The official language of Argentina. What language is in Argentina

The history of any state is reflected in the most detailed way in the history of the development of languages spoken by its population. Today we will find out which language in Argentina is official, and what other dialects and dialects can be heard on the territory of this country. Such knowledge will help to some extent approximate the culture and spirit of the people inhabiting the amazing South American republic.

Argentina: what language is spoken in this country officially

Argentines joke that they, in fact, originated from ships. And this is not far from the truth, since 90% of the country's population are the descendants of emigrants from Europe who swam across the ocean.

The population of Argentina speaks at least 40 languages and dialects. But, despite the fact that the ancestors of the bulk of the citizens of the republic are immigrants not only from Spain, but also Italy, Germany and France, Spanish is the official language of Argentina. They, respectively, owns the majority of the population (almost 33 million people). True, in each of the 22 provinces of the republic they speak it with their own unique accent.

By the way, this country takes the fourth place after Spain, Colombia and Mexico by the number of people speaking Spanish. True, he's here It is represented by a dialect, which the Argentines themselves call "Casteljão". This is a kind of cocktail from the Spanish and Italian languages, approaching in pronunciation to the Neapolitan dialect.

How do the indigenous languages of Argentina feel?

Today only 1% of the population speaks the languages of the indigenous population of South America . Modern inhabitants of Argentina, descendants of the aborigines, use Mapuche, Pylag, Aymara, Mokovi, Toba, Chorote, Tuelche, Guarani and several other adverbs.

And some ancient American dialects are unlucky: two of them have completely disappeared - these are the ancient languages of Abilon and the vase, and a few are owned by only a small number of elderly people, with whose death they will also sink into oblivion. So, for example, as of 2000, only six people spoke the language of puelce, and four people on tehuelche!

The native language speakers - the Indians - live in small tribes and, speaking among themselves, use their native dialect, and when communicating with representatives of official organizations and the rest of the inhabitants of the state - Spanish. But the descendants of proud Indians and Métis prefer to communicate only the official state language of Argentina.

Unfortunately, like in many countries, the ancient language heritage here constantly suffered from cultural genocide, which could not but affect its preservation.

Languages of the first emigrants

The very first settlers from Europe spoke cocoon and Spanish-Italian, Creole. These adverbs eventually dissolved, thanks to new and new flows of emigrants, filling the country in search of a better life. Now they do not speak to them, but sometimes, however, they use the ancient language of Argentina in theatrical productions.

And in modern slang, only a few words and expressions, borrowed from kokolich, have been preserved.

What other languages besides Spanish are popular in Argentina

On the streets of Buenos Aires, you can hear Italian, and French, and German speech.

Italian is the second largest number of speakers Language of Argentina: it is used by more than fifteen million inhabitants. By the way, it is with the help of immigrants from Italy and their descendants that the official language in the country took on the form that many foreigners confuse it with a rumor with Italian.

Quite common in the state is the German language (it is used by at least 1 800 000 people). It is recognized as the third largest number of carriers. Mingling with local residents, the Germans created a dialect "belgrandoich" - a mixture of German and local Spanish.

Thanks to emigrants from the Middle East, Israel, Lebanon and Palestine, 1,000,000 people communicate in Levantine Arabic.

List of languages in Argentina

More than eight hundred thousand people use the Quechuan language of Argentina and its six dialects in communication (they were spoken by the indigenous population of this territory). Moreover, the Kechua script was also used, which was developed on the basis of the Spanish alphabet.

Thanks to the constant influx of foreigners wishing to settle in the country, the state speaks Yiddish, Russian and Chinese, and also in Welsh and Catalan dialects. There are people from Argentina who speak Ukrainian, Romanian and Bulgarian. True, the number of them is not fixed.

There are immigrant communities in the country that unite people who speak Japanese, Korean and Cantonese.

And immigrants from South Africa brought their many adverbs to the South American territory.

What language in Argentina causes rejection of linguists

In addition to the above, Argentines quite widely use the dialect of the Spanish language, which can rather be attributed to a variety of street slang (so-called soclelect) - "lyufardo".

This remarkable talk of poor workers' quarters is distinguished by a large number of interjections and, like any street language, - an absolute lack of political correctness. He is something akin to the Russian "fene". Therefore, probably, part of the Argentine linguists flatly refuses to consider this criminalized derivative as a dialect of the Spanish language.

The formation of modern Argentinean language

Due to the fact that the country's population uses many languages, the classical Spanish and the local "Argentine" differ in the same way as it differs, for example, the surzhik, spoken in the border regions of Ukraine with both Russian and Ukrainian. Many words may seem unfamiliar, surprising or even amusing, but nevertheless you can communicate.

A large number of turns and individual words, the modern language of Argentina took from Italian and Portuguese, and borrowed something from English, while radically changing the meaning. And, for example, from the French, the Argentinean adopted the accent on the last syllable in the imperative mood of pronouns. And, despite this, a person who knows classical Spanish can easily communicate with representatives of the local population.