Crash course in Lunfardo

 If you have studied Spanish before or experienced other Spanish speaking cultures, you will probably notice many differences in the way Argentineans speak. In Buenos Aires, the Porteños dialect is far different from others in Argentina. 

Each area in Argentina has its own dialect and accent, but the main difference is that the residents of Buenos Aires have a slang called, lunfardo, a street language that was also adopted by other Rio de la Plata cities such as, Montevideo in Uruguay.

Lunfardo was first used by thieves as their street language; it was spoken in jails and adopted by the lower working class, alongside tango. Nowadays, it is very common to hear many of these words from people in all social circles (but not in every situation of course!). The roots of many of the words are in Italian due to the high percentage of Italian immigrants that arrived in the city during the 1800s and influenced the development of neighbourhoods such as, La Boca where most of the immigrants settled.

Ilustración Pablo Basberg

The dialect throws up many words you will never have heard of or seen before and if you want to read some tango lyrics in your spare time, it is important to grasp the art of lunfardo! Here are some useful words to help you on your way to becoming an honorary Porteño. Be careful...before you go around showing off your lunfardo skills, only use it if you know the person quite well as lunfardo can be taken to be quite rude or vulgar!

    •    Bacán – a wealthy man who looks after a woman
    •    Boliche (www.bsas4u.com/buenos-aires-crawl-p-510.html) – a disco or bar
    •    Bondi – bus
    •    Boludo – stupid (vulgar)
    •    Che – hey dude/friend
    •    Che boludo – hey stupid/hey dude (use only with friends!)
    •    Copado/a – someone or something cool
    •    Gil – Stupid/silly (pronounced as ‘hill’)
    •    Guita – money
    •    Laburar – to work (laburo is a job)
    •    Mina – woman, girl
    •    Morfar – to eat
    •    Pibe – kid, guy
    •    Pucho – cigarette
    •    Quilombo – a mess/disaster/chaotic
    •    Zafar – to barely get by

¡Che!... give it a try and build up some lunfardo sentences to find a mina or bacán in the boliche, but be careful not to get into a quilombo or to come across as gil!
Click here to see more lunfardo words.

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