The Rioplatense accent of Argentina and Uruguay

The following is a linguistics research article on the origin and nature of the variant of Spanish spoken in Argentina, called Rioplatense Spanish. It is rather technical and isn't structured like the other blog posts on my blog. I recommend reading it if you have an interest in learning more about different forms of Spanish, though if you don't have some knowledge of linguistics it might be confusing at times.

Introduction

To the untrained ear, all varieties of Spanish sound almost the same. Anyone not familiar with the language would claim that the brusque speech of the people of Andalucía in southern Spain sounds quite similar to the musical cadence of speakers from the Caribbean. To people familiar with the language, however, the amount of noticeable variation among the different accents of Spanish-speaking countries is astounding.

This variation is akin to that of the differing varieties of English; an American would have no trouble identifying an Englishman based on his London cockney or an Irishman based on his brogue. The same is tr

ue for Spanish; a native of Madrid would immediately notice a difference in the way her friend from Guadalajara or her cousin in Paraguay speaks.

Of course, just like with English, native speakers from all over the Spanish-speaking world are able to understand each other, even though they may have a number of slightly different lexicons and some variations in grammar. Thus, what is called “Spanish” today is in fact a collection of different accents of the same mutually-intelligible language, each with its own history and characteristics.

One of these accents, spoken by millions of people in South America and in the United States, has a unique history in that it arose in the presence of another Romance language, Italian, while it was undergoing its transformation from the speech of Spain: Rioplatense, the Spanish spoken by many Argentinians and Uruguayans. The influence of Italian on the development of Rioplatense Spanish is evident in the flowery and musical tone and vocabulary it has today and is the most likely cause of some of the strikingly different features of the Spanish spoken by the people of the Rio de la Plata basin of South America.

Spanish Settlement and Italian Immigration to Argentina

Before diving into the features of Rioplatense Spanish (RPS), a brief history of Spanish and Italian immigration to Argentina is required. Prior to the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors, the Rio de la Plata was scarcely po

pulated by pockets of Incan people, numbering around 100,000, a small number when compared with the bulging population of the rest of the Incan Empire, which was estimated to be around 16,000,000 (Means, 1932).

There were a number of early attempts at colonizing the Rio de la Plata basin, first by Juan Díaz de Solís in 1516, who was eventually expelled by the indigenous people there, and later by an expedition from Paraguay led by Pedro de Mendoza in 1536, who established a temporary foothold at what would become Buenos Aires. In 1580, the Spanish finally planted themselves firmly in Argentina with the second and definitive settlement of Buenos Aires, this time led by Juan de Garay (“Argentina in Brief”).

With these conquests came the Spanish system of governance, culture, and language. Most Spanish settlers came from Andalucía, so this became the most popular dialect, but Castilian, spoken in the part of Spain in which Madrid is located, was considered more “prestigious” and was used for administrative purposes and in centers of cultures and learning in the Americas such as Mexico

City and Lima (Davis). As a result, settlements close to these metropolises adopted the Castilian way of speaking at first, until the hundreds of miles separating the colonies from the mother country would allow for natural language change to result in the different varieties of Spanish in these regions today.

The Rio de la Plata region was settled primarily by Spaniards from Andalucía and since Argentina was far from the major administrative centers of the Spanish government in the Americas, there was little influence of Castilian Spanish on the development of the language there and Andalusian Spanish took hold (“Spanish”).

After the initial wave of Spanish immigrants arrived during the colonization period, the Rio de la Plata remained fairly isolated until the next major influx of immigrants in the late 19th century, when Latin Americans shrugged off the chains that bound them to the Spanish Empire, starting movements towards political, cultural, and linguistic independence. The people of the Viceroyalty of the Rio de la Plata, of which modern-day Argentina was a part, did not enjoy being under the iron fist of the Spanish crown and a clash for freedom ensued, ending with Argentinian independence in 1816 (“Argentine War for Independence”). It took a number of decades for the new Argentinian government to stabilize, but when it did it allowed for an open immigration policy, even subsidizing the cost for some immigrants to come over (Jachimowicz).

Immigrants from all over Europe arrived in Argentina between 1870 and 1910, but most came from Spain and Italy, with the latter providing a larger portion (Balderas & Greenwood). The Italian immigrants that came over were among the first major group to make the trek to Buenos Aires and, as such, they were the most successful immigrants, more successful than the Spanish, who had the advantage of knowing the language. Italian immigrants were able to acquire land and thus power and influence, establishing themselves as a significant linguistic force in the region (Sánchez-Alonso). Italian immigrants enjoyed great economic success and many found themselves in the middle-class or upper-middle-class, a factor that would become important in Italian’s influence on RPS.

With a sufficient historical background, the linguistic characteristics that make RPS unique can now be explored, but first a few clarifications must be made. Unfortunately, to catalogue all of the differences between RPS and Peninsular Spanish (PS) would take volumes, so instead some of the major defining features of Rioplatense will be noted. The principle differences between RPS and PS in phonology, morphology, syntax, and the lexicon will be examined with some of the most defining characteristics unique to Argentine Spanish. The word “dialect” has been avoided thus far, but for the remainder of this paper “dialect” will refer to a distinct “variety” of Spanish with notable differences from other versions of the language, but that is still mutually intelligible to any Spanish-speaker. Thus, RPS and PS will both be referred to as two different dialects of Spanish for ease of differentiation; this paper will not enter the debate of “dialect” versus “language.”

Finally, before jumping into the phonology, some g

eographical context of where RPS is spoken is necessary. The sphere of influence of this variety of Spanish is focused mainly in and around Buenos Aires, but it extends to other major cities like La Plata, Santa Fe, Rosario, Paraná, and Mar del Plata in Argentina and Montevideo in Uruguay (“Linguistic Features of Rioplatense (River Plate) Spanish”). For simplicity, the linguistic features of Buenos Aires will be the primary focus, but most of these features are present in the aforementioned regions as well, with some slight variation.

Linguistic Characteristics of RPS

There are a number of features that separate RPS from PS. One feature that is common throughout most of Latin America is the seseo, the merger of /θ/ with /s/ in the pronunciation of the letters <z> and <c> before <i> or <e>. This is a feature that is common in the Andalusian dialect of a number of major cities in the south of Spain which became the major dialect in areas remote from the administrative capitals of the colonies during the Spanish Conquest (“Andalusian Spanish”).

The seseo is in contrast with the ceceo, in which the /θ/ sound is retained. Ceceo is present in the Andalusian dialect of some other southern Spanish cities and in the Castilian dialect and differentiates between the letters <s> and <z> (or <c> before <i> or <e>). With the ceceo, the letter <s> is assigned [s] and <z> and <c> before <i> or <e>) are assigned [θ].

In seseante dialects, these sounds merge to create one sound, /s/, so that <s>, <z>, and <c> before <i> or <e> are all assigned [s]. For example, in Castilian, conocer “to know, be familiar with” is pronounced [kono`θeɾ] while

in most other dialects it is pronounced [kono`seɾ] (1). Similarly, the Castilian dialect differentiates between the words casa “house” and caza “hunt” with [`kasa] and [`kaθa], respectively, while in a seseante dialect both are pronounced as [`kasa] and must be clarified with context (2).

While the seseo merger applies to most non-Castilian dialects, there are a number of phonological features that are unique only to RPS. One characteristic is sheísmo, in contrast with the yeísmo, both of which refer to different ways of pronouncing the letters <ll> and <y>. In yeísmo dialects, both /ll/ and /y/ are pronounced as [ʝ] or [ʎ]. For example, the phrase yo me llamo “My name is” would be pronounced as [ʝo me `ʎamo] (3). In RPS, on the other hand, the sounds /ll/ and /y/ are pronounced [ʃ] or [ʒ], so (3) would be pronounced as [ʃo me `ʃamo] or [ʒo me `ʒamo] (“Linguistic Features of Rioplatense (River Plate) Spanish”). This sound change is unconditioned, so it applies to any word containing <ll> or <y>, regardless of the phonological environment. This sound change seems to have originated in Buenos Aires and started out with [ʝ], [ʎ] > [ʒ], but has recently undergone devoicing to [ʃ], and many Argentinians now pronounce /ll/ and /y/ as [ʃ] rather than [ʒ], across socioeconomic boundaries (Ruiz).

The final notable phonological difference between RPS and PS is the weakening of the syllable-final /s/. The sound [s] undergoes lenition to an aspiration, the glottal fricative [h]. This change appears when /s/ is syllable-final and can occur within a word or at the end of one. For example, in PS, the phrase ese pescado es fresco “that fish is fresh” is pronounced [`ese pes`kaðo es `fresko], but in RPS it would sound more like [`ehe peh`kaðo eh `frehko] with the [s] sound being replaced by an aspirated [h] (4). Unlike the sheísmo, this sound change is not universal in RPS and sometimes the /s/ sound is pronounced [s] (Ruiz). This sound change is socioeconomic-dependent, being more prevalent in the lower classes (“Rioplatense Spanish”).

The next step in the linguistic analysis of RPS is in its morphology. Much of the morphology of RPS is the same as that of PS, but there is one major feature that distinguishes Rioplatense morphology from other dialects: voseo.

Voseo refers to the replacement of the informal second-person singular pronoun tú and its associated conjugations (together called tuteo) with a new pronoun, vos, and different conjugations. In many cases, the verb is modified such that the stress is moved to the final syllable, as is done in the informal, second-person plural conjugation in PS. The difference between RPS informal, second-person singular conjugation and that of PS informal, second-person plural is the loss of the diphthongs [ai] and [ei] in -ar and -er conjugations, respectively, which monophthongize to [a] and [e], respectively. It also contains PS informal, second-person plural conjugation as a reference for the similarities between the pronouns, vosotros in PS and vos in RPS, and in conjugations.

The difference is seen in a number of other ten

ses and moods, not just the present indicative. In both tuteante and voseante dialects, the <s> of the second person singular present indicative is removed to form the second person singular imperative, but with voseo the stress moves to the final syllable, while with tuteo it remains where the stress was in the second person singular present indicative. For example, the second person singular imperative of hablar “to speak” in PS is habla [`abla] but in RPS it is hablá (5).

The voseo affects every tense, but in some tenses, like the present subjunctive, there are two variants, one that retains the stress in the same place as in PS and one that moves it to the final syllable. The Peninsular variant is given the higher prestige, but recently younger speakers have been promoting the voseo form to a higher prestige, regardless of social class. These are the only socioeconomic distinctions among the voseo in RPS, though, and the standard for the second person singular is vos and its associated conjugations, regardless of social class (“Rioplatense Spanish”).

There are a few syntactical features that further differentiate RPS from PS, most of which regard the use of clitics, such as subject and object pronouns. Many times, what should be an indirect object resumptive clitic (a clitic that employs the personal a and the object of preposition, such as mí and tí) is replaced by the subject pronoun, as in (6):

Ella me da la lámpara a mí > Ella yo meda la lámpara “She gives me the lamp.” (6)

Literally, this translates to “I she gives me the lamp,” but in RPS, this syntactical form is accepted.

Two other differences between the syntax of RPS and PS regard the first person plural. The first difference arises in the first person plural imperative where, in PS, if there is a reflexive pronoun that goes along with the verb, it is appended to the end of the verb as a suffix. However, in RPS, the reflexive pronoun can be placed before the verb, as in (7):

Levantémonos > Nos levantemos “Let’s get up” (7)

The other difference regarding the first person plural is in the replacement of the reflexive pronoun nos with se, which is usually the third person singular or plural reflexive pronoun. This syntactic change can be seen in (8)

Nos llevamos bien > Se llevamos bien “We get along well” (8)

There are a few other syntactical differences, but the major ones occur in the placement and use of the clitics (“Rioplatense Spanish”).

Lexical variation is not unique to RPS; every Spanish-speaking region has its own lexicon that has a number of different words to refer to the same thing or idea. A number of the words in the RPS lexicon are inspired by native languages that shaped the dialect during the colonial period, such as Quechua and Guaraní. The other main source of lexical influence derives from Italian (“Rioplatense Spanish”).

Cocoliche and Lunfardo

The final piece of the puzzle in understanding RPS lies in the early Spanish-Italian hybrid language, Cocoliche, and later Lunfardo, both of which emerged as a result of the large influx of Italian immigrants to Argentina during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Cocoliche was a pidgin, a simplified, oral form of communication that blends elements of two different languages in contact to allow communication between two different groups (Mihalic̆ek). The pidgin was a hybrid of the Spanish of the Argentinians and the Italian of the immigrants and developed around the turn of the 20th century.

Cocoliche developed primarily in the lower-class, where literacy rates were not as high as they were in the middle- and upper-classes of th

e more economically successful Italian immigrants. Italian itself did not take hold in Argentina because the immigrants came from all over Italy and so spoke different dialects, many of which were not mutually-intelligible, so they needed a language to communicate in, which, after contact with Spanish, became Cocoliche.

A number of words from Cocoliche and even Italian directly entered the Lunfardo and Rioplatense lexica. Examples include laburar “to work,” (from It. lavorare) and fiaca “laziness.” (from It. fiacca). Eventually, Cocoliche disappeared as Italian immigrants spread out around Argentina and gave into the prestige language, Spanish (“Cocoliche and the Origins of a Regional Dialect”). However, Cocoliche left its mark in the RPS lexicon and set the stage for the development of another Spanish-Italian mix, Lunfardo.

Lunfardo developed among thieves so as to be unintelligible to anyone not associated with their underground world, such as the police. Thus, at first, the language seems to have been a phenomenon of lower-class criminals, but eventually Lunfardo’s vocabulary found its way into other parts of Argentine life, including tango lyrics, a form of dance shared by all socioeconomic levels.

Lunfardo developed in two distinct ways. The first was through a seemingly-natural process of language change, borrowing form Cocoliche and thus drawing inspiration from Spanish and Italian, particularly the dialects of Northern Italy, such as those of Lombardy (a likely origin of the name Lunfardo). The other process that shaped Lunfardo was an artificial process called vesre, in which the syllables of words from Spanish are displaced to form a new morpheme (Grayson). Examples of Lunfardo words formed from vesre are chochamu “man” from muchacho and lorca “heat” from calor. Many words directly from Lunfardo have passed into RPS slang of Buenos Aires and are used regularly in everyday speech by RPS speakers today, such as pibe “boy,” which originated as a Lunfardo word but is now a common way to refer to young men (Sinso).

So, has Italian influenced the development of the Rioplatense dialect? The answer appears to be “yes.” In establishing the historical and sociolinguistic context of the Italian immigration to Argentina, it has been shown that the development of Cocoliche and Lunfardo, both heavily influenced by Italian, have contributed to the RPS lexicon. A number of words used by inhabitants of Buenos Aires and other parts of Argentina can be traced back to Lunfardo or Cocoliche which can, in turn, be traced back to Italian itself. Could the other features that make RPS different from PS also have been shaped by Italian, if not directly then through Cocoliche and Lunfardo?

There is some evidence that RPS has borrowed a few of phonological characteristics from Italian. Paul V. Cassano of the University of W

indsor in Canada cites a number of examples of how Italian phonemes, especially geminates, have been absorbed into Argentine Spanish and simplified, such as Ital. /ts/ > Span. /s/ and Ital. /mm/ > Span. /m/. He also provides evidence of new sounds that were introduced from Italian into Spanish, such as word-initial /ɲ/, as in Ital. [`ɲoko] > Span. [`ɲoke] (Cassano). A word-initial [ɲ] is not present in most Spanish dialects but it appears in a few words in RPS.

As for the sheísmo phenomenon, one of the defining features of RPS, it is likely that Italian played some role in morphing the /ʝ/ or /ʎ/ sounds into the /ʃ/, though it is probably not the only cause for the change (Cassano). The evidence for this lies in the fact that the dialect of Italian from Tuscany already underwent this sound change, where there was a lenition of the affricates /tʃ/ and /dʒ/ to /ʃ/ (Pausini). Many of the Italian immigrants that moved to Argentina were from Tuscany and with them came /ʃ/, accelerating the switch to sheísmo.

Italian has also shaped the intonation of spoken Argentine Spanish such that it has very similar intonation patterns as that of the Neapolitan dialect of Italian. A study by Laura Colantoni at the University of Toronto and Jorge Gurlekian at the Laboratorio de Invesitgaciones Sensoriales in Concicet, Argentina shows that some of the intonation patterns spoken RPS are very close to the intonation patterns seen in Italian dialects, particularly Neapolitan. This would make sen

se because, in addition to the large influx of Italians from the north of the country, a large amount also emigrated from the south of Italy, chiefly Naples (Colantoni & Gurlekian).

As for the morphological and syntactic features that distinguish RPS from PS (voseo, replacement of an indirect object resumptive clitic with a subject clitic), it is unlikely that they have their origins in Italian. The voseo has been around in Spanish since the early days of the language and neither Italian nor the Argentinian derivatives (Cocoliche and Lunfardo) have any similar clitic changes.

Conclusion

While the different dialects of Spanish may sound the same to someone unfamiliar with the language, it is clear just through the comparison of the Rioplatense dialect of the Rio de la Plata basin of Argentina and the Peninsular dialects of Spain that these dialects are quite different and have their own set of variations on all levels of linguistic description. Even though a native of Madrid can understand a citizen of Buenos Aires, there are so many differences between the two regional dialects that one cannot help but wonder what other factors pushed these two variants of Spanish so far apart, besides the ocean separating them.

Among other factors, it turns out that the wave of Italian immigrants that landed on the shores of Argentina in the 19th and 20th centuries brought with it a plethora of cultural and linguistic characteristics that would greatly impact Argentina and its language. Were it not for the influx of millions of Italians to Buenos Aires and the surrounding area, it is undeniable that the language

of Argentina would be very different from the rich Rioplatense variant that makes this region unique today.

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