Where does lunfardo, the slang of Buenos Aires, come from?
Lunfardo was born around 1880 in the conventillos of Buenos Aires, the tenements where Italian, Spanish and Polish immigrants lived. It began as a thieves' jargon; many of its words are southern Italian or Genoese, like laburo (work) and pibe (kid), and others come from Caló, Portuguese, French and Quechua.
Lunfardo: the words of the tenements
Lunfardo was born around 1880 in the conventillos, the tenements of Buenos Aires where Italian, Spanish and Polish immigrants lived. It began as a thieves' jargon, and its name comes from lombardo, which in nineteenth-century Italy meant a moneylender or a swindler.
Many of its words are southern Italian or Genoese: laburo, work, from lavorare; fiaca, laziness; pibe, a kid. Others come from Caló, Portuguese, French and Quechua: mina, gil, chamuyo. Vesre turns a word's syllables round, so café becomes feca and tango becomes gotán.
The Academia Porteña del Lunfardo, founded in 1962, collects more than six thousand terms and celebrates its day on 5 September. Lunfardo is a register, not ignorance: the educated porteño uses it with friends and puts it away in a job interview. A visitor who says laburo and che sounds natural; one who says gotán sounds dated.
- Lunfardo was born around 1880 in the conventillos, the tenements where Italian, Spanish and Polish immigrants lived; it began as a thieves' jargon, and the name comes from lombardo, which in nineteenth-century Italy meant moneylender or swindler.
- Many words are southern Italian or Genoese (laburo, fiaca, pibe, mufa); others come from Caló, Portuguese, French and Quechua (mina, gil, chamuyo).
- Vesre reverses the syllables of a word: feca for café, gotán for tango, jermu for mujer.
- The Academia Porteña del Lunfardo, founded in 1962, collects more than six thousand terms and celebrates its day on 5 September.
- Lunfardo is a register, not ignorance: the educated porteño uses it with friends and puts it away in a job interview. A visitor who says laburo and che sounds natural; one who says gotán sounds dated.
- el laburo
- work, the job
- la mina
- woman
- el pibe
- kid
- che
- hey, mate
- la fiaca
- laziness
- el chamuyo
- smooth talk, bluff
- un mango
- a peso; sin un mango = broke
- morfar
- to eat
- el gil
- fool
- al vesre
- backwards: syllables reversed (feca = café)
Todo porteño habla dos idiomas: el castellano que le enseñaron en la escuela y el lunfardo que aprendió en la calle.Every porteño speaks two languages: the Castilian he was taught at school and the lunfardo he learned in the street.
Una conversación de bar, con la traducción al lado: "Che, ¿vamos a morfar? Estoy sin un mango, pero el laburo me paga el viernes".A bar conversation, with the translation alongside: "Hey, shall we eat? I'm broke, but work pays me on Friday".
"Dejá de chamuyar, que la última vez dijiste lo mismo y pagué yo. Sos un gil bárbaro"."Stop bluffing, last time you said the same thing and I paid. You're a total fool."