Spanish is the language that is predominantly understood and spoken as a first or second language by nearly all of the population of Argentina. According to the latest estimations, the population is currently greater than 45 million.
English is another important language in Argentina and is obligatory in primary school instruction in various provinces. Argentina is the only Latin American country characterized as "high aptitude" in English, being placed 15th globally in the year 2015, according to a report from the English Aptitude Index. In 2017, Argentina fell ten places from its best position and fell to 25th place, though it continues to be the second highest ranked Ibero-American, after Portugal.
Argentina also boasts 40 indigenous languages; the most widely spoken are Tupí-Guaraní with about 64,000 speakers, Guaycurú with about 49,000 speakers, and Quechua with about 55,000 speakers.
In addition there is Lunfardo, a slang or a type of pidgin with original words from many languages, among these languages are ones from the Italian Peninsula, such as Piedmontese, Ligurian, and others like Italian, Portuguese, etc., and have been seen in the Río de la Plata area since at least 1880. There is also Portuñol, a pidgin of Portuguese and Spanish spoken since approximately 1960 in the areas of Argentina that border Brazil.
Another native language is Argentine Sign Language (LSA), which is signed by deaf communities. It emerged in 1885.
After the above-mentioned languages German follows (around 200,000, including a significant number of the Volga German dialect and of the Plautdietsch language). Multitude of Eurasian and immigrant languages are spoken in their respective ethnic communities throughout the country; these are predominantly namely: European: Albanian, Armenian, Asturian, Basque, Belarusian, Bulgarian, Catalan, Serbo-Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, Finnish, French, Galician, Greek, Hungarian, Irish, Latvian, Lithuanian, Macedonian, Norwegian, Occitan, Polish, Portuguese, Romani, Romanian, Russian, Slovene, Swedish, Ukrainian, Welsh, and Yiddish; Asian: Arabic, Chinese, Hebrew, Japanese, Korean, Turkish. Most of these languages have, with the exception of Chinese and Plautdietsch, very few speakers and are usually only spoken in family environments.
Official language The Republic of Argentina has not established a named official language but Spanish is used in all aspects of government and society, making it de facto official.
Even though the Constitution establishes the jurisdiction of the National Congress "to recognize the ethnic and cultural pre-existence of indigenous peoples of Argentina", the native languages have not been recognized as official, except in the provinces of Chaco and Corrientes.
Since 1952, The Argentine Academy of Letters, which was founded in 1931, has regularly collaborated with The Royal Spanish Academy to register local variants. The most prevalent dialect in Argentina is Rioplatense, whose speakers are located primarily in the basin of the Río de la Plata. There is also Cuyo Spanish and Cordobés Spanish. In the north, Andean Spanish is spoken and in the northeast there is a great influence from Paraguayan Spanish.
Argentina is one of several Spanish-speaking countries (along with Uruguay, Paraguay, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, and Costa Rica) that almost universally use what is known as voseo—the use of the pronoun vos instead of tú (the familiar "you") as well as its corresponding verb forms.
A phonetic study conducted by the Laboratory for Sensory Investigations of [CONICET] and the University of Toronto showed that the intonation Porteño Spanish is unlike that of other Spanish varieties, and suggested that it may be a result of convergence with Italian. Italian immigration influenced Lunfardo, the slang spoken in the Río de la Plata region, permeating the vernacular vocabulary of other regions as well.
As in other large countries, the accents vary depending on geographical location. Extreme differences in pronunciation can be heard within Argentina. One notable pronunciation difference found in Argentina is the "sh" sounding y and ll. In most Spanish speaking countries the letters y and ll are pronounced somewhat like the "y" in yo-yo, however in most parts of Argentina they are pronounced like "sh" in English (such as "shoe") or like "zh" (such as the sound the makes in "measure").
In many of the central and north-eastern areas of the country, the trilled /r/ takes on the same sound as the and ('zh' – a voiced palatal fricative sound, similar to the "s" in the English pronunciation of the word "vision"). For Example, "Río Segundo" sounds like "Zhio Segundo" and "Corrientes" sounds like "Cozhientes".
The ISO639 code for Argentine Spanish is "es-AR".
Classification The Indo-European languages spoken in Argentina by stable communities fall into five branches: Romance (Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese), West Germanic (English, Plautdietsch and standard German), Celtic languages (Welsh), and Central Indo-Aryan (Romani).
On the other hand, the indigenous languages of Argentina are very diverse and fall into different linguistic families...
Classification of the Indigenous Languages of ArgentinaFamilyGroupsLanguageTerritoryAymaran languages They are a family of two languages of the Central Andes that have been in contact for a long time with the Quechuan Languages and they have influenced each other greatly. In the last decades, more Aymaran speakers have migrated from neighboring countries.AymaraJujuyArawakan languages One of the largest families of languages in South America, it extends through a large part of the subcontinent. The Chané people do not speak Chané anymore, but rather Guarani or Spanish.Paraná-MamoréChané (†)ChacoCharruan languages Poorly documented languages that are difficult to classify. They were thought to be extinct over a century ago, but in 2005 the last semi-speaker of Chaná was foundChanáPampasCharrúa (†)PampasChonan languages Family of languages from Patagonia and Tierra de Fuego. Of the four Chonan languages that are known with certainty, there are only less than ten speakers of Tehuelche left. It is possible that these languages are distantly related to Puelche or Gününa Yajüch and with Querandí.ContinentalTeushen (†)PatagoniaTehuelche (†)PatagoniaInsularHaush (†)Tierra del FuegoSelkʼnam (†)Tierra del FuegoHuarpean languages A small family of languages or two dialects of an isolated language that became extinct in the mid-18th century.Allentiac (†) North of CuyoMillcayac (†) South of CuyoComechingon (†)Sierras PampeanasLule-Vilela languages Vilela is in imminent danger of extinction and Lule became extinct in the 18th century. The relation between the two languages is not unanimously accepted and those that deny the relation attribute the similarities to the contact between the two.Lule (†)Gran ChacoVilela (†)Gran Chaco and Santiago del EsteroMataco-Guaicuru languages There are two groups of languages from Gran Chaco that are spoken in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, and Paraguay. It is the most represented family of languages in Argentina.MatacoanChoroteFormosaMakáFormosaNivacléFormosaWichíGran Chaco, Formosa and SaltaGuaicuruAbipón (†)Gran ChacoMocovíGran Chaco and Santa FePilagáGran Chaco and FormosaToba or QomGran Chaco and FormosaQuechuan languages These languages, of the Central Andes, have had prolonged contact with the Aymaran languages and, therefore, have influenced each other. They were introduced to the current Argentine territory during the expansion of the Incan Empire and the evangelization of Catholic missionaries. The recent migration from neighboring countries has increased the number of Southern Quechuan speakers.Quechua IISantiagueño QuechuaSantiago del EsteroSouthern QuechuaJujuy, Salta y TucumánTupian languages The Tupian languages are primarily spoken in the Amazon Basin, but also in Chaco and neighboring areas. Within the Argentine territory, they speak languages from the Guarani groups, some of which come from recent migration from neighboring countries.Tupi-Guarani languages Ava GuaraniMisionesCorrientesOld Guarani (†)Gran ChacoEastern Bolivian GuaraniFormosa and SaltaKaiwáMisionesMbyáMisionesTapieteSaltaIsolated languages Many have tried to group these languages into more appropriate families but the results have been inconclusive. For example, people have tried to group Mapuche with the Mayan languages and the Penutian languages of South America, and with the Arawakan languages, Uru-Chipaya languages and various other language families of South America.Kunza (†)NorthwestMapuchePatagoniaPuelche (†)PatagoniaYaghan (†)Tierra del FuegoUnclassified languages Additionally there exists a combination of languages with rare documentation and references to languages of extinct villages, that cannot be classified because of a lack of information.Cacán (†)Northwest Old Mapuche (†)PatagoniaQuerandí (†)PampasSanavirón (†)Northwest and Sierras Pampeanas
(†): extinct language
Living languages In addition to Spanish, the following living languages are registered in Argentina with local growth:
Other European languages
Italian is spoken by more than 1.5 million people in Argentina; it is the second most spoken native language in the nation. Italian immigration, which effectively began in the middle of the 19th century and reached its peak in the first two decades of the 20th century, made a lasting and significant impact on the pronunciation and vernacular of Argentina's variety of Spanish, giving it an Italian flair. In fact, Italian dialects (not Standard Italian) have contributed so much to Rioplatense that many foreigners mistake it for Italian. Portuñol is spoken in areas that border Brazil. It is a pidgin of Spanish and Portuguese. German conserved by the descendants of the immigrants coming directly from Germany as well as other German-speaking countries such as Switzerland and Austria. Descendants of Volga Germans of the Volga River in Russia, speak German especially in the Santa Fe and Entre Ríos provinces, part of La Pampa, and various sectors of the Buenos Aires Province. Lunfardo, a dialect that originated in Buenos Aires, is strongly influenced by immigrant languages; primarily by dialects from different Italian regions, but also from Portuguese, Galician, French, English, and Yiddish. They provided numerous lexical and syntactic elements to the Argentine language, as well as the typical pronunciation of Rioplatense Spanish. Lunfardo has exercised a strong influence on the informal speech throughout the country, especially through its use in tango lyrics and Porteño poetry. Welsh spoken in Patagonia: Indo-European language of the Brittonic Celtic languages group, spoken as a second language by descendants of Welsh immigrants from the second half of the 19th century) in Chubut Province. An estimation in 2017 indicates that the number of speakers was no greater than 5,000. Catalan is spoken by around 200,000 people in Argentina today, which includes the Mallorcan dialect of San Pedro. Plautdietch or low German, spoken by Mennonite colonies disseminated especially in the La Pampa Province, although it is also spoken in small communities in other provinces. English is the native language of the population of the Falkland Islands. The islands are Disputed territory between Argentina and the United Kingdom. See also: Belgranodeutsch, Paraná-Wolga-Deutsch, and Argentinien-schwyzertütsch dialect.
Sign language Argentine Sign Language is understood by around two million deaf people of Argentina, their instructors, descendants, and others. There are different regional variants.
Quechuan languages
Southern Quechua comes from the family of Quechuan languages. There are seven variations present that are marked by their geographical origin, including: