Rioplatense Spanish
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Rioplatense Spanish (Spanish: Español rioplatense, although locally known as castellano rioplatense) is a dialect of the Spanish language which is mainly spoken in the areas in and around the Río de la Plata basin (or River Plate region), between Argentina and Uruguay. It should be noted that in the River Plate region the usual word employed to name the "Spanish" language is castellano (that is, Castillian) and seldom "español" (that is, Spanish) as in other parts of Latin America. The term español is only employed when talking to foreigners who may not be familiar with the local dialect.
Note that, while the article refers to Rioplatense Spanish as a single dialect, there are distinguishable differences among the varieties spoken in Argentina and in Uruguay, as described below.
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[edit] Location
Rioplatense is mainly based in the cities of Buenos Aires, La Plata, Rosario (Argentina), and Montevideo (Uruguay), the four most populated cities in the area, along with their respective suburbs and the areas in between. This regional form of Spanish is also found in other areas, not geographically close but culturally influenced by those population centers (e.g., in parts of Paraguay). Rioplatense is the standard in audiovisual media in Argentina and Uruguay. To the northeast exists the hybrid Riverense Portuñol.
[edit] Influences on the language
The Spaniards brought their language to the area during the Spanish colonization in the region. Originally part of the Viceroyalty of Peru, the Río de la Plata basin had its status lifted to Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata in 1776.
Until the massive immigration to the region started in the 1870s, the language of the Río de la Plata had virtually no influence from other languages and varied mainly by the means of localisms. Argentines and Uruguayans often state that their populations, like those of the United States and Canada, comprise people of relatively recent European descent, the largest immigrant groups being those who came from Spain and Italy.
[edit] European immigration
Several languages influenced the criollo Spanish of the time, because of the diversity of settlers and immigrants to Argentina and Uruguay:
- 1870–1890: mainly Spanish, Basque, Galician and Northern Italian speakers and some from France, Germany, and other European countries.
- 1910–1945: Again from Spain, Southern Italy and in smaller numbers from across Europe; Jewish immigration, mainly from Russia and Poland from the 1910s until after World War II was also large.
- English speakers, from Britain and Ireland, were not as great in numbers as the Italians but were influential in industry, business, education and agriculture. In the case of the English immigrants, they were certainly influential within the upper middle class.
[edit] Influence of indigenous populations in Argentina
Native American populations were decimated during the early settlement (before 1810), and also during the expansion into Patagonia (after 1870). However, the interaction between Spanish and several of the native languages has left visible traces. Words from Guarani, Quechua and others were incorporated into the local form of Spanish, and some have even reached English.
Some words of American origin commonly used in Rioplatense Spanish are:
- From Quechua: gaucho (orig. wakcha "poor person"); pochoclo ("popcorn")
- From Guarani: pororó (also "popcorn")
- See Influences on the Spanish language for a more comprehensive review of borrowings into all dialects of Spanish.
[edit] Linguistic features
[edit] Vocabulary
Differences between dialects of Spanish are numerous; about 9,000 Rioplatense words[citation needed] are not used or, in many cases, even understood elsewhere. These include many terms from the basic vocabulary, such as words for fruits, garments, foodstuffs, car parts, etc., as well as local slang.
The vocabularies of both varieties are further diverging as Rioplatense Spanish tends to borrow (or calque) technical words from American English, while Peninsular Spanish tends to borrow or calque them from British English or French. Yet still it sometimes differs from other Spanish in North America.
| Rioplatense | Peninsular | Mexican | Chilean | English (US/ UK) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| durazno | melocotón | durazno | durazno | peach |
| damasco | albaricoque | chabacano | damasco | apricot |
| frutilla | fresa | fresa | frutilla | strawberry |
| papa | patata | papa | papa | potato |
| poroto | judía | frijol | poroto | bean |
| suéter / pulóver | jersey | suéter | chaleco / sweater | sweater / pullover |
| moño | pajarita | moño | humita | bowtie |
| auto / coche | coche | carro | auto | car |
| celular | móvil | celular | celular | cell phone / mobile |
| computadora | ordenador | computadora | computador | computer |
| baúl (del auto) | maletero | cajuela | maleta (del auto) | (car) trunk / boot |
| piedra | roca | roca | piedra | rock |
| valija | maleta | maleta | maleta | luggage or suitcase |
| pollera | falda | falda | pollera / falda | skirt |
| ricota | requesón | requesón | ricota | ricotta cheese |
[edit] Phonology
Rioplatense Spanish distinguishes itself from other dialects of Spanish by the pronunciation of certain consonants.
- Like many other dialects, Rioplatense features yeísmo: the sounds represented by ll (the palatal lateral /ʎ/) and y (historically the palatal approximant /j/) have fused into one. This merged phoneme is generally pronounced as a postalveolar fricative, either voiced [ʒ] in the central and western parts of the dialect region (this phenomenon is called zheísmo) or voiceless [ʃ] in and around Buenos Aires (called sheísmo) These are the sounds in English measure and mission, or the French j and ch, respectively. That is, in Rioplatense, se cayó "he fell down" is homophonous with se calló "he became silent".
- The fricative /s/ has a tendency to become 'aspirated' before another consonant (the resulting sound depending on what the consonant is, although stating it's a voiceless glottal fricative, [h], would give a clear idea of the mechanism,) or simply in all syllable-final positions in less educated speakers. This change may be realized only at the word level or it may also cross word boundaries. That is, esto es lo mismo "this is the same" is pronounced something like ['ɛh.to 'ɛh lo 'mih.mo], but in las águilas azules "the blue eagles", /s/ in las and águilas might remain [s] as it's not followed by a consonant [las 'a.ɣi.las a.'su.lɛs], or become [h] (the exact pronunciation is largely an individual choice.)
- In some areas, speakers tend to drop the final r sound in verb infinitives. This elision is considered a feature of uneducated speakers in some places, but it is widespread in others, at least in rapid speech.
Aspiration of s, together with loss of final r and some common instances of diphthong simplification, tend to produce a noticeable simplification of the syllable structure, giving Rioplatense a distinct fluid consonant-vowel-consonant-vowel rhythm:
- Si querés irte, andate. Yo no te voy a parar.
- "If you want to go then go. I'm not gonna stop you."
- [sikeˌɾɛˈhite anˈdate - ʃo noteβjapaˈɾa]
[edit] Intonation
Preliminary research has shown that Rioplatense Spanish, and particularly the speech of the city of Buenos Aires, has intonation patterns that resemble those of Italian dialects, and differ markedly from the patterns of other Argentine forms of Spanish. [1] This correlates well with immigration patterns. Argentina, and particularly Buenos Aires, had huge numbers of Italian settlers since the 19th century.
According to a study conducted by National Scientific and Technical Research Council of Argentina, and published in Bilingualism: Language and Cognition (ISSN 1366-7289) [2] Buenos Aires residents speak with an intonation most closely resembling Neapolitan. The researchers note that this is relatively recent phenomenon, starting in the beginning of the 20th century with the main wave of Southern Italian immigration. Before that, the porteño accent was more similar to that of Spain, especially Andalusia. [3]
[edit] Pronouns and verb conjugation
One of the features of the Argentine and Uruguayan speaking style is the voseo: the usage of the pronoun vos for the second person singular, instead of tú. Voseo is also used in other places around the Spanish-speaking community, but it is usually considered a nonstandard lower-class sociolectic or regional variant, whereas in Argentina, voseo is standard. Vos is used with forms of the verb that resemble those of the second person plural (vosotros) in traditional (Spain's) Peninsular Spanish.
The second person plural pronoun, which is vosotros in Spain, is replaced with ustedes in Rioplatense, like most other Latin American dialects. While usted is the formal second person singular pronoun, its plural ustedes has a neutral connotation and can be used to address friends and acquaintances as well as in more formal occasions (see T-V distinction). Ustedes takes a grammatically third person plural verb.
As an example, see the conjugation table for the verb amar in the present tense, indicative mode:
| Person/Number | Peninsular | Rioplatense |
|---|---|---|
| 1st sing. | yo amo | yo amo |
| 2nd sing. | tú amas | vos amás¹ |
| 3rd sing. | él ama | él ama |
| 1st plural | nosotros amamos | nosotros amamos |
| 2nd plural | vosotros amáis | ustedes aman² |
| 3rd plural | ellos aman | ellos aman |
- (¹) Tú amás is only used in Uruguay, where it coexists with Vos amás. However, it should be noted that tú and vos are not interchangeably used, but rather vos denotes a more intimate relationship between the parties in conversation. In formal speech, usted ama.
- (²) Ustedes is used throughout all of Latin America. It is also used in formal speech for the second person plural in Spain.
Although apparently there is just a stress shift (from amas to amás), the origin of such a stress is the loss of the diphthong of the ancient vos inflection from vos amáis to vos amás. This can be better seen with the verb "to be": from vos sois to vos sos. In vowel-alternating verbs like perder and morir, the stress shift also triggers a change of the vowel in the root:
| Peninsular | Rioplatense |
|---|---|
| yo pierdo | yo pierdo |
| tú pierdes | vos perdés or tú perdés |
| él pierde | él pierde |
| nosotros perdemos | nosotros perdemos |
| vosotros perdéis | ustedes pierden |
| ellos pierden | ellos pierden |
For the -ir verbs, the Peninsular vosotros forms end in -ís, so there is no diphthong to simplify, and Rioplatense vos employs the same form: instead of tú vives, vos vivís; instead of tú vienes, vos venís (note the alternation).
The imperative forms for vos are identical to the plural imperative forms in Peninsular minus the final -d (stress remains the same):
- Hablá más alto, por favor. "Speak louder, please." (hablad in Peninsular)
- Comé un poco de torta. "Eat some cake." (comed in Peninsular)
- Vení para acá. "Come over here." (venid in Peninsular)
The plural imperative uses the ustedes form (i. e. the third person plural subjunctive, as corresponding to ellos).
As for the subjunctive forms of vos verbs, while they tend to take the tú conjugation, some speakers do use the classical vos conjugation, employing the vosotros form minus the i in the final diphthong. Many consider only the tú subjunctive forms to be correct.
- Espero que veas or Espero que veás "I hope you can see" (Peninsular veáis)
- Lo que quieras or (less used) Lo que querás "Whatever you want" (Peninsular queráis)
In the preterite tense, an s is often added, for instance (vos) perdistes. This corresponds to the classical vos conjugation found in literature. Compare Iberian Spanish form vosotros perdisteis. However, it is often deemed incorrect.
Other verb forms coincide with tú after the i is omitted (the vos forms are the same as tú).
- Si salieras "If you went out" (Peninsular salierais)
[edit] Usage
In the old times, vos was used as a respectful term. In Rioplatense, as in most other dialects which employ voseo, this pronoun has become informal, shoving out the use of tú (compare you in English, which used to be formal singular but has replaced and obliterated the former informal singular pronoun thou). It is used especially for addressing friends and family members (regardless of age), but may also include most acquaintances, such as coworkers, friends of one's friends, etc.
[edit] Usage of tenses
Although literary works use the full spectrum of verb inflections, in Rioplatense (as well as many other Spanish dialects), the future tense has been replaced by a verbal phrase (periphrasis) in the spoken language.
This verb phrase is formed by the verb ir ("go") followed by the preposition a and the main verb in the infinitive. This is akin to the English phrase going to + infinitive verb. For example:
- Creo que descansaré un poco → Creo que voy a descansar un poco
- Mañana me visitará mi madre → Mañana me va a visitar mi madre
- Iré a visitarla mañana → Voy a ir a visitarla mañana
The present perfect tense (Spanish: Pretérito perfecto compuesto), just like pretérito anterior, is rarely used, so it's replaced for simple past.
- Juan no ha llegado → Juan no llegó todavía
- El torneo ha comenzado → Ya empezó el torneo
[edit] See also
- Voseo
- Lunfardo, Buenos Aires slang argot
- Spanish dialects and varieties
- Immigration to Argentina
