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Lunfardo
According to the Encyclopedia of Abbreviations, Lunfardo is a "jargon
spoken by people with low income living in a bad neighbourhood,
who, without being delinquents themselves, dwell with them or behave
like them" and concerning the Tango "it was the decisive
vehicle of this jargon (...)" (Diccionario Enciclopédico
Abreviado, IV, Buenos Aires 1945).
In his book "El Tango" the author Horacio Salas takes
the view, that the Lunfardo is the language thieves were using to
confuse the police. Amaro Villanueva believes that the term originates
from Lombardy where it was a jargon used for thieves in Italy. On
the other side, José Gobello, the president of the Lunfardian
Academy of Buenos Aires, considers the Lunfardo originally not a
secret jargon, but rather "a repertoire of terms used by the
immigrants of Buenos Aires at the end of the nineteenth century
and a the beginning of the twentieth century. They incorporated
this dialect into their own language changing sometimes the meaning
of the words. Borges saw its origin in " la furca y la ganzúa",
or the dialects of the immigrants. However, the Lunfardo made its
way and introduced itself into the colloquial speech of the people
of Buenos Aires.
 "Carancanfunfa
se hizo al mar con tu bandera
y en un pernó mezcló a París con Puente Alsina."
(El Choclo)
The Tango, too, adopted the Lunfardo and dedicated many songs to
this jargon.
The first Tango is "Lita", later named "Mi noche
triste". Many famous names appear around the mysterious Lunfardo
like Celedonio Esteban Flores, or some of Homero Manzi's composers
like González Castillo. Later Horacio Ferrer, who initiated
the modern Tango, turned it to a kind of literature. The lunfardo
also fascinated poets, like Felipe Fernández (Yacaré),
author of the "Versos rantifusos", and Malevo Muñoz,
alias Carlos de la Púa, the creator of the main opus of Lunfardo,
the "Crencha engrasada".
For the colloquial of Buenos Aires and the surrounding area of Uruguay,
it has become an
essential element of the language. Together with the "ll"
and the "y", the "vos" replacing the "tu",
the Lunfardian words mark one of the major differences between the
Spanish of Buenos Aires and the Spanish of "the old continent".
Musa rea
Celedonio Flores
No tengo el berretín de ser un bardo,
chamuyador letrao, ni de spamento.
Yo escribo humildemente lo que siento
y pa' escribir mejor, ¡lo hago en lunfardo!...
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