From “facha” to “mufa”, from “bondi” to “tuje”: a few words inherited from immigrants – Télam

The oral language that Argentines share is populated by words rooted in the migratory currents that the country has known throughout its history, as well as in the cultural influence exerted until now by the populations of neighboring countries.

“All of this has a historical origin linked to the arrival of predominantly European citizens: individuals and entire families, who constantly worked and interacted with other inhabitants, contributed to a linguistic mixture between the languages ​​they used”, explains David Marn, linguist. at Babbel, the language learning app, which picked out some of the most commonly used words and phrases.

Most used words according to David Marn

See: Spanish transliteration of the Italian term faccia (face). It is used a lot to talk about the appearance of a person. For example, the expression “what looks” to refer to the beauty of someone. The adjective “fachero” also derives from it, referring to people who care about looking good.

jack: it has nothing to do with the Italian word muffa (mold) and its meaning is linked to superstition. It is used to refer to people who bring bad luck and the verb “mufar” is used, which means to bring bad luck.

Child or child: from genovs “piveto” and Italian slang “pivello” (novice). In Argentina, it is generally used to say “boy” or “girl”, as well as the expression “you are made a child” means to wear well or not to appear over the years.

Caput: from German kaputt (broken), used to denote something or someone who is finished, melted.

Cobani: from the word of the historical vocabulary of Germana de Espaa, fan (prison guard or policeman) transformed by the effect of “vesre”, the syllabic investment so common and popular in Argentina. Also from this vocabulary we find “fajar” in the sense of hitting or hitting and “fulero” as something ugly.

chamuyar (ability to persuade): derived from the lime tree “to speak”, the language of the Spanish gypsies. Other expressions commonly used in this dialect are “chorear” (to steal) and “luca” (thousand pesos, which for the gypsies meant the pesetas, the old Spanish currency, replaced by the euro).

Bondi (collective): According to many expert linguists, this is a derivation of a Portuguese word born in São Paulo at the beginning of the 20th century. At that time, the city’s trams were owned by English companies and therefore the price of each ticket was preceded by the word obligation. The Brazilians began to use the term bond for the tram and extended this use to all public transport. In Portuguese, to many words that end with a consonant are added the sound “i”, in this case it is represented by the addition of the letter “e” at the end of the word. Italian immigrants brought the word bonde with them to Montevideo and Buenos Aires, where it was adopted as bound.

Coarse: from Portuguese “grosso”, it was born in Brazil in the 1980s. Currently used as an adjective and synonymous with important, large.

Quilombo (lo, disorder): Africanismo, del quimbundo: village. It was used in 17th century Brazil to give names to the underground villages that runaway slaves built. The word quilombo passed in Rio de la Plata first with the meaning of a brothel and then like that, of disorder.

Foreigner (good luck): from Yiddish, a language belonging to the Ashkenazi Jewish communities of central and eastern Europe, “tujes” (human tail), from which the expression “go for tujes” was born, when someone is bad or has a daunting experience.