History & Present of Lunfardo

Lunfardo originated as a criminal jargon at the end of the 19^th century in Buenos Aires and its arrabales [“outskirts”]. At first, it was spoken by thieves, procurers and fraudsters as a code language used to make communications unintelligible to others, but soon lunfardo spread to tango lyrics and finally to all social classes. That outlaw origin explains the variety of synonyms that lunfardo has for criminal activities and characters (and also the very name given to the jargon: the word “lunfardo” means “thief”).

Lunfardo was the linguistic result of the cultural mixing created by the European immigration, so its terms mostly have its roots in European languages (dialects of Italian, Spanish and French), but also some lunfardo words come from African and South American aboriginal languages (Quechua, Guaraní). It is not a language itself, because lunfardo follows the Spanish grammar and syntax, but its “dictionary” became so extensive that allowed an entire poetry and literature. 

It was banned in 1943 by the military dictatorship, that’s why many tango lyrics underwent ridiculous alterations until lunfardo was again permitted in 1947.

Nowadays lunfardo is part of the colloquial language of Buenos Aires and other cities of Argentina. Through the years, some of its terms have fallen into disuse, but many of them are still used with the same meaning they had more than one hundred years ago.

These are some lunfardo words you can hear in the streets and cafés of Buenos Aires:

Afanar  v.t. to steal

Apoliyar  v.i. to sleep

Bardo n. mess, confusion, muddle. Hacer ~ to make trouble, to provoke

Bife  n. slap, punch

Bondi  n. streetcar; bus

Cana  n. police; prison. Mandar en ~ to denounce, to inform on

Chamuyar  v.t. to convince; to speak loquaciously to achieve something; to deceive; to seduce

Chanta  adj. deceitful, unreliable

Deschavar(se)  v.t. to denounce; to give away

Escabiar  v.i. to drink (alcohol)

Laburar  v.i. to work 

Mina  n. woman

Orto  n. (vulg.) butt. Tener ~ to be lucky

Quilombo  n. originally “brothel”, also “mess”

Rati (vesre –reversing the order of syllables within a word– of Tira)  n. policeman