Languages of Argentina

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The Languages of Argentina number at least 40 spoken and 1 signed, including native and immigrant languages; two languages are extinct and others are endangered, spoken by elderly people whose descendants do not speak the languages.^[1]

Contents 1 More than one million speakers 1.1 Spanish 1.2 Argentine Sign Language 1.3 German 1.4 Italian 1.5 Levantine Arabic 2 More than 100,000 speakers 3 More than 10,000 speakers 4 More than 1,000 speakers 5 More than 100 speakers 6 Endangered languages 7 Extinct Languages 8 Other languages 9 Notes

[edit] More than one million speakers

[edit] Spanish

Argentina is predominantly a Spanish-speaking country with 33 million speakers—the fourth largest after Mexico, Spain, and Colombia.^{[citation needed]} Based on the 2001 census and 2006 population figures, there may be as many as 40 million Spanish language speakers.^{[citation needed]} Argentines pronounce Spanish, which they call castellano, with a distinctive Italian accent—a legacy inherited from European immigration.

Argentines are the only large Spanish-speaking country that universally use what is known as voseo—the use of the pronoun vos instead of tú (the familiar "you"). The most prevalent dialect is Rioplatense, whose speakers are located primarily in the basin of the Río de la Plata.

A phonetic study conducted by the Laboratory for Sensory Investigations of CONICET and the University of Toronto^{[citation needed]} showed that the accent of the inhabitants of Buenos Aires (known as porteños) is closer to the Neapolitan dialect of Italian than any other spoken language. Italian immigration influenced Lunfardo, the slang spoken in the Río de la Plata region, permeating the vernacular vocabulary of other regions as well.

[edit] Argentine Sign Language

There are 2,056,145 deaf Argentines, many of whom communicate by Argentine Sign Language, although using this language is actually banned in schools.^[2] If used by all of the deaf people in the country, it would be the second most widely used language after spoken Spanish.^[1]

[edit] German

Due to heavy immigration to Argentina,German is spoken by 1,800,000 German-Argentines and Germans.[1] German today, is the fourth most spoken language in Argentina.

[edit] Italian

Argentina has more than 1,500,000 Italian speakers; this tongue is the second most spoken language in the nation. Italian immigration from the beginning of the 20th century made a lasting and significant impact on the pronunciation and vernacular of the nation's spoken Spanish, giving it an Italian flare. In fact, Italian has contributed so much to Rioplatense that many foreigners mistake it for Italian.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Levantine Arabic

There are around one million Levantine Arabic speakers in Argentina,^[1] as a result of immigration from the Middle East, mostly from Israel, Palestine and Lebanon.

[edit] More than 100,000 speakers

South Bolivian Quechua is a Quechuan language spoken by some 850,000 Argentines, including natives to Argentina and immigrants from neighboring countries, particularly Perú and Bolivia. Approximately 200,000 are temporary laborers, 100,000 are in search of employment, and 500,000 live in Buenos Aires, where many of them work on the docks.^[1] There are 70,000 estimated speakers in Salta Province. The language is also known as Central Bolivian Quechua, which has six dialects. It is classified as a Quechua II language and is referred to as Quechua IIC by linguists^[1].

Standard German is spoken by between 400,000^[1] and 500,000 Argentines of German ancestry, Yiddish is Spoken by 200,000 people ^[3] and Mapudungun is spoken by 100,000 Mapuche people in the provinces of Neuquén, Río Negro, Chubut, Buenos Aires, and La Pampa.^[4]

Paraguayan Guaraní is the most widely spoken Guaraní dialect in Argentina, with around 200,000 speakers^[1]. See below for other less common dialects.

[edit] More than 10,000 speakers

Some 60,000 people speak Santiago del Estero Quichua, which has 81% lexical similarity with the Bolivian variety. It is spoken in its namesake province of Santiago del Estero and in north central Argentina, in addition to the departments of Atamisqui, Avellaneda, Brigadier J. F. Ibarra, Figueroa, Loret, Mitre, Aguirre, Moreno, Quebrachos, Robles, Salavina, San Martín, Sarmiento, and Silipica. There are also some speakers in the southeast of Salta Province and western Taboada, along the Salado River, and in Buenos Aires.^[1]

Wichí Lhamtés Vejoz is spoken by around 25,000 people in the northern Chaco Province; Welsh is spoken by some 25,000 people in the Patagonian region, especially Chubut Province; and Toba is spoken by 19,810 people in the Chaco Province centered around the Pilcomayo River. Another Wichí language-Wichí Lhamtés Güisnay-has 15,000 speakers.

Western Argentine Guaraní has 15,000 speakers in Jujuy and Salta Province.^[1] Other guaraní language speakers can be found in the Mesopotamia, specially in Corrientes, where is also an official language.

Argentina is home to a large Jewish community, some of whom speak Hebrew as a second language^{[citation needed]}, while others speak Eastern Yiddish^[1].

[edit] More than 1,000 speakers

Mocoví is spoken by 4,525 people in Santa Fé, while Mbyá Guaraní has 3,000 speakers in the northeast.^[1] Pilagá is spoken by about 2,000 people in the Chaco.^[1] There are 1,500 Iyo'wujwa Chorote speakers, 50% of whom are monolingual;^[1] Iyo'wujwa Chorote is spoken in the Chaco region and along the Pilcomayo river.^[5]

[edit] More than 100 speakers

Several languages spoken in Argentina are declining at rates that may result in only a handful of speakers within a generation.^{[citation needed]} Kaiwá has 512 speakers, Nivaclé 200, Plautdietsch 140, Tapieté and Wichí Lhamtés Nocten only 100. These indigenous languages have suffered slow linguistic and cultural genocide.

[edit] Endangered languages

Some Argentine languages are critically endangered, spoken only by a handful of isolated elderly people whose children don't speak the language;^[1] they are likely to become dead languages once the remaining speakers die. Vilela has about 20 speakers; Puelche has 5 or 6 speakers; Tehuelche has 4 speakers as of the year 2000, out of about 200 ethnic Tehuelche people, (2000 W. Adelaar); and Selknam (also known as Ona) has 1 to 3 speakers (1991) and is nearly extinct; full blooded Ona people are already extinct.

[edit] Extinct Languages

Abipon and Chané are now extinct languages that were spoken by people indigenous to Argentina before European contact; Chané was spoken in the Salta Province.^[1]

Cocoliche, a Spanish-Italian creole, was spoken mainly by first and second-generation immigrants from Italy, but is no longer in daily use; it is sometimes used in comedy. Some Cocoliche terms were adopted into Lunfardo slang.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Other languages

Catalan-Valencian-Balear, Yiddish, South Levantine Arabic, Turoyo, Ukrainian, and Vlax-Romani are all reportedly spoken, but the number of speakers are not known.^[1] Many Aymará speakers have migrated to Argentina for sugar mill and other work; of more than 2.2 million speakers globally, many are in Argentina.^[6] There are Mandarin-, Cantonese-, Japanese-, Korean-, and Russian-speaking immigrant communities. Chiripá is also spoken.^[7]

[edit] Notes

Official Languages of South America

Aymara (Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru) · Dutch (Netherlands Antilles, Aruba, Surinam) · English (Falkland Islands, Guyana) French (French Guiana) (France) · Guarani (Paraguay) · Papiamento (Aruba) · Portuguese (Brazil) · Quechua (Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru) Spanish (Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, Argentina) *All native languages are official in Peru, in areas in which they are the majority language.