Language
The overwhelming majority, including those of recent immigrant background, speak Spanish (in Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay) or Portuguese in the case of Brazil. The Spanish-speaking countries of the Southern Cone are divided into three main dialects:
- Paraguayan Spanish, which is highly influenced by the Guarani language that is spoken alongside Rioplatense Spanish;
- Rioplatense Spanish, spoken in Argentina and Uruguay, where the accent and daily language is heavily influenced by the Italian of 19th-20th century immigrants; and
- Chilean Spanish.
These dialects share common traits, such as a number of Lunfardo and Quechua words. Other minor languages and dialects includes Portuñol, a hybrid between Uruguayan Rioplatense and Portuguese, Cuyano, originally a variant of Chilean Spanish now infused with Rioplantense.
Read more about this topic: Southern Cone
Famous quotes containing the word language:
“Philosophy is written in this grand book—I mean the universe—
which stands continually open to our gaze, but it cannot be understood unless one first learns to comprehend the language and interpret the characters in which it is written. It is written in the language of mathematics, and its characters are triangles, circles, and other geometrical figures, without which it is humanly impossible to understand a single word of it.”
—Galileo Galilei (1564–1642)
“I invented the colors of the vowels!—A black, E white, I red, O blue, U green—I made rules for the form and movement of each consonant, and, and with instinctive rhythms, I flattered myself that I had created a poetic language accessible, some day, to all the senses.”
—Arthur Rimbaud (1854–1891)
“A language does not become fixed. The human intellect is always on the march, or, if you prefer, in movement, and languages with it.”
—Victor Hugo (1802–1885)