Hostel Colonial Buenos Aires

Recentemente, a Academia Argentina de Letras publicou o livro “Parla Argentina”, um compilatório dessas expressões que nos definem. Seu objetivo é capturar a língua viva do povo, sua criatividade, suas ocorrências, a chispa e a cor da nossa língua. 30% do seu conteúdo provem da fala cotidiana (”A la marchanta” –ao acaso-, “patinarse los mangos” -gastar o dinheiro-, “cargar con el muerto”, carregar com o morto, –se fazer responsável-), outras frases vem do campo rural (”mojar la chaucha”, molhar a vagem, -copular- ou “falta de potrero”, falta de potreiro, –uma referência ao futebol do bairro-) ou inclusive do século XIX (”Donde el Diablo perdió el poncho”, Aonde o diabo perdeu o poncho, –um lugar distante-).

O dicionário decidiu incluir também as frases escatológicas o de conteúdo sexual que são de uso comum. Por exemplo: “abrirle la boca al bagre” (tirar a virgindade de uma mulher), “levantar carpa” –levantar a barraca- (ter uma ereção que insinua nas calças) ou “hacer manualidades” –fazer manuais- (masturbar-se). Finalmente, podem se encontrar clássicas frases como: “Andá a cantarle a Gardel” –vai cantar ao Gardel- (expressão de incredulidade), “¡De acá!” (usada para enfatizar uma negativa rotunda) ou a recente “Que se vayan todos” –vão embora todos- (expressão de desgosto general forjada durante o colapso econômico e político de dezembro de 2001).

Para una versión en español, haga click aquí.

By that time, according to official estimations, almost 65% of the city population came from other countries (mostly from Spain and Italy). Escaping from war, famine or poverty, thousands of Europeans found themselves in a strange country that often didn’t even share their language. With no family or any acquaintances in Argentina, they end up living in piled up in houses or hotels with several different immigrant families. From their effort to communicate and socialize, to relate with their neighbors, emerged the basis of what is nowadays known as lunfardo.

Once a tentative to communicate, as the immigrants familiarized with local Spanish, lunfardo became their own slang. They took advantage of it to make fun of the authorities and to communicate outside the official channels. Soon, the convicts adopted it to avoid the guards and security controls. Later, it would transcend social borders by being a fundamental element of tango lyrics. Nowadays, the porteños use lunfardo in everyday life. Like any other language it continues to evolve and includes new words every year.

In Argentine lunfardo you can find Italian words (“laburo”, from lavoro, work), English words (“escrachar”, from scratch, used when somebody is shown up), Portuguese, Galician, African, Indigenous and French words, among others. Its also common to find syllabic inversions in several words, something also practiced by French (i.e.: tango becomes “gotan”). If you speak Spanish and there’s a word you can’t understand in Argentina, make no mistake: that’s lunfardo.

Vea la versión en español haciendo click aquí.