From Cellblocks to Sidewalks: The Tangoed Journey of Lunfardo in Argentine Society
- Liliana Kotval
- Mar 2
- 7 min read
Lunfardo- a secret language of the criminals of 19th-century Buenos Aires, nowadays used by all walks of life in the cosmopolitan city, with echoes of past times and the tango dance that sprung its use into the middle and upper classes.
By. Liliana Kotval
The use of informal words and phrases by a particular social group in order to express themselves in their own unique way appears in societies all around the world; from “slang” in the United States, to “argot” in France, to “Lunfardo” in Argentina. The slang of Argentina in the Río de la Plata region- Lunfardo- experienced a diverse and very interesting evolution. Developing from a secret language used by criminals in the prisons of Buenos Aires in order to disguise their intentions and plans from officers and victims, Lunfardo is used nowadays by all walks of life in Buenos Aires, regardless of social class.
How could Lunfardo become so widely accepted by the many social classes when it was originally a “language of thieves”? Simply put, the answer is tango, a music and choreography that also arose from the lower classes in the Río de la Plata region. Tango lyrics incorporated many Lunfardo words, and in fact, created even more. Tango penetrated the upper society as a sophisticated and elegant dance, primarily due to its appearance in the Parisian scene during the beginning of the 20th century. With tango gaining international popularity, so did Lunfardo with the middle and upper classes of Buenos Aires. Lunfardo became incorporated into local literature, poetry, films, and more, with its phrases and vocabulary becoming more and more used by the people. Today, Lunfardo can be heard in everyday conversation in the streets of Buenos Aires, not restricted to social class. Although Lunfardo has been widely adopted, its use in professional or official settings is deemed to be inappropriate, and underlying connotations and associations with the working and lower classes still exist.
Lunfardo was first referred to as a “language of thieves” in the mid-1870s, being the secret language used by the criminals hiding in the urban suburbs of Buenos Aires (Augusto Lorenzino, 2016). The various types of thieves: punguistas (carteristas-pickpockets), escruchantes (ladrones de casas-burgulars), and biabistas (asaltantes-muggers), among others, all communicated with each other using a type of cryptic discourse in order to disguise their conversations from the police, their victims, and witnesses (Augusto Lorenzino, 2016). The word Lunfardo itself is derived from the Italian word “lombardo”, coming from the Romanesco dialect, where “lombardo” means “thief” (Augusto Lorenzino, 2016). Some examples of Lunfardo slang that correlate to prison and crime include: “madrasta” (cárcel-jail), “dátil” (ládron-thief), and “campana” (vigilante-guard) (Augusto Lorenzino, 2016). These words could be used in secrecy to describe the situation in the jail and the locations of the guards.
During the 19th century, the urban population of Buenos Aires was growing exponentially, with large numbers of European immigrants settling in the city (Augusto Lorenzino, 2016). Presidents Juan Bautista Alberdi (1810-1884) and Domingo Faustino Sarmiento (1811-1888) were inspired by the economic impact of European immigration to the United States, where the intellect and expertise of the immigrants helped the U.S. become prosperous (André, 2017). Alberdi had a dream to “Europeanize America” and transform Argentine society through mass migration, so that Argentina could compete in international markets (André, 2017). During the Age of Mass Migration between 1815 and 1914, Argentina received nearly six million migrants, being the second largest destination country in the world, following the United States (Droller, 2022). By 1910, half of the urban population was foreign (Augusto Lorenzino, 2016). José María Cantilo, Minister of Foreign Affairs between 1938-1940, on the identity of Argentina:
“De España recibimos nuestra sangre y nuestra religión. De Francia y de Gran Bretaña y de los Estados Unidos recibimos la dirección doctrinal de nuestras instituciones democráticas. A nuestra Madre Patria le debemos la base de nuestra literatura; la cultura francesa ha contribuido enormemente a la formación de nuestra vida intelectual, mientras que Italia y Alemania han contribuido importantes aspectos de nuestra evolución.”
“[From Spain we receive our blood and our religion. From France, Great Britain, and the United States we receive the doctrinal direction of our democratic institutions. We owe the foundation of our literature to our Motherland; French culture has contributed enormously to the formation of our intellectual life, while Italy and Germany have contributed important aspects to our evolution.]”
In 1871, with the city overcrowding of immigrants, a new social class emerged in the tightly-packed tenant housing where they lived (André, 2017). In this housing, immigrants, peasants, and working-class residents lived and formed many socio-cultural codes and arts, including the tango dance. As these immigrants spoke different languages and dialects, and the Italians spoke imperfect Spanish, this intersection of linguistic influences led to linguistic diversity via Lunfardo. There are around 5,000 words in Lunfardo, most of which are of Italian origin- standard based on the Tuscany dialect, and also from Roman or Romanesco words (Augusto Lorenzino, 2016). For example, the word for “chief” in Lunfardo is “bacán”, which originates from “baccan” in Genoese; the word for “arrest” in Lunfardo is “encanar”, which originates from “incaenar” in Venetian.
However, by no means is the vocabulary of Lunfardo restricted to words associated with crime; there are numerous words for man- “garabo”, “coso”, “choma”; for woman- “mina”, “paica”, “china”; for parts of the body- “trucha” (face), “ventana” (eye), “pata” (leg), “napia” (nose); for articles of clothing- “fanguses” (shoes), “lompa” (pants), “shuca” (pocket) (Grayson, 1964). Lunfardo cannot be considered a jargon or slang like other lexical varieties, since it also has specific grammatical elements (Gubitosi, 2022). Its most notable, unique grammatical element is the use of “vesre”, where the syllables of a word are reversed. An example of this is with “feca”, which is Lunfardo for “café” (coffee) in Spanish.
Immigrants and the incorporation of their foreign vocabulary was a highly important aspect of the process of developing and evolving Lunfardo. There were many immigrant criminals in Buenos Aires during the 19th century, who, combined with poverty and social marginalization, passed Lunfardo slang on to other lower and lower-middle class individuals. The immigrants were able to later adopt Lunfardo due to the associations between immigrant criminals in the jails and connections with immigrant outsiders. With the huge influx of European immigrants during the 19th century, particularly from Spain and Italy, these immigrants communicated via broken Spanish, mixing with jargon from other people of the lower classes of the region, including the criminals. Combined, this lower class developed and evolved a slang that referenced the lifestyles of the diverse community of foreigners and locals.
Despite originally being a slang of the lower classes and criminals, with the passage of time, Lunfardo became used by the middle and upper classes, mostly through the use of Lunfardo in tango lyrics. Most scholars agree that both tango and Lunfardo were born in the tenant housing and slums of the poor neighborhoods in the Río de la Plata region (André, 2017). Tango emerged in the late 19th century in the port areas of Buenos Aires, Argentina and Montevideo, Uruguay. The melting pot of diverse cultures in this region fused African, European, and Indigenous music and dance styles. The dance and music of tango was used as a mode of expression for working-class neighborhoods and immigrant communities. Even before the period of tango history known as “tango canción” that began in 1917, tango lyrics had already begun to incorporate Lunfardo (Conde, 2014).
An example of Lunfardo in tango from 1927, by the poet José de Grandis (note the Lunfardo words in bold):
Campaneo a mi catrera y la encuentro desolada;
sólo tengo de recuerdo el cuadrito que está allí,
pilchas viejas, unas flores y mi alma atormentada;
eso es todo lo que queda desde que se fue de aquí.
Una tarde más tristona que la pena que me aqueja,
arregló su bagayito y amurado me dejó.
[I take a look at my bed and find it’s empty;
the only memory I have is the little picture that’s there,
old clothes, some flowers and my tormented soul;
that’s all that remains since she took off.
On an afternoon sadder than the pain that afflicts me,
she packed her few belongings and left me abandoned.]
For the rest of the world, tango could be seen as a dance and musical style, however, for the locals of Buenos Aires, it was a lyrical artform. Tango was a medium for expression for the various, diverse inhabitants of Argentina, giving voice to their struggles and truths (Conde, 2014). Tango lyrics and their use of Lunfardo are used to explain life’s troubles and someone’s way of being. Lunfardo phrases are still repeated to this day and are used in everyday situations, as a result of their relatability and relevance. Phrases such as “la fama es puro cuento” (fame is a tall tale), from “Mi vieja viola,” published in 1932 by Osvaldo Frías-Humberto Correa, or that “la vida es una herida absurda” (life is an absurd wound), from “La última curda,” published in 1956 by Cátulo Castillo, still represent a deep vein of popular wisdom (Conde, 2014). Lunfardisms can be used when one complains that “lo que más bronca me da es haber sido tangil!” (What upsets me most is having been such an idiot!), from “Chorra,” published in 1928, or when one expresses how well they know someone by saying “pero si sos más manyada que el tango ‘La Cumparsita’ ” (But I know you better than the tango standard “La Cumparsita”), from “Tortazos,” published in 1933 by Enrique Maroni (Conde, 2014). The expressions voiced by tango artists and lyricists, incorporating Lunfardisms, have allowed Lunfardo to go from a mere secret language used by criminals to an internationally recognized slang used by the majority of the Argentine population.
When walking the streets of Buenos Aires today and speaking with the locals, you will notice the common occurrence of Lunfardo words in their conversation and the normality it has taken in everyday spoken Argentine Spanish. Understanding the history of Lunfardo and the tango unearths a deep story of the immigrants that built the city of Buenos Aires.
References:
André, María Claudia. (2017). Tango y lunfardo: un estudio transatlántico sobre la identidad
argentina [Tango and Lunfardo: a TransAtlantic Study of Argentinian Identity]. Kamchatka. Revista de análisis cultural 9: 297-311. DOI: 10.7203/KAM. 9.9547 ISSN: 2340-1869
Augusto Lorenzino, G. (2016). El Lunfardo en la Evolución del Español Argentino
[Lunfardo in the Evolution of Argentine Spanish]. Literatura y lingüística, (34), 335-356. https://dx.doi.org/10.4067/S0716-58112016000200016
Conde, O. (2014). Lunfardo in Tango: A Way of Speaking that Defines a Way of Being.
Tango Lessons: Movement, Sound, Image, and Text in Contemporary Practice. Duke University Press. DOI:10.1515/9781478091332-003
Droller, F., Fiszbein, M., Pérez, S. (2022). “The Age of Mass Migration in Argentina: Social
Mobility, Effects on Growth, and Selection Patterns”. https://seperez.faculty.ucdavis.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/743/2022/08/Argentina_Migration_Chapter.pdf
Grayson, J. (1964). Lunfardo, Argentina’s Unknown Tongue. Hispania, Vol. 47, No. 1, p.
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