhabitants of the

City of Buenos Aires Buenos Aires ( or ; ), officially the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires ( es, link=no, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires), is the capital and primate city of Argentina. The city is located on the western shore of the Río de la Plata, on South Am ...

, as well as its surrounding areas,

. The Montevideo speech has almost as much "Lunfardo slang" as the Buenos Aires speech. Conde says that Lunfardo (much like

Cocoliche Cocoliche is an Italian–Spanish contact language or pidgin that was spoken by Italian immigrants in Argentina (especially in Greater Buenos Aires) and Uruguay between 1870 and 1970. In the last decades of the 20th century, it almost completel ...

) can be considered a kind of Italian dialect mixed with Spanish words, specifically the one spoken in

. In other words, Lunfardo is an ''interlanguage variety'' of the Italian dialects spoken by immigrants in the areas of Buenos Aires and Montevideo. In

, any

neologism A neologism Greek νέο- ''néo''(="new") and λόγος /''lógos'' meaning "speech, utterance"] is a relatively recent or isolated term, word, or phrase that may be in the process of entering common use, but that has not been fully accepted int ...

that reached a minimum level of acceptance is considered, by default, a Lunfardo term. The original slang has been immortalized in numerous

lyrics. Conde takes the view that the Lunfardo is not so much a dialect but a kind of local language of the Italian immigrants, mixed with Spanish and some French words. He believes that Lunfardo is not a criminal slang, since most Lunfardo words are not related to crime. According to Conde, Lunfardo

Characteristics

Lunfardo words are inserted in the normal flow of

Rioplatense Spanish Rioplatense Spanish (), also known as Rioplatense Castilian, is a variety of Spanish spoken mainly in and around the Río de la Plata Basin of Argentina and Uruguay. It is also referred to as River Plate Spanish or Argentine Spanish. It is the ...

sentences, but grammar and pronunciation do not change. Thus, an average Spanish-speaking person reading tango lyrics will need, at most, the translation of a discrete set of words. Tango lyrics use Lunfardo sparsely, but some songs (such as ''El Ciruja'' –Lunfardo for "The Hobo" or "The Bum"– or most lyrics by Celedonio Flores) employ Lunfardo heavily. ''Milonga Lunfarda'' by

Edmundo Rivero Leonel Edmundo Rivero (June 8, 1911 – January 18, 1986) was an Argentine tango singer, composer, and impresario. Biography Early days Rivero was born in the southern Buenos Aires suburb of Valentín Alsina. Joining his father in some of his ...

is an instructive and entertaining primer on Lunfardo usage. A characteristic of Lunfardo is its use of

word play Word play or wordplay (also: play-on-words) is a literary technique and a form of wit in which words used become the main subject of the work, primarily for the purpose of intended effect or amusement. Examples of word play include puns, phonet ...

, notably ''

vesre Vesre (reversing the order of syllables within a word) is one of the features of Rioplatense Spanish slang. Natives of Argentina and Uruguay use vesre sparingly in colloquial speaking, and rarely in formal circumstances. Tango lyrics make widespr ...

'' (from " lrevés"), reversing the syllables, similar to English

back slang Back slang is an English coded language in which the written word is spoken phonemically backwards. Usage Back slang is thought to have originated in Victorian England. It was used mainly by market sellers, such as butchers and greengrocers, f ...

, French

verlan () is a type of argot in the French language, featuring inversion of syllables in a word, and is common in slang and youth language. It rests on a long French tradition of transposing syllables of individual words to create slang words. The wor ...

, Croatian

Šatrovački ''Šatrovački'' (; Serbian Cyrillic: шатровачки) or ''šatra'' (; Serbian Cyrillic: шатра) is an argot within the Serbo-Croatian language. Šatrovački was initially developed by various subcultures in Yugoslavia, and became emp ...

or Greek

podaná Podaná ( el, ποδανά) is a Greek argot based on rearranging syllables, similar to Verlan () is a type of argot in the French language, featuring inversion of syllables in a word, and is common in slang and youth language. It rests on a ...

. Thus, ''tango'' becomes ''gotán'' and ''café'' (coffee) becomes ''feca''. Lunfardo employs metaphors such as ''bobo'' ("dumb") for the

heart The heart is a muscular organ in most animals. This organ pumps blood through the blood vessels of the circulatory system. The pumped blood carries oxygen and nutrients to the body, while carrying metabolic waste such as carbon dioxide t ...

, who "works all day long without being paid" or ''bufoso'' ("snorter") for

pistol A pistol is a handgun, more specifically one with the chamber integral to its gun barrel, though in common usage the two terms are often used interchangeably. The English word was introduced in , when early handguns were produced in Europe, an ...

. Finally, there are words that are derived from others in Spanish, such as the verb ''abarajar'', which means to stop a situation or a person (such as ''to stop your opponent's blows with the blade of your knife'') and is related to the verb "barajar", which means to cut or shuffle a deck of cards.

Examples

Nouns

* ''buchón'' – "snitch", informer to the law (from the Spanish '' buche'', in turn slang for "mouth") * ''chochamu'' – "young man" (''

'' for ''muchacho'') *''facha'' - "face", and by extension "appearance", "looks" (from Italian ''faccia,'' "face") *''fato -'' "affair", "business" (from the Italian ''fatto'', lit. "done") * ''fiaca'' – "laziness", or lazy person (from the Italian ''fiacca'', "laziness, sluggishness") *''gamba'' - "leg" (from the Italian ''gamba'' "leg"). Also "100 pesos". *''gomías'' – "friends" (''

'' for ''amigos'') * ''guita'' – "money", "dole" * ''lorca'' – "heat", as in hot weather (''

'' for ''calor'', "heat") * ''luca'' – "1,000 pesos" * ''mango'' – "peso" * ''mina'' – "chick", "broad" (from the Italian ''femmina'', "female") *''naso'' - "nose" (from the Italian ''naso'', "nose") * ''palo'' – "1,000,000 pesos" * ''palo/s verde/s'' - "dollars" * ''percanta'' – a young woman * ''pibe'' – "kid", a common term for boy or, in more recent times, for young man. It comes from Italian word "pivello". * ''quilombo'' – "racket", "ruckus", "mess"; also slang for "brothel" (from the Kimbundu word ''kilombo'', a Maroon settlement). *''urso'' – a heavyset guy. It comes from the Italian "orso" (bear). * ''yorugua'' – "Uruguayan", (''

'' for ''uruguayo'') .

Verbs

* ''cerebrar'' – "to think something up" (from ''cerebro'', "brain") * ''engrupir'' – "to fool someone" (maybe from

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...

''ingroppare'', "to fuck", but also used in modern European and Brazilian

Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...

slang) * ''garpar'' �
"to pay with money"
(''

'' for ''pagar'', "to pay") * ''junar'' – "to look closely", "to check out"/ "to know" (from Caló ''junar'', "to hear") * ''laburar'' – "to work" (from

''lavorare'', "to work") * ''manyar'' – "to eat"/ "to know" (from Venetian and Lombard ''magnar'' -

''mangiare'') * ''morfar'' –
to eat"
(from French

''morfer'', "to eat") * ''pescar'' – "to understand", "to get a grip" (''

'' from the

''capisce?'', "Do you understand?") associated to the Spanish verb ''pescar'' ("to fish")

Interjections

* '' che'' - appellative to introduce a conversational intervention or to call out, translatable as "hey!", "listen to me!", "so", "as I was telling you!" and other ways of addressing someone. The expression identifies Argentinians to other Spanish speakers, thus

Ernesto "Che" Guevara Ernesto Che Guevara (; 14 June 1928The date of birth recorded on /upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/78/Ernesto_Guevara_Acta_de_Nacimiento.jpg his birth certificatewas 14 June 1928, although one tertiary source, (Julia Constenla, quoted ...

for the Cubans (

Guaraní Guarani, Guaraní or Guarany may refer to Ethnography * Guaraní people, an indigenous people from South America's interior (Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Bolivia) * Guaraní language, or Paraguayan Guarani, an official language of Paraguay * ...

, Venetian and

Valencian Valencian () or Valencian language () is the official, historical and traditional name used in the Valencian Community (Spain), and unofficially in the Carche, El Carche comarca in Región de Murcia, Murcia (Spain), to refer to the Romance lan ...

origins have been propounded). * ''¡guarda!'' - "look out!", "be careful!" (from the Italian ''guarda!'', "look!")

Modern slang

Since the 1970s, it is a matter of debate whether newer additions to the slang of Buenos Aires qualify as lunfardo. Traditionalists argue that lunfardo ''must'' have a link to the argot of the old underworld, to tango lyrics, or to racetrack slang. Others maintain that the colloquial language of Buenos Aires is lunfardo by definition. Some examples of modern talk: * ''gomas'' (lit. "tires") – "tits", woman's breasts * ''maza'' (lit. "mace" or "sledgehammer") – "superb" * ''curtir'' (lit. "to tan leather") – "to dig", "to be knowledgeable about", "to be involved in". Also "to fuck". *''curtir fierros'' can mean both "to be into car mechanics" or "to be into firearms". ''Fierro'' is the Old Spanish form of ''hierro'' ("iron"). In Argentine parlance, ''fierro'' can mean a firearm or anything related to metals and mechanics (for example a racing car) * ''zafar'' – "to scrape out of", "to get off the hook", "to barely get by", etc. ''Zafar'' is a standard Spanish verb (originally meaning "to extricate oneself") that had fallen out of use and was restored to everyday Buenos Aires speech in the 1970s by students, with the meaning of "barely passing (an examination)". * ''trucho'' – "counterfeit", "fake"; ''trucho'' is from old Spanish slang ''truchamán'', which in turn derives from the

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...

''turjeman'' ("translator", referring specifically to a person who accosts foreigners and lures them into

tourist trap A tourist trap is an establishment (or group of establishments) that has been created or re-purposed with the aim of attracting tourists and their money. Tourist traps will typically provide overpriced services, entertainment, food, souvenir ...

s).

Folk etymology Folk etymology (also known as popular etymology, analogical reformation, reanalysis, morphological reanalysis or etymological reinterpretation) is a change in a word or phrase resulting from the replacement of an unfamiliar form by a more famili ...

derives this word from ''trucha'' ("

trout Trout are species of freshwater fish belonging to the genera '' Oncorhynchus'', ''Salmo'' and ''Salvelinus'', all of the subfamily Salmoninae of the family Salmonidae. The word ''trout'' is also used as part of the name of some non-salmoni ...

"), or from the Italian ''

trucco Trucco (also called trucks, troco,''Oxford English Dictionary''; see "troco" and "trucks" entries. or lawn billiards) is an Italian and later England, English lawn game, a form of ground billiards played with heavy balls, large-headed Cue stick, c ...

-'' something made fake on purpose. Many new terms had spread from specific areas of the dynamic Buenos Aires cultural scene: invented by screenwriters, used around the arts-and-crafts fair in Plaza Francia, culled from the vocabulary of

psychoanalysis PsychoanalysisFrom Greek: + . is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a body of knowledge. In what might b ...

Influence from Cocoliche

Lunfardo was influenced by

, a

pidgin A pidgin , or pidgin language, is a grammatically simplified means of communication that develops between two or more groups of people that do not have a language in common: typically, its vocabulary and grammar are limited and often drawn from s ...

Italian immigrants The Italian diaspora is the large-scale emigration of Italians from Italy. There were two major Italian diasporas in Italian history. The first diaspora began around 1880, two decades after the Risorgimento, Unification of Italy, and ended in the ...

. Many Cocoliche words were transferred to Lunfardo in the first half of the 20th century. For example: * ''lonyipietro'' - "fool" * ''fungi'' - "mushroom" → in Lunfardo: "hat" * ''vento'' - "wind" → in Lunfardo: "money" * ''matina'' - "morning" (from Italian ''mattina'') * ''mina'' - "girl" (from Lombard ''mina'') * ''laburar'' - "to work" (from Italian ''lavorare'' and Spanish ''laborar'') * ''minga'' - "nothing!" (from Lombard ''minga,'' negative particle like ''not'' in English or ''ne pas'' in French) * ''yeta'' - "bad luck" (from

Neapolitan Neapolitan means of or pertaining to Naples, a city in Italy; or to: Geography and history * Province of Naples, a province in the Campania region of southern Italy that includes the city * Duchy of Naples, in existence during the Early and Hig ...

''iettatore'') * ''yira/yira'' - "to walk around (generally in circles)", "to ramble aimlessly", etc. (from Italian ''girare'', "to turn", "to tour"). Usually "yiro" or "yira" is used to refer to a prostitute. * ''¡salute!'' - "cheers!" (from Italian ''salute!'') * ''eccole'' - "exactly" (from Italian ''eccole'') Some Italian linguists,A. Cancellier. ''Italiano e spagnolo a contatto nel Rio de La Plata'' Università di Milano. Milano, 2006 because of the Cocoliche influences, argue that the Lunfardo can be considered a ''

'' of the

Italian language Italian (''italiano'' or ) is a Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire. Together with Sardinian, Italian is the least divergent language from Latin. Spoken by about 85 m ...

Suffixes

A rarer feature of Porteño speech that can make it completely unintelligible is the random addition of suffixes with no particular meaning, usually making common words sound reminiscent of Italian surnames, for no particular reason, but playful language. These endings include -''etti'', -''elli'' ''eli'', -''oni'', -''eni'', -''anga'', -''ango'', -''enga'', -''engue'', -''engo'', -''ingui'', -''ongo'', -''usi'', -''ula'', -''usa'', -''eta'', among others. Examples: ''

milanesa The milanesa is a variation of the Lombard veal Milanese, or the Austrian Wiener schnitzel, where generic types of meat breaded cutlet preparations are known as a ''milanesa''. The milanesa was brought to the Southern Cone by Italian immig ...

'' (meat dish)

\longrightarrow

''milanga, cuaderno'' ("notebook")

\longrightarrow

''cuadernelli'', etc.

Notes

Bibliography

* Conde, Oscar. ''Lunfardo: Un estudio sobre el habla popular de los argentinos''.Ediciones Taurus. Buenos Aires, 2011 *