Diccionario Lunfardo

Slang Dictionary

The slang is slang originated and developed in the city of Buenos Aires, capital of Argentina and its suburbs, and from there spread in a few years to other nearby cities like Rosario, in the province of Santa Fe, and Montevideo in Uruguay, cities living a sociocultural situation very similar, largely due to immigration millionaire from most of Europe, but mainly Italian and Spanish occurred in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In 1878 an article entitled La Prensa dialect thieves in Buenos Aires showed that there was a new way of talking and listed twenty words among which was just slang as a synonym for thief, in 1879 the Commissioner published an article Benigno Lugones in the newspaper La Nacion that also gave examples of vocabulary, including slang first verse is known:

"Being in the sheepshead minnow polizando / was presented mayorengo / a porting in jail come / has betrayed its mine."

So this jargon was originally used by criminals and soon it was for the people of the lower and lower middle classes. Part of its words and phrases were introduced later in the vernacular and spread in the Castilian of Argentina and Uruguay. However since the early twentieth century to the slang began to spread among all social strata and classes, either by habitual use, because it was common in tango lyrics, or both reasons. Poetry in slang, but with words "vulgar", used to have a good level of artistry in the hands of Felipe Fernández "Jacare" (who stood out in 1915), Carlos Muñoz del Solar better known as Carlos the Spike, Bartolome Rodolfo Aprile, the celebrated Joseph Betinotti (known as "the last minstrel" because in his time it was considered that there would be more or better payador that Betinotti); Antonio Caggiano, the famous Henry Vergiati Amleto better known by his pseudonym of Julian Centeya, Roberto Cayol , Arturo Martini Augusto better known by his pen name Ivan droll Diez, Daniel Giribaldi, Alberto Vacarezza, the famous tango lyricist Contursi Pascual, Francisco Bautista Rimoli whose pen name was Dante A. Linyera, Héctor Gagliardi, Enrique Cadícamo and Horacio Ferrer.

Over time many of his words have gone to neighboring countries like Chile, Paraguay and Bolivia, where today's frequent use of lunfardismos in several urban areas of the country. Also, and more recently (since the 1990s) also in Peru lunfardo using some words. All this "export" lunfardismos of Argentina, is due to the many immigrants from those countries residing there, and above all, to the spread of Argentine rock and cumbia slum, musical styles that are often used slang terms.

In Funes the memoirist, Jorge Luis Borges said, exaggerating the slang ironically is not a real slang: "I have the impression that the slang is artificial. That is an invention of Gobello ... and Vacarezza '.

Source: Wikipedia