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Rioplatense Spanish ( which is mainly spoken in the areas in and around the Río De La Plata Basin , in Argentina and Uruguay . LOCATION Rioplatense is mainly based in the cities of Buenos Aires , Montevideo , and Rosario , the three most populated cities in the area, along with their respective suburbs and the areas in between. This regional form of Spanish is also found in other areas, not geographically close but culturally influenced by those population centers. Rioplatense is the standard in audiovisual media in Argentina and Uruguay. To the northeast exists the hybrid Riverense Portuñol . INFLUENCES ON THE LANGUAGE The Spaniards brought their language to the area during the Spanish Colonization in the region. Originally part of the Viceroyalty Of Peru , the Río de la Plata basin had its status lifted to Viceroyalty Of The Río De La Plata in 1776 . Until other peoples's massive Immigration To The Region , the language of the Río de la Plata had virtually no influence of other languages and varied mainly by the means of localisms. Argentina and Uruguay, like the United States and Canada , are mostly composed of people of more or less recent European descent, the largest being of Italian and Spanish descent. European immigration Several languages influenced the '' Criollo '' Spanish of the time, because of the diversity of settlers and immigrants to Argentina and Uruguay:
Influence of indigenous populations in Argentina Native American languages have largely been influenced or even wiped out by Spanish in the area, as native populations were decimated during the conquest of the Region. The influence has been reciprocal, though, with words from Guarani , Quechua and other languages being incorporated into the Spanish of the region, and some have even reached English . Some words of American origin commonly used in Rioplatense Spanish are:
See Influences On The Spanish Language for a more comprehensive review of borrowings into all dialects of Spanish. LINGUISTIC FEATURES Vocabulary Differences between dialects of Spanish are numerous; about 9,000 Rioplatense words are not used or, in many cases, even understood elsewhere. These include many terms from the basic vocabulary, such as words for fruits, garments, foodstuffs, car parts, etc., as well as local slang. The vocabularies of both varieties are further diverging as Rioplatense Spanish tends to borrow (or Calque ) technical words from American English, while Castilian Spanish tends to borrow or calque them from British English or French. Phonology Rioplatense Spanish distinguishes itself from other dialects of Spanish by the pronunciation of certain consonants.
Aspiration or elision of fricatives, together with loss of final ''r'' and some common instances of diphthong simplification, tend to produce a noticeable simplification of the syllable structure, giving Rioplatense a distinct fluid consonant-vowel-consonant-vowel rhythm: Si querés irte, andate. Yo no te voy a parar. :"If you want to go then go. I'm not gonna stop you." : Intonation Preliminary research has shown that Rioplatense Spanish, and particularly the speech of the city of Buenos Aires, has intonation patterns that resemble those of . According to a study conducted by . The researchers note that this is relatively recent phenomenon, starting in the beginning of the 20th century with the main wave of Southern Italian immigration. Before that, the '' Porteño '' accent was more similar to that of Spain, especially Andalusia . {Link without Title} Pronouns and verb conjugation One of the features of the Argentine and Uruguayan speaking style is the Voseo : the usage of the pronoun ''vos'' for the second person singular, instead of ''tú''. ''Voseo'' is found also in other places around the Spanish-speaking community. ''Vos'' is used with forms of the verb that resemble those of the second person plural in traditional (Spain's) Castilian Spanish. The second person plural pronoun, which is ''vosotros'' in Spain, is replaced with ''ustedes''. While ''usted'' is the formal second person singular pronoun, its plural ''ustedes'' has a neutral connotation and can be used to address friends and acquaintances as well as in more formal occasions (see T-V Distinction ). ''Ustedes'' takes a grammatically third person plural verb. As an example, see the conjugation table for the verb ''amar'' in the present tense, indicative mode: :(¹) ''Tú amás'' is only used in Uruguay, where it coexists with ''Vos amás''. However, it should be noted that ''tú'' and ''vos'' are not interchangeably used, but rather ''vos'' denotes a more intimate relationship between the parties in conversation. In formal speech, ''usted ama''. :(&2) ''Ustedes'' is used throughout all of Latin America. It is also used in formal speech for the second person plural in Spain. Although apparently there is just a stress shift (from '' amas'' to '' am'''á'''s''), the origin of such a stress is the loss of the diphthong of the ancient ''vos'' inflection from ''vos amáis'' to ''vos amás''. This can be better seen with the verb "to be": from ''vos sois'' to ''vos sos''. In Vowel-alternating Verbs like ''perder'' and ''morir'', the stress shift also triggers a change of the vowel in the Root : For the ''-ir'' verbs, the Castilian ''vosotros'' forms end in ''-ís'', so there is no diphthong to simplify, and Rioplatense ''vos'' employs the same form: instead of ''tú vives'', ''vos vivís''; instead of ''tú vienes'', ''vos venís'' (note the alternation). The imperative forms for ''vos'' are identical to the plural imperative forms in Castilian minus the final ''-d'' (stress remains the same):
The plural imperative uses the ''ustedes'' form (i. e. the third person plural subjunctive, as corresponding to ''ellos''). As for the subjunctive forms of ''vos'' verbs, while they tend to be unchanged, some speakers do perform a similar change as seen in the indicative, employing the ''vosotros'' form minus the ''i'' in the final diphthong. In the third conjugation (''-ir'' verbs), the stress does not shift, so the result is identical for the Rioplatense speaker. Many consider only the unchanged subjunctive forms to be correct.
In the Preterite tense, an ''s'' is often added, for instance ''(vos) perdistes''. This corresponds to the Spanish form ''vosotros perdisteis''. However, it is often deemed incorrect. Other verb forms do not change (the ''vos'' forms employ the same conjugation as ''tú''). Usage In the old times, ''vos'' was used as a respectful term. In Rioplatense, as in most other dialects which employ ''voseo'', this pronoun has become informal, shoving out the use of ''tú'' (compare '' You '' in English, which used to be formal singular but has replaced and obliterated the former informal singular pronoun ''thou''). It is used especially for addressing friends and family members (regardless of age), but may also include most acquaintances, such as coworkers, friends of one's friends, etc. Usage of tenses Although literary works use the full spectrum of verb inflections, in Rioplatense (as well as many other Spanish dialects), the future tense has been replaced by a verbal phrase ( Periphrasis ) in the spoken language. This verb phrase is formed by the verb ''ir'' ("go") followed by the preposition ''a'' and the main verb in the infinitive. This is akin to the English phrase ''going to'' + infinitive verb. For example:
The Rioplatense speaker rarely uses the perfect past tense (choosing simple past over it), so past tense phrases rarely are of the form ''Una vez he ido a comer a ese restaurante''. The form ''Una vez fui a comer a ese restaurante'' would be chosen. SEE ALSO
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