The Argentine Academy of Letters has created an entire dictionary geared towards documenting the development of the Argentine language over the years. It is not lunfardo, but rather the everyday language of the masses. In 1998, a team of eleven researchers from the Academy began to construct this “encyclopedia of Argentine Castellano (Spanish)”…
How? Listening, watching television and doing research on the Internet. On reality shows, in magazines and newspapers: Castellano is everywhere. You hear it as it continuously changes with the times and political, social and economic situations. It follows the thread of history: some seem to disappear and then suddenly come back while others simply endure. This is how a language is formed.
The goal of the dictionary is to indicate how widespread the use of individual words is, above and beyond their degree of colloquialism, informality and vulgarity. People use them, so the dictionary describes them.
It is a risk to omit even those words that aren’t used very often as the frequency of usage is in constant fluctuation. A great example is “arbolito,” an expression that was invented to describe a person who sells dollars on the street at a better rate than the money exchange offices do. He’s called an “arbolito” because he’s planted alongside the sidewalk and is full of “greens.” The word came about during a financial crisis two decades ago. Now that “instability” is back, its use has returned.
The origins of Castellano’s words are varied. An Argentine dictionary documented words of Quechua origin like “chucho,” “machar,” “pampa” and “chucaro;” Guarani origin like “mamboreta” and “matete;” Araucano origin like “mallin;” and French origin like “galocha.” In addition, many words come from neighboring countries. Even though there are many words unique to Argentina, the Italian influence does dominate and in fact, numerous traditional Italian mannerisms have intertwined themselves with Argentine Castellano.
The members of the Academy, over which Pedro Luis Barcia presides, in particular those from the Departament of Investigations of Linguistics and Philologics—Francisco Petrecca and Susana Anaine—have opened an emailed address for those who would like to question a definition or add a word: diah@aal.universia.com.ar.
And as always, there is a customer service representative for any doubts about the language who is available from 1:15 to 6:45 at 4802-2408.
Their work is not done: it will be changing every day, week, month and year. They will always be adding new words. A new edition will be out in two years.
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