Italian Language Research Question.

Tell us more. Is there a large Italian-speaking population in Argentina?

Yes. 1,500,000 people speak Italian in Argentina. Many Italians immigrated there in the late 1800’s-very early 1900’s.

Fascinating. Many Jews fleeing the Nazis ended up in Argentina also, but I am sure that they learned Spanish (the older generations probably spoke Yiddish at home.)

Wouldn’t accent and dialect change in a new venue just like english has done in the US, Canada, Ireland, Scotland, Whales and down-under? Even in this country we have regional accents and eccentricities. People in Philly sound slightly different than Bostonians, for example.

Still pondering this. Italian and Spanish are very similar in grammar, genders, idioms, etc. to begin with. I had two years of college Spanish and can understand a lot of Italian.

If there is a difference? There are major differences from town to town in Italy, so I am certain there are many differences, and probably many dialects in different communities in Argentina. However at least in Italy, Milanese dialect is about as close as you get to an understandable consistent standard (barring the opinions of locals who like their own).

If Argentine Italian is any thing like Argentine Spanish then the dialect will be very different. The dialect spoken in Argentina is more removed from Castilian than any other Spanish elsewhere.

Interesting, thank you all. The reason I was asking is that I am in the beginning stages of learning Italian. The textbook version they teach you in college is the Tuscan dialect. I might have an opportunity to go to Argentina soon, though, and was wondering if I should go to practice Italian. Since it looks like the Argentine dialect is different I don’t know if it will be so good for me to go and learn a different dialect than the one I’m already trying to learn.

I wouldn’t worry about it at all – just expect to need to have to tune in your listening, and say things like, scusa, ma non ho molto pratica con l’italiano – per favore potresti parlare piu` lentamente per me? It will be different, but encountering wide varieties of speaking is one of the realities of using spoken Italian outside the classroom. Your Italian won’t be scarred for life, and even if you do pick up a unique semi-Argentine accent, it’ll be interesting to talk about later. Fortunately, almost everyone in Italy at least, can understand Tuscan. Also fortunately, almost all Italian speakers I have met are extremely tolerant of errors (many informal speakers are pretty lazy and/or dialectical about being grammatically correct) and thrilled for English-speakers to be trying to use Italian.

This wiki on regional dialects and this one on Italian Argentine, might be useful.

I thing that Italian and argentine speaking of language booth of them has diffrent calling on things as could be amichi or another words.I mean that in booth languages exist that word but it has diffrent meaning.This is same with brasil and portugal language.Unless when you use some word witch useing italian that in Argentine it can mean completly diffrent thing.Watch out for that.

Watch out for which part of “that”? However, I will grant that path’s answer was a masterpiece of obfuscation, deliberate or otherwise. He should be writing user’s manuels -in any language.

@pathfinder

Huh? You lost me at “I think”

My ansver is for sure.That word,,I thing..was not settled

I believe he means there may be words that surprisingly mean different things in different places (Like differences between British and American words and slang – e.g. potatoes: American chips are British crisps and British chips are American fries.), especially when used with habitual colloquial metaphors (notably, off-color ones).