There are scholars, such as historian Oscar Conde, who report that Lunfardo, contrary to what the bourgeoisie often says, was more than a significant manner of “criminals” that emerged between the 1800s and 1900s in Argentina, and that remains alive.
It would be a variation dialectological of immigrants , proletarians, workers, mainly Italians , which settled among the poor classes of the capital Buenos Aires and its periphery.
A rebellious, cunning and winding way to speak, one more way to defend and resist the oppressive classes.
The incomprehensible and maradona
Colloquially, it is called lump.
In practical terms it is unintelligible even to Spanish average speakers from other countries. "El Pibe de Oro", nicknamed by Maradona, belongs to the lunfa and means "The Pivete (boy) of gold."
The proletarian language also includes, among others, a particular way of speaking by reversing the syllables of a word, called “Vesre”, the opposite of “setback (otherwise” in Castilian). So you have tango replaced for gotan , amigo by gom,
colo by loco ,etc.
Lunfardo had a great influence on Brazilian slang, notably in the ports of Praça Mauá ( Rio de Janeiro ) e Santos .
For the Brazil Words came like sucker,
Bacana, mine, phonate, scolding, fake .
Today: Portuguese, English and Inca language
O lexicon From Lunfardo is in several dictionaries. Although, at its beginning, derive in most of the European languages that were contained in the Spanish spoken in Argentina , In particular the Italian (Genoese, Lombardo, piemontês , napolitano and the “cocoliche” , one pidgin Italian Italian of Italian migrants), over time added other languages.
Today the most prominent are the English , o Portuguese , o Galician and the languages Amerindian like the guard and the hometown (inca).
A rebellion and a game
So Oscar Conde clarified in an interview of 2018:
“Lunfardo is a unique linguistic phenomenon.
For a term to be Lunfardo has to be present an idea of rebellion and an idea of 'playing/playing' with language.
When Lunfardo comes, it does it almost like a socioleto of the popular classes. That is, it is a speech of the mouth of the poor, the disqualified, the inhabitants of the tenement/favela, the suburb.
Originally it was a speech of these popular classes, where there was a lot of immigrant. I would say, however, that in the 1940s Lunfardo is already a polyclassist and crosses all ages. Currently, a person who started using Lunfardo when he was 10 years old, today is 60 and continues to speak him. ”
A little of the word
Following are some terms practiced in the lunfa:
Bacán (similar to cool, in Brazil) -
The one who has money in a bank ( bank In Castilian, therefore “Bancana” person). Individual looking rich or having good life.
Related to this, we would have the word "bacchanal", being "bacán" an apocope. Thus, "Bacán" would be the person given to good life, travel, designer clothes, etc.
However, for some, the etymology would proceed from Italy, the old genoese language, from the jabra now unused "baccan" with the meaning of boss, owner of the house/farm, owner or chief of ship that as a sign of command was carrying a staff called " Bacco ”(something like“ staff ”in Portuguese).
Cana – Police. Such a Lunfarda word seems to be the abbreviation of “Canary”, a word already used in Spain since the 1500s at least (Miguel de Cervantes, author of the classic “Don Quixote de La Mancha”, mentions it with the meaning of cantor , Police whistleblower or confidant). Others assume that etymologia is on the French Palha cane ("Sugarcane", "stick"), alluding to the club used by police.
Gato – This word is one of the demonstrations of the "sliding" of meaning that exists in Lunfardo, given in part by changes of historical contexts.Ex: Until Early 1980 gato It used to be a compliment to someone very agile or shrewd (the musician Astor Piazzolla For his great talent when playing Bandoneón, the main instrument in the tango, was nicknamed “El Gato”). However, there were times when it was common to call gato customers of the most beautiful and luxurious/expensive harlots, as well as the prostitutes themselves, called toga In Vesre.
Sliding again, among the poor class gato He then became adjective to qualify the stupid foolish person. However, in provinces of the Argentine interior, as Santiago del Estero or Tucuman gato It applies to thieves because they have “easy nail to steal”. In Brazil it is similar.
Mina – Woman. Initially it was used with pejorative connotations. It is a lunfa word that forms with the AFÉRES and the word Italian female and the contraction of Galician girl, Used in the Portuguese language to designate young woman or child.
In Vesre is Jermu (“Mujer” to the reverse).
Dollars "Messi" and "Diego"
Green, in the lunfa, is the nomre that occurs to USA DOLLAR, ALREADY that your banknotes are printed with green tone paint.
In 2013 the term “ blue ”(Blue), which was the quoted dollar speculatively within the "black market" or illegal. For example, in May of that year the dollar “ blue ”Was nicknamed“ Messi ”, In the lunfa, because in the quote had surpassed the" Diego "( Maradona , equivalent to the cedula of 10 Argentine pesos).
Originating in the Inca (Quechua) language
Guacho (a), hu a, w a mouth out – Orphan, in the direction
literal and symbolic (lonely person; refers to the one that is outside the Family , Andean Community Peasant-Indigenous Groups).
In the Central Andean World the word is a serious insult and has become a Spanish Guacho with meaning similar to scoundrel/bad character/infamous/unworthy/vile.
However, it was taking through the twentieth century parallel meanings, such as in the area of B.Aires the praise of “sympathetic picaro”, “Fun Frauder”, “Pleasant Trickster”.
Originating from the Guarani language
Piranha – Individual who steals stores, houses, leisure places, bus stops along with others, in fast and unexpected actions.
In Brazil such acts are called “trawlers”. In Argentina, they are called “Piranha thefts” because
Recalls the attack of the small carnivorous fish called piranhas, whose name derives from the Guarani Pira (Fish) and Anhá (Devil) Palabras.
African languages
Tango- Most slaves brought to Argentina came from ethnic groups Congo , Gulf from Guinea and Sudan area. For them, tango It meant 'closed place', 'circle', 'any private space where to enter permission'.
Spanish traffickers called “tange” to the places where slaves exchanged in Africa and America.
Banana – Besides nominating the fruit (Plátano do Mal i), has varied lights in the lunfa, with several delizers: male genitalia; Picarum and cunning subject; Individual of behavior ‘strange and disregarded with the others’; Subject of little confidence but pretends to be serious and recently (early 21st century), the stupid person.
Bochinche – (BOCHICH IN PORTUGUESE). Falm, tumultuous noise.
Dengue – The word to designate the disease transmitted by the mosquito Aedes Egypt It is of African origin and probably derived from “dengue” lunfardism, meaningful, affectation, futility, weakness, difficulty.
Right - (Tog in Portuguese). Type of shoes/shoe.