Languages of Argentina

The spoken languages of Argentina number at least 40 although Spanish is dominant. Others include native and other immigrant languages; two languages are extinct and others are endangered, spoken by elderly people whose descendants do not speak the languages.^[1]

More than one million speakers

Spanish

Argentina is predominantly a 60% Spanish-speaking country with 39.8 million speakers—the fifth largest after Mexico, United States, 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 amongst the few Spanish-speaking countries (like El Salvador and Honduras) 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.

Like many large countries accents depending on geographical location vary. Extreme differences in pronunciation can be heard in Castellano within Argentina. One common accent notable to Argentina is the “sh” sounding y and ll. In most Spanish speaking countries the letters y and ll are pronounced like “y” in yo-yo, however in most parts of Argentina will be pronounced like “sh” as in “show”.

As previously mentioned voseo is commonly used in Argentina while with its own slight variation. These variations are most obvious in informal commands. When using the Spanish tu form the following sentence would look like this, “ven tu” [come you], in Argentine Castellano it would be “vení vos”. The vos form of verb conjugation is simply done by dropping the “r” from the infinitive form of the verb, then adding an accent to the last vowel. However, there are a few exceptions to this rule mostly for irregular verb conjugations.

Unlike other countries that speak using voseo Argentineans do not carry the plural vosotros conjugation of the verb into singular context. For example, “Vos, don Pedro, sois hermoso” would be “Vos, don Pedro, sos hermoso.”

In many of the central and north eastern areas of the country the “rolling r” takes on the same shound as the ll and y. For Example, “Río Segundo” would sound like “Shrio Segundo” and “Corrientes” would sound like “Coshrientes”. For those looking to learn this specific dialect, General Linguistics offers a program focusing on "Voseo" Spanish [2].

The ISO639 code for Argentinian Spanish is "es-AR".

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 flair. In fact, Italian has contributed so much to Rioplatense that many foreigners mistake it for Italian.^[2]

German

Standard German is spoken by between 400,000^[1] and 500,000^[3] Argentines of German ancestry, though it has also been stated that the there could be as much as 1,800,000.^[4] German today, is the third most spoken language in Argentina.

Levantine Arabic

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

More than 100,000 speakers

South Bolivian Quechua is a Quechuan language spoken by some 800,000 peoples, mostly immigrants arrived in the last years. 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].

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.^[5]

More than 1,000 speakers

Welsh language is spoken by over 35,000 people in the Chubut province.^[2]

Chinese language is spoken by at least half of the over 60,000 Chinese immigrants, mostly in Buenos Aires.^[6]

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.^[7]

More than 100 speakers

Several native American languages spoken in Argentina by the native people (1% of the population) are declining at rates that may result in only a handful of speakers within a generation.^{[citation needed]} Kaiwá has 512 speakers, Nivaclé 200, Tapieté and Wichí Lhamtés Nocten only 100. These indigenous languages have suffered slow linguistic and cultural genocide. In this category in terms of number of speakers, one can also include many immigrant languages (e.g., Plautdietsch with only 140).

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.

Extinct languages

Abipón 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]}

Other languages

Catalan, 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.^[8] There are Mandarin-, Cantonese-, Japanese-, Korean-, and Russian-speaking immigrant communities. Chiripá is also spoken.^[9] There are also notable communities of Afrikaans speakers, who emigrated from South Africa during or after the Boer War. Irish (gaelic).

If Falklands was counted, there would be an English speaking population also. English is also a common second language.

See also

• List of indigenous languages in Argentina

Notes

Links to related articles v • d • e Official languages of South America by language Aymara Dutch English French Guaraní  Bolivia  Peru  Aruba  Netherlands Antilles  Suriname  Falkland Islands  Guyana  French Guiana  Paraguay Papiamento Portuguese Quechua Spanish  Aruba  Netherlands Antilles  Brazil  Bolivia  Colombia  Ecuador  Peru  Argentina  Bolivia  Chile  Colombia  Ecuador  Paraguay  Peru  Uruguay  Venezuela In Peru, any native Peruvian language is official in areas where it is used by a majority of the population. In Bolivia, all 30 native languages of Bolivia are official languages of the state. v • d • e Languages of South America Sovereign states Argentina · Bolivia · Brazil · Chile · Colombia · Ecuador · Guyana · Panama1 · Paraguay · Peru · Suriname · Trinidad and Tobago1 · Uruguay · Venezuela Dependencies Aruba1 / Netherlands Antilles1 (Netherlands) · Falkland Islands / South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands (UK) 2 · French Guiana (France) 1 Territories also in or commonly considered to be part of North America and/or Central America.  2 Territories also in or commonly considered to be part of Antarctica.