I would like to do some research on how Argentinian Spanish, also called Rioplatense Spanish, is different to the other types of Spanish. For example, I could do some research on how Italian immigrants influenced the language and body language (i.e. gestures), I could mention how the type of Spanish they speak is called Castellano, I could show how they conjugate their verbs, I could present what voseo is, I could introduce the way they pronounce some words and their accent, etc.

Out of all the topic ideas I have come up with, I will be focusing on the Argentinian Spanish (Rioplatense Spanish) and do my research on everything that is related to the language.

Rioplatense Spanish can be found in South America in the countries of Argentina and Uruguay. These are the only spanish speaking countries that pronounce the "ll" and "y" as "sh".

Here's some historical background on Argentina and Uruguay:

In 1776, the formation of the Viceroyalty of Río de la Plata compromised Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Bolivia. When the Spaniards settled in Argentina, they went to three different places. The first point was around the Río de la Plata which, in 1536, Andalusian Pedro de Mendoza founded Buenos Aires. But, when he encountered some hostile indigenous tribes that were located in the Pampas, the Spaniards were forced, a few years later, to evacuate Buenos Aires. This lead them to settle in Asunción which is found a few hundred miles up the Paraná river. With this new settlement, Asunción was considered as the new Buenos Aires location in 1580. As the years passed, each part of Argentina had their own variety of Spanish. For example, Buenos Aires is where the known Argentinian Spanish is found, at the northeast of the country we can find the Andean variety of Spanish, and the city of Santiago del Estero, which was founded in 1553, has its own unique dialectal features. In addition, the Cuyo region that is found in the west near Chile, we can find the cities of Mendoza (1561), San Juan (1562) and San Luis (1591-1594) still resembles to the Spanish from central Chile. Now, as for Uruguay, this country was unsettled by Europeans until the Portuguese arrived in 1680. In 1726, the Spaniards from Buenos Aires, establish themselves in Montevideo and was designed to repel the Portuguese that came. This lead the Spaniards and Portuguese to fight over Montevideo, which later on was fought over by the Argentinians and the Brazilians. In 1828, Montevideo was established as an independant state that was primarly intended as a barrier to loosen the fights between Argentina and Brazil. Today, you can find 70% of the Uruguayan population living in Montevideo where their Spanish is considered as an extention of the Buenos Aires dialect. They also have the bilingual fronterizo speech that can be found near the border shared with Brazil. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, tens of thousands of Italians arrived to the cities of Río de la Plata which the immigrants counted almost as much as half of the population found in Buenos Aires and Montevideo. This created the Italo-Spanish interlanguage which is known as cocoliche and today, it has more or less died out. Finally, in the 19th and 20th centuries, immigrants from the Canary Island came over and this lead to find out that rioplatense and Canary speech has common words such as pibe (boy) and piba (girl).

Source:

MACKENZIE, Ian. "The Linguistics of Spanish." Staff, www.staff.ncl.ac.uk/i.e.mackenzie/riverplate.htm. Accessed 10 February 2021.

Source:

MARTÍNEZ GRAU, Jorgelina. "The complex reality of indigenous languages in Argentina." CONICET, 20 May 2019, www.conicet.gov.ar/the-complex-reality-of-indigenous-languages-in-argentina/. Accessed 10 March 2021.

• What have you learned so far from the reading/research that you have done?

From all the readings and research I have done for this blog, I learned the history of why Italians immigrated to Argentina and how they influenced the language, I learned about a few words that I regularly use come from the indigenous, I learned how to distinguish an Uruguyan from an Argentinian and I learned about intonations. The rest I already knew due to my parents and from previously living in Argentina.

• How far have you come with your work?

I believe that I have come far with my work, but I would like to work on the visual presentation of my blog a little bit more. Maybe add some more videos.

• Does it meet the requirements that are described in the course outline?

My blog meets most of the requirements that are described in the course outline, but I feel that I need to work more on adding my own opinion instead of just adding information learned from readings/research. However, I have added my own knowledge/experience to many of my blog entries.

• Have you constantly added new material and improved your blog?

Yes, I have constantly added new material and improved my blog. I keep a copy of the blog on my email as a backup and I also test there what works and what does not work visually before I post it here. I also believe that I am a bit in advance which I do not mind at all because it helps me to stay focused and encourages me to make any changes that I previously wanted to do. I tried making the latest blogs shorter so it can be an easier but informational reading.

Every country has their own words and their own slang. In Argentina, they call their slang Lunfardo. It all started in the 19th century and the origin of it is Italian (Lunfardo comes from the italian word "lombardo")Lunfardo was mainly used by delinquents to communicate between themselves. This was their own secret code. Nowadays, Argentinians keep using lunfardo and they gave it the nickname lunfa.

Here are a few examples:

• Quilombo (mess)

• Morfar (to eat)

• Guita (money)

• Trucho (fake)

• Busarda (stomach/gut)

What is Vesre? Vesre is the word revés but mixed up. This is another type of slang. Here are a few examples:

• Café (coffee) = feca

• Al pedo (messing around) = al dope

• Boludo (someone who plays dumb or is clueless) = dolobu

• El que te dije (word used to name someone among friends so the unnamed person does not know you are talking about them) = el quetejedi

• Cagar (a cheater/swindler) = garca

• Pagar (to pay) = garpar

• Galán(a pretty/attractive boy) = langa

• Panza (tummy) = Zapán

These vesre words are commonly used in Argentina and I did not notice how often I use them amongst my family.

Throughout this blog, you have read about the historical background and the linguistic features of the Rioplatense Spanish. This should give you an idea of how it is actually different to the other types of Spanish dialects and that it is unique. Some people believe that someday it will become its own tongue and will be more recognized. I hope you enjoyed reading my blog and that maybe you decide to learn a bit more about the language. Thank you for your time and enjoy the rest of the blogs!

-Emely