European immigration

Several languages, especially Italian, influenced the historical criollo Spanish of the region because of the diversity of the settlers and immigrants to Argentina and Uruguay:

• 1870–1890: mainly Northern Italian, Spanish, Basque, Galician, Portuguese speakers and some from France, Germany, and other European countries.
• 1910–1945: again from Spain, Southern Italy, Portugal and, in smaller numbers, from across the remainder of Europe; Jewish immigration—mainly from Russian Empire and Poland from the 1910s until after World War II—was also significant.
• English speakers—from Britain and Ireland—were not as numerous, but made up a substantial number as well.

Influence of indigenous populations in Argentina

European settlement decimated Native American populations before 1810 as well as during the expansion into Patagonia (after 1870). However, the interaction between Spanish and several of the native languages left visible traces. Words from Guarani, Quechua and other languages were incorporated into the local form of Spanish.

Some words of Amerindian origin commonly used in Rioplatense Spanish are:

• From Quechua:
  • guacho or guacha (orig. wakcha "poor person, vagabond, orphan"); the term for the native cowboys of the Pampas, gaucho, may be related.
  • choclo/pochoclo (pop + choclo, from choqllo, corn) – "popcorn" in Argentina
• From Guaraní: pororó – "popcorn" in Uruguay, Paraguay and some Argentine provinces.

See Influences on the Spanish language for a more comprehensive review of borrowings into all dialects of Spanish.

Phonology

Rioplatense Spanish distinguishes itself from other dialects of Spanish by the pronunciation of certain consonants.

• Like many other dialects, Rioplatense features yeísmo: the sounds represented by ll (historically the palatal lateral /ʎ/) and y (historically the palatal approximant /ʝ/) have fused into one. Thus, in Rioplatense, se cayó "he fell down" is homophonous with se calló "he became silent". This merged phoneme is generally pronounced as a postalveolar fricative, either voiced [ʒ] (as in English measure or the French j) in the central and western parts of the dialect region (this phenomenon is called zheísmo) or voiceless [ʃ] (as in English shine or the French ch), a phenomenon called sheísmo that originated in and around Buenos Aires^[10] but has expanded to the rest of Argentina and Uruguay.^[11][12]
• As in most American dialects, also, Rioplatense Spanish has seseo (/θ/ and /s/ are not distinguished). That is, casa ("house") is homophonous with caza ("hunt"). Seseo is common to other dialects of Spanish in Latin America, Canarian Spanish and Andalusian Spanish.
• In popular speech, the fricative /s/ has a very strong tendency to become "aspirated" before another consonant or a pause. (The resulting sound depends on what the following consonant is, although describing it as a voiceless glottal fricative, [h], would give a clear idea of the mechanism.^[13]) /s/ may also be aspirated at the end of a word preceding another word that begins in a vowel, though this is less common.^[14] Such word-final intervocalic /s/-aspiration is most frequent in northern Argentina.^[15] For example, esto es lo mismo "this is the same" is commonly pronounced something like [ˈehto ˈeh lo ˈmihmo], but in las águilas azules "the blue eagles", the final /s/ in las and águilas might stay [s], as no consonant follows ([las ˈaɣilas aˈsuleh]), though it might still be aspirated as well ([lah ˈaɣilah aˈsuleh]).
• The phoneme /x/ (written as ⟨g⟩ before ⟨e⟩ or ⟨i⟩, and as ⟨j⟩ elsewhere) is never glottalized to [h] in the Atlantic coast.^[13] That phenomenon is common to other coastal dialects in Latin American Spanish, but not the Rioplatense dialect. Rioplatense speakers always realize it as [x].
• Weakening the final /s/ before consonants through aspiration is the norm. However, this elision may be seen as a feature of uneducated speakers. In some contexts—when singing, for example—the level of aspiration may vary.^[16] Some speakers may also drop the final /r/ sound in verb infinitives.^[17]
• Many Argentinians merge /ɲ/ into /nj/, meaning that huraño "unsociable" and uranio "uranium" are pronounced the same.^[18]
• [v] is a relatively common allophone of /b/. Some speakers employ it in emphatic pronunciation, especially when pronouncing words spelled with ⟨v⟩.^[18]

Aspiration of /s/, together with loss of final /r/, tend to produce a noticeable simplification of the syllable structure, giving Rioplatense informal speech 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 going to stop you."

IPA [si keˈɾe ˈite anˈdate | ˈʃo no te ˈβoj a paˈɾa] ^ⓘ

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 Italian dialects. This correlates well with immigration patterns. Both Argentina and Uruguay have received large numbers of Italian settlers since the 19th century.

According to a study conducted by National Scientific and Technical Research Council of Argentina^[19] Buenos Aires and Rosario residents speak with an intonation most closely resembling Neapolitan. The researchers note this as a 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 like that of Spain, especially Andalusia,^[20] and in case of Uruguay, the accent was more like Canarian dialect.

Pronouns and verb conjugation

In this map of voseo countries, the spread of the dialect is clearly illustrated. Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Eastern Bolivia are represented by dark blue on the map, Rioplatense Spanish is spoken in these regions. Argentina is the largest country that uses the voseo.

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. In other Spanish-speaking regions where voseo is used, such as in Chile and Colombia, the use of voseo has at times been considered a nonstandard lower speaking style, whereas in Argentina and Uruguay it is standard.

The second person plural pronoun, which is vosotros in Spain, is replaced with ustedes in Rioplatense, as in most other Latin American dialects. 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 (to love) in the present tense, indicative mode:

Although apparently there is just a stress shift (from amas to amás), the origin of such a stress is the loss of the diphthong of the classical 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 Peninsular 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 imperative forms in Peninsular but stressing the last syllable:

• Hablá más fuerte, por favor. "Speak louder, please" (habla in Peninsular)
• Comé un poco de torta. "Eat some cake" (come in Peninsular)

When in Peninsular the imperative has one syllable, a vowel corresponding to the verb's class is added (stress remains the same):

• Vení para acá. "Come over here" (ven in Peninsular)
• Hacé lo que te dije. "Do what I told you" (haz in Peninsular)

Exceptions to this include:

• Decime dónde está. "Tell me where it is" (Dime in Peninsular). The second syllable is stressed.

The verb ir (to go) is never used in this form. The corresponding form of the verb andar (to walk, to go) substitutes for it.

• Andá para allá. "Go there" (ve in Peninsular)

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 take the tú conjugation, some speakers do use the classical vos conjugation, employing the vosotros form minus the i in the final diphthong. Many consider only the tú subjunctive forms to be correct.

• Espero que veas or Espero que veás "I hope that you see..." (Peninsular veáis)
• Lo que quieras or (less used) Lo que quierás/querás "Whatever you want" (Peninsular queráis)

In the preterite, an s is sometimes added, for instance (vos) perdistes. This corresponds to the classical vos conjugation found in literature. Compare Iberian Spanish form vosotros perdisteis.

Other verb forms coincide with tú after the i is omitted (the vos forms are the same as tú).

• Si salieras "If you went out" (Peninsular salierais)

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 tends to use a verbal phrase (periphrasis) in the informal language.

This verb phrase is formed by the verb ir ("to go") followed by the preposition a ("to") and the main verb in the infinitive. This resembles the English phrase to be going to + infinitive verb. For example:

• Creo que descansaré un poco → Creo que voy a descansar un poco (I think I will rest a little → I think I am going to rest a little)
• Mañana me visitará mi madre → Mañana me va a visitar mi vieja (Tomorrow my mother will visit me → Tomorrow my mother is going to visit me)
• La visitaré mañana → La voy a visitar mañana (I will visit her tomorrow → I am going to visit her tomorrow)

The present perfect (Spanish: Pretérito perfecto compuesto), just like pretérito anterior, is rarely used: the simple past replaces it. However, the Present Perfect is still used in Northwestern Argentina, particularly in the province of Tucumán.

• Juan no ha llegado todavía → Juan no llegó todavía (Juan has not arrived yet → Juan did not arrive yet)
• El torneo ha comenzado → El torneo empezó (The tournament has begun → The tournament began)
• Ellas no han votado → Ellas no votaron (They have not voted → They did not vote)

But, in the subjunctive mood, the present perfect is still widely used:

• No creo que lo hayan visto ya (I don't believe they have already seen him)
• Espero que lo hayas hecho ayer (I hope you did it yesterday)

In Buenos Aires a reflexive form of verbs is often used - "se viene" instead of "viene'', etc.