June 25, 2008
Castellano
written by Spencer Alexander on June 25, 2008 at 04:07PM in Traveling
In most parts of Argentina, excluding the extreme north and south of the country, they do not speak espanol. They speak Castellano, pronounced castezano. It is, of course, very similar to spanish, but there are a few main differences.The Vos form
In spanish, when speaking to an authority or a stranger, Usted is used, and when speaking to a friend, tu is used. In Castellano, Usted is still used, but tu is replaced by the word vos (a shortening of vosotros). For example, instead of saying “Tu hablas espanol?”, you would say “Vos hablas espanol.” Fun, huh?
Well, the fun only starts there. When using vos, you no longer have stem changing verbs (as the stem changing verbs don’t change in the vosotros form). So, rather than “tu tienes?”, in Castellano, it would be “vos tenes”. Still fun?
But that’s not all! In “tu tienes”, tienes is pronounced with the accent on the next to last syllable (normal spanish pronunciation). Well, in “vos tenes”, the accent is moved to the last syllable (coming back to vosotros, it would actually be the next to last syllable of the vosotros form, but a few letters are being omitted). This is perhaps the trickiest piece for me, as it influences me to change the infasis on the following words.
Pronunciation of “ll” and “y”
In Castellano, they pronounce their ll (normally pronounced like the ‘y’ in very) more like a z (similar to the ‘s’ in version). This makes thing surprisingly difficult to understand; words that I am familiar with in Spanish now sound very different in Castellano.
Lunfardo
Lunfardo is the slang used in Buenos Aires (it actually used to be its own language, but it has, obviously, been replaced by Castellano). There is a ton of it, and I know very, very little of it. It isn’t much use to us now, as we will not be traveling in Buenos Aires for a while, but eventually, I’ll have to learn it. Well, however large it is, it can’t compare to the infamous Chilean slang.
So… what do you think? Vos queres hablar castellano? Or more importantly, vas podes entender castellano? I’m still working on it.
Tags: Argentine Culture, Castellano and Lunfardo
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