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Pronunciation [espaˈɲol ri.oplaˈtense] Native speakers 47 million (date missing) Language family Indo-EuropeanItalicRomanceWesternIbero-RomanceWest IberianCastilian languagesSpanishRioplatense Spanish |
Rioplatense Spanish (Spanish: español rioplatense, locally castellano rioplatense) is a dialect of the Spanish language spoken mainly in the areas in and around the Río de la Plata Basin of Argentina and Uruguay. Some features of this dialect are also shared with the varieties of Spanish spoken in Eastern Bolivia and Chile. This dialect is often spoken with an intonation resembling that of Neapolitan Italian, but not always. The usual word employed to name the Spanish language in this region is castellano (English: Castilian) and seldom español (English: Spanish) (see: Names given to the Spanish language). Note that while this article refers to Rioplatense Spanish as a single dialect, there are distinguishable differences among the varieties spoken in Argentina, Bolivia and in Uruguay, as described below.
Contents
- Location
- Influences on the language
- European immigration
- Influence of indigenous populations in Argentina
- Vocabulary
- Phonology
- Intonation
- Pronouns and verb conjugation
- Usage
- Usage of tenses
- Influence on Chilean Spanish
- References
Rioplatense is also referred to as River Plate Spanish or Argentine Spanish.
Location
Rioplatense is mainly based in the cities of Buenos Aires, Rosario, Santa Fe, La Plata and Mar del Plata in Argentina, and Montevideo in Uruguay, the most populated cities in the dialectal 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 and in all of Patagonia). Rioplatense is the standard in audiovisual media in Argentina and Uruguay. To the north, and northeast exists the hybrid Riverense Portuñol.
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 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 coming from Italy and Spain.
European immigration
Several languages, and especially Italian, influenced the criollo Spanish of the time, because of the diversity of settlers and immigrants to Argentina and Uruguay:
Influence of indigenous populations in Argentina
European settlement decimated Native American populations 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.
Some words of Amerindian origin commonly used in Rioplatense Spanish are:
pochoclo (pop + choclo, from choqllo, corn) -- popcorn in Argentina
Vocabulary
Differences between dialects of Spanish are numerous; about 9,000 Rioplatense words 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.
Rioplatense vocabularies continue to diverge from Peninsular Spanish: 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 from French.
Phonology
Rioplatense Spanish distinguishes itself from other dialects of Spanish by the pronunciation of certain consonants.
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 informal speech 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 going to stop you." [si keˈɾe ˈite ãnˈdate | ʃo no te βoi a paˈɾa]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. This correlates well with immigration patterns. Argentina has received huge numbers of Italian settlers since the 19th century.
According to a study conducted by National Scientific and Technical Research Council of Argentina Buenos Aires and Rosario residents speak with an intonation most closely resembling Neapolitan. The researchers note this as a 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.
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. In other Spanish-speaking regions where voseo is used, it is typically considered a nonstandard lower-class sociolectic or regional variant (Chile, Colombia and Central American Spanish, however, are notable exceptions); whereas in Argentina and Uruguay, 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, as in 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 (to love) in the present tense, indicative mode:
(¹) Ustedes is used throughout all of Latin America for both the familiar and formal. In Spain, outside of Andalusia, it is used only in formal speech for the second person plural.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:
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):
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.
In the preterite, an s is sometimes added, for instance (vos) perdistes. This corresponds to the classical vos conjugation found in literature. Compare Iberian Spanish form vosotros perdisteis. However, it is incorrect.
Other verb forms coincide with tú after the i is omitted (the vos forms are the same as tú).
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, supplanting 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 co-workers, friends of one's friends, etc.
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 tends to use a verbal phrase (periphrasis) in the spoken language.
This verb phrase is formed by the verb ir ("to go") followed by the preposition a ("to") and the main verb in the infinitive. This resembles the English phrase to be going to + infinitive verb. For example:
The present perfect (Spanish: Pretérito perfecto compuesto), just like pretérito anterior, is rarely used: the simple past replaces it.
But, in the subjunctive mood, the present perfect is still widely used:
In Buenos Aires a reflexive form of verbs is often used - "se viene" instead of "viene'', etc.
Influence on Chilean Spanish
In Chilean Spanish there is plenty of lexical influence from the Argentine dialects suggesting a "masked prestige" otherwise not expressed, since the image of Argentinian things is otherwise usually negative. Influences run across the different social strata of Chile. Argentine tourism in Chile during summer and Chilean tourism in Argentina would influence the speech of the upper class. The middle classes would have Argentine influences by watching football in cable television and by watching Argentine programs in the broadcast television. La Cuarta, a "popular" newspaper, regularly employs lunfardo words and expressions. Usually Chileans do not recognize the Argentine borrowings as such, claiming they are Chilean terms and expressions. The relation between Argentine dialects and Chilean Spanish would be one of "asymmetric permeability", with Chilean Spanish adopting sayings of the Argentine variants but usually not the other way around.