La Lengua Porteña: A Historical Linguistic Perspective

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Author(s)
Chartier, Jordyn
Date Issued
April 10, 2013
Abstract
Within the community of Spanish-speaking countries, the regional dialect found in contemporary Buenos Aires, Argentina is an oddity. Outsiders are often puzzled by its features: the use of the archaic voseo, strange pronunciation of ll and y graphemes, and abundance of foreign loan words, among others. While scholars have studied individual characteristics of the dialect, none have attempted a complete historical linguistic analysis of the regional language. My research seeks to fill this void by uniting linguistic information with an investigation of political, historical, and economic factors in order to provide a comprehensive understanding of the history of language in Buenos Aires. To determine why this dialect is so unique, I have examined three stages of Argentine history that discuss the nation’s colonial birth, post-independence period, and era of immigration and industrialization. I conclude that although many of the region’s dialectal peculiarities date back to the colonial era, Buenos Aires’ linguistic evolution has been a slow process that spanned some 400 years from the city’s foundation in 1535.
Honors
International Studies, 2013
First Reader(s)
Mattiace, Shannan
Department
International Studies
Type of Publication
Senior Project Paper
Subjects

Argentina

Language

Spanish

Historical linguistic...

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