LINGUISTIC STIGMA AND POWER SURROUNDING THE 
SPEAKERS OF LUNFARDO AND COCOLICHE IN EARLY 20TH 
CENTURY BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA 
 
 
 
 
 
 
by 
CATHERINE MORLEY 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
A THESIS 
 
Presented to the Department of Romance Languages  
and the Robert D. Clark Honors College  
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of  
Bachelor of Arts 
 
 
March 2024 
 
 
 
 
An Abstract of the Thesis of 
Catherine Morley for the degree of Bachelor of Arts 
in the Department of Romance Languages to be taken March 2024 
 
 
Title:  Linguistic Stigma and Power Surrounding the Speakers of Lunfardo and Cocoliche in 
Early 20th Century Buenos Aires, Argentina 
 
 
 
Approved:      Tobin Hansen, Ph.D.  
    Primary Thesis Advisor 
 
This paper examines the role of language as it relates to the stigma, discrimination, and 
ethnic exclusion of speakers of the Spanish-Italian contact languages cocoliche and lunfardo in 
Buenos Aires, Argentina during the early 20th century through an analysis of how various theater 
and popular representations propagated this harmful imagery and stigma. The research draws on 
existing literature and historical evidence of a high volume of Italian immigration to Argentina 
over nearly a century and the resulting social subjugation of those immigrants. Through imagery 
presented in carnivals and theater that represented Italian immigrants as buffoons or uneducated 
and speakers of a Spanish-Italian contact language as criminals and unworthy citizens, the 
porteño (local) class identified a language with harmful stereotypes. This research has 
implications for the consideration of contact languages and their value and how they contribute 
to social hierarchies of prestige languages and who is given power or higher status based on their 
linguistic expression.   
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Acknowledgments 
 
I would like to thank my Primary Thesis Advisor, Dr. Tobin Hansen, who gave me so 
much irreplicable guidance and support throughout this process, as well as my other amazing 
committee member, Dr. Courtney Thorsson, for their generously provided knowledge and 
expertise. The varying degrees and kinds of support I’ve felt during this process have truly made 
this work possible and I’m so grateful for the feedback and encouragement throughout this very 
challenging, but very rewarding project. I also want to thank Dr. Carol Stabile for helping me 
build my research ideas and committee and for her incredible support in starting the thesis 
writing process. Finally, I am so thankful for my friends and family (especially my mom) who 
supported me unconditionally and had faith in me even when I lost it in myself at times. Dad, I 
wish you could be here to see this, but I like to think you’d be proud of what I’ve accomplished 
and how far I’ve come. 
 
  
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Table of Contents 
Introduction 5 
Historical Background 7 
Cocoliche and Lunfardo 7 
Context of Immigration Policy and Patterns 8 
Languages in Contact 13 
The Problematic Considerations of Cocoliche and Lunfardo 16 
Representations in Media and Art 22 
Italian Immigrants in Theater 22 
Florencio Sánchez and “La gringa” 24 
Representation in the News 29 
Conclusions 32 
Bibliography 34 
 
 
  
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Introduction 
The use of lunfardo and cocoliche, two contact languages that combine aspects of 
Spanish and Italian in the Río de la Plata Basin in Argentina in the late 19th century (Kaplan iii), 
marked its speakers as first- or second-generation Italian (Ennis 130, 132-133). These speakers, 
predominantly working-class people who lived in conventillos (subsidized government housing 
for immigrants) and worked in the railroad and agriculture industries, mining, construction, and 
unskilled positions, and as artisans, sought to make their lives within rioplatense contexts. As 
they integrated into aspects of social, cultural, and economic life, they continued culinary, 
religious, musical, familial, and other Italian cultural practices while incorporating Argentinian 
lifeways. Linguistically, the dual pressures of Spanish acquisition and Italian retention led to the 
creation of lunfardo and cocoliche. This leads to questions about the perceptions of language use 
and ethnicity in impacting everyday experiences in rioplatense society. In this thesis, I ask: How 
do language and ethnicity shape the social status of lunfardo and cocoliche speakers in the late 
19th and early 20th centuries in Buenos Aires, Argentina?   
Speakers of cocoliche and lunfardo faced social stigma because their language marked 
their identity, positioning Italian immigrants—the speakers of lunfardo and cocoliche—as 
inferior to native Argentinians and Spanish speakers. The motivation for this thesis is to explore 
the social status surrounding Italian-immigrant communities in Argentina and to reveal the 
relationship between their status as immigrants from Italy, or immigrant descendants, and how 
that status relates to the language they used. Social stigma of Italian-descended people in 
Argentina, my research suggests, was communicated through social subordination, 
discrimination, and ethnic exclusion regarding their place in Argentinian society. This thesis will 
examine the social stigma and prestige surrounding the Italian-descended speakers of contact 
5 
 
 
languages in Argentina, specifically in the Río de la Plata Basin, the area surrounding Buenos 
Aires. The stigmatization that speakers of lunfardo and cocoliche faced in Argentina resulted 
from xenophobia towards Italian ethnicity and the role in Argentine society that they were asked 
to step into; this stigma transfers by association to their speechways and the language they use to 
be targeted as a marker of their otherness in Buenos Aires to maintain the general subordination 
of Italian immigrants there. Moreover, this thesis examines the languages themselves and their 
impact on culture and the resulting stigma in certain fields due to the power dynamics between 
various socioeconomic groups and the perceptions of those of lower classes. Additionally, this 
research connects stigma and power to language and unpacks how these dynamics relate to and 
can cause one another.  
In the thesis, I draw on theater critiques and reviews about artists and writers like 
Florencio Sánchez, a Uruguayan playwright, to gain insight into the experience of those speaking 
the languages lunfardo and cocoliche (Ramirez, Sanhueza). My analysis is of critiques of various 
kinds of theater and performance that included representations of lunfardo or cocoliche speakers. 
I will be examining the ways in which the perceptions of the languages circulated culturally and 
were exacerbated by the popularity of stereotypical images of Italian immigrants in some of the 
works mentioned above. 
This thesis will examine sources that include evaluations of the impact that Italian 
immigration had on the social dynamics and culture in Buenos Aires and how their role in 
Argentina developed and influenced literature, music, dance, and other important aspects of the 
culture that shape the mainstream Argentine identity. I will also use a database of Argentine 
newspapers from this period to make my argument and examine the circulation of perceptions of 
the languages among the public, the elite, and the working classes. 
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Historical Background 
Cocoliche and Lunfardo 
Cocoliche, while no longer in use, was a transitional language, a combination of Italian 
and Spanish. The interaction of two language systems occurs when social and geographic 
circumstances lead speakers to be in close proximity. These languages in Buenos Aires, 
examples of what sociolinguists call “contact languages” were, more specifically, created due to 
language shift and interference in the acquisition of Spanish by Italian immigrants, maintaining 
sounds and morphosyntactic structures and containing representative phonemic and lexico-
semantic features from Italian (Italiano-McGreevy ii, xiii, 3). In other words, cocoliche was 
created through the adoption of meanings, sentence structures, and sounds from Argentine 
Spanish and several Italian variants, most from Piemonte, Lombardia, Calabria, Sicilia, and 
Campania but also from other areas of Italy such as Liguria, Veneto, and Toscana (Kaplan 44, 
Italiano-McGreevy 103, Ennis 136-137, Conde 6, A. Cancellier 74, qtd. in Moosekian 3, qtd. in 
Soledad Gonzalez 110). When Spanish and Italian came into contact, the two mixed to create 
cocoliche but had no formal written structure as Italian immigrants shifted to accommodate the 
target prestige language: rioplatense Spanish (Spanish spoken by people living in the Río de la 
Plata region). With a highly variable linguistic system, or lack thereof, cocoliche was not strictly 
maintained over time as there was no firm boundary between Spanish and Italian, facilitating its 
constant change and evolution, and contributing to the ultimate demise of the language as more 
linguistic assimilation took place. Cocoliche is also unique in that it has roots as an archetype 
and stage character (Conde 19) in a visiting carnival who spoke Spanish with a heavy Italian 
accent while mixing the two languages (Italiano-McGreevy xii, 4). The cocoliche was also a 
character in the Argentine sainetes, a popular theatrical genre of one-act, three-scene plays that 
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reflected the struggles of the immigrant working class and their challenges assimilating (Ennis 
128, A. Cancellier 75, qtd. in Italiano-McGreevy 30), bringing with it specific ideologies and 
stereotypes connected to the language as much as the character of Italian immigrants mixing 
their language with the Argentine Spanish.  
Lunfardo is a body of vocabulary and expressions used in conjunction with the standard 
variety of Spanish used in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and the greater Río de la Plata region. 
Lunfardo originated from an argot, a popular speech created on the margin of the official 
vocabulary of the area or people (Schijman), and was created as a sort of code meant to be 
exclusive to those who knew it. It was common to those then in prison and gradually became 
integrated into the vernacular of the greater Buenos Aires area, disseminating among various 
groups of different socioeconomic statuses. Lunfardo is often described (in Spanish) using the 
words “lenguaje” or “léxico” (a lexicon) referring to the grammar and semantics or a body of 
vocabulary rather than a formal language because it lacks elements like a unique syntactic 
structure. Rather, lunfardo borrows its syntax from castellano, the inherited Spanish of Spain, 
brought by Spanish colonizers to Argentina in the early 16th century.  
Context of Immigration Policy and Patterns 
Cocoliche and lunfardo formed in Argentina beginning around the end of the 19th century 
due to two large waves of Italian immigration: the first from the late 19th century through the 
early 20th century and the second before, during, and after World War II. These waves were 
catalyzed by various historical events such as the Industrial Revolution, World War I, the rise of 
Benito Mussolini’s Fascist state, and World War II (Moosekian 2-3). Specifically, during the 
first wave between 1876 and 1920, a peak of Italian immigration to Argentina, the country took 
in more than 2 million Italian immigrants, largely from the Southern regions of Italy (Kaplan 56-
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57, qtd. in Italian-McGreevy 41, Conde 6). This created part of the largest voluntary migration in 
modern history (Kaplan iii) bringing a large influx of working-class people to the area of Buenos 
Aires. As immigrants and new to the working class, Italians faced judgment from Argentinians, 
especially those of higher classes, but they became important to the greater society because 
Italian immigration and artistic development were both key to the development of a strong 
national culture (Kaplan 14). Italian immigrants became unskilled workers in Buenos Aires and 
farmers in Las Pampas, living in the conventillos, government-subsidized communal immigrant 
housing where residents experienced similar social and economic pressure (Italiano-McGreevy 
21, 23-24). With the development of the rail and port systems in Argentina due to the increased 
role in agriculture and the Atlantic market (Ennis 116), immigrants were meant to fill the labor 
shortage for unwanted jobs in construction, mining, agriculture, and in the railway infrastructure 
(Italiano-McGreevy 75, Kaplan 58). In addition to the porteño class—local residents of Buenos 
Aires (Kaplan iii)—immigrants took up lands formerly owned and controlled by the indigenous 
populations to help with the agricultural demand. The vast majority, more than 75 percent of the 
labor by Italian immigrants, was in agriculture or as unskilled laborers, about 10 percent were 
artisans, and about 3 percent worked in commerce or as professionals (Baily 54). Locals saw this 
as an invasion of the local labor market by unwanted people which caused tensions and 
competition between the incoming migrants from Italy and the local Argentinians, leading to 
increased discrimination and subjugation against Italian immigrants.   
During the first wave of immigration from the mid-1870s to mid-1920s, Argentina had 
opened its doors to European immigrants as a means of attracting a labor force that would also 
bring a spirit of progress, improvement to the contemporaneous morals, and a practical cultural 
perspective. The Argentine government also incentivized European immigration by granting free 
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or to-be-paid-in-installments land to immigrants. Argentina, like many other countries in the 
Americas, expressed an explicit preference for European immigration from the mid-19th century 
until the 21st century. The first mandate of this sort in the Argentine Constitution in 1853 stated: 
“The Federal Government shall foster European immigration and shall not restrict, limit or tax in 
any way the entry of foreigners who come to the Argentine territory with the purpose of working 
the land, improving industry, and introducing and teaching the sciences and the arts” (FitzGerald 
299). The country did limit or exclude the Romani and eventually Jews, yet did not institute 
other racial or ethnic exclusions, making Argentina more open than most other countries in the 
Americas, most of which had at least one restricted category in place. Argentina’s immigration 
policy approached its desire to “whiten” the population with a lack of fear that certain European 
populations would be a threat, although this does not negate the racial prejudices likely harbored 
by the population. Argentina received the most European immigrants compared to any other 
country in Latin America because it sought to populate the large amount of land in its territory. 
The rapidly expanding economy in Argentina caused this pro-immigration policy, creating a 
reputation as being welcoming to all immigrants. By the turn of the 20th century, a third of the 
population of Argentina was not native and most were a part of the working class.  
An aspect of the strong desire for European immigration that goes beyond just the 
political borders was the desire for a perceived “modernity” (FitzGerald 300) of immigrants that 
fit with the common perception of Europeans. This resulted in immigration incentives for that 
area, though it was not limited or strictly followed (FitzGerald 300-301). Because Argentina did 
not restrict immigrants ethnically, as many other countries did, the country received more 
European immigrants than any other. By 1932, Argentina had received about 12 percent of all 
European immigrants that came to the Americas in the century prior (FitzGerald 302), all before 
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the second large wave occurred. This influx was due to varying political and economic factors 
both domestically and abroad. In the Americas, newfound political stability beginning in the 
1860s made possible the expropriation of lands formerly controlled by the indigenous 
populations (FitzGerald 303), as well as technological advancements that allowed Argentina to 
gain a foothold in the agricultural market around the Atlantic. These political, technological, and 
economic changes that Argentina experienced, and the increase of European emigration and 
more lenient departure policies (FitzGerald 303) created a significant incentive for immigrants to 
move to Argentina and satisfy the demand for labor there.  
Immigrants to Argentina were primarily from Spain and Italy but also arrived from other 
Western European countries, Poland, Russia, the Middle East, and Japan (FitzGerald 303) and 
they were encouraged to come and lend themselves to the desired modernity the nation sought. 
For this reason, while there was a stated preference for European immigrants, Argentina did not 
rule out non-European immigrants because the desired skills and usefulness of immigrant 
populations could also be found from other regions. Although racial criteria were not stated in 
the Citizenship Law of 1869, the state viewed Europeans as likely to be easily controlled, 
demonstrating a positive discrimination for European citizens (FitzGerald 308). Unlike other 
countries in the Americas receiving immigrants, Argentina’s immigration policy did not limit or 
tax any immigrant’s entry (FitzGerald 305) as the country needed to fill a severe labor shortage 
in order to keep up with its place in the Atlantic economy. Immigrant residents could own 
property, be hired by the government, engage in business, and could move around Argentina 
without restrictions (FitzGerald 308).  
As stated earlier, even though ethnic restrictions regarding immigration policies were not 
explicitly stated (in most cases), racist prejudices and beliefs still resided in the Argentine 
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population. The Argentine elite demonstrated a preference for the “right kind of European” or 
northwestern Europeans that exhibited certain political and working or social class traits or lack 
thereof (e.g., revolutionaries, communists, socialists, etc.) (FitzGerald 312). These beliefs about 
an immigrant’s morality could be found in the documentary control established in 1916 to filter 
out those who had been recently involved in crimes against the social order and people who 
presumably relied on public beneficence rather than working for a multitude of reasons 
(FitzGerald 313). In 1923, then-President Alvear implemented a series of administrative 
restrictions regarding medical and social reasons to deny migrants entry to Argentina, even as the 
country still lacked formal ethnic restrictions. This increase in restrictions coincided with the rise 
of the Eugenics Movement and racially motivated belief of the existence of a science-backed 
racial hierarchy across the world and in its peak in Argentina (FitzGerald 315). 
The second of the largest waves of Italian immigration to Argentina came during the 
period surrounding World War II and peaked in 1949. Still in need of immigrants, President 
Perón stated a desire for migrants mainly from Spain and Italy who were skilled and healthy, and 
who were likely to culturally assimilate and be useful economically to Argentina (FitzGerald 
318). This official immigration policy characterized by a preference for a system of selection 
based on the characteristics of the immigrant in terms of their aptitude for assimilation into the 
Argentine culture and as non-threats to the authority of the state persists through today in the 
current version (updated in 1994) of the National Constitution (FitzGerald 330). The notable 
difference between this policy that was in the books, though, and the actual practices was the 
discretion that government agents had in excluding certain ethnic groups often hidden behind the 
veil of selecting immigrants based on their supposed aptitude for Argentine society (FitzGerald 
324).  
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The history of immigration and immigration policy in Argentina and the influx of 
European migrants over a century has heavily influenced the Argentine identity that was desired, 
and the culture that the country wanted to build and maintain. Italians played into and were 
accepted as part of the modern and moral group of migrants expected to make Argentina better 
and filled a labor shortage created by the expropriation of previously indigenous-held lands. The 
conflict between the lack of ethnic restrictions and the actual practice of cherry-picking certain 
characteristics of migrants based on the discretion of the immigration officers and bureaucracy 
sharpened the focus on groups like Italians as suitable immigrants. However, even though 
Italians were heavily desired and seen as a more than acceptable class of people, there was a 
contrasting elitism from Argentinian citizens that subjugated Italian immigrants for many 
reasons, including their language and their new role in Argentine society. For appearance’s sake, 
Italians were the perfect group of immigrants, filling a labor shortage with (usually) limited 
participation in social revolution until the mid-20th century and being of a modernity and class 
that would have been readily accepted with the culture of perceived European supremacy. 
However, as this paper will elaborate, this did not preclude the Italian immigrants from social 
subjugation and discrimination that was heavily tied to their differing language use and the social 
class they occupied upon their arrival.  
Languages in Contact 
While languages are socially constructed and “different languages (and language 
varieties) exist in the sense that they have cognitive and social meaning for speakers” (Fuller and 
Leeman 230), languages in contact rely greatly on the social and ideological context of the 
people involved in their classification, reputation, and social standing. Languages in contact 
between people speaking different languages can result in the natural borrowing of a few words 
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or new languages being formed. These results differ due to the length and intensity of contact, 
the relationship between the groups (e.g., social, economic, and political), what drives 
communication between groups without a common language, and if or how their languages 
differ (Winford). This can happen because of migration and at language borders, and due to the 
need to achieve communicative efficiency adequate for the purpose of the interaction and the 
need to preserve a distinct sense of group identity (Winford). When languages come into contact, 
the change can be the borrowing of new words or a combination of the two languages, 
codeswitching and translanguaging of speakers, the creation of new languages, and other 
changes that blend together two tongues. Codeswitching refers to the “alternation or combination 
of different languages or varieties within a conversation or utterance” (Fuller 82) and 
translanguaging refers to a concept that recognizes that “in interaction, people may draw from 
linguistic resources distributed across the boundaries of what have traditionally been labeled as 
distinct languages” (qtd. in Fuller 82). Language contact also impacts the social relationships 
between two peoples, as they may be of different or similar social statuses. This convergence can 
impact relationships between them from the stereotyped attitudes towards each language, the 
social and political relationships between peoples, the breakdown of the community into 
subgroups, etc. (Bakkar 363-364). Therefore, these are important considerations in evaluating 
languages that come in contact or those that form from contact.  
“Una lengua criolla generalmente se define como una lengua híbrida que evoluciona 
muchas veces de un pidgin. Las lenguas pidgin son sistemas de comuncación extremadamente 
rudimentarios creados por hablantes que no comparten una lengua en común y que entran en 
interacción habitual, pero con propósitos muy limitados [A creole language is typically defined 
as a hybrid language that, in many cases, develops from a pidgin. Pidgin languages are widely 
14 
 
 
considered to be systems of communication that are extremely rudimentary [(disputed quality 
(Chang; Gray))] and are created by speakers that don’t share a common language and that 
interact habitually, but for very limited purposes]” (Klee 81). There is also a connection between 
pidgin languages and colonialism due to the contact between the language of the colonizers and 
that of the people being colonized (Hall 125). This connection with colonialist practices of 
contact has been observed to be between typically dominant or prestige languages and those of 
the communities being colonized. Many of the known or observed pidgins and creoles that were 
created out of contact between European colonizers and the native people are often based 
partially in European languages like English and several Romance Languages.  
Another consideration of the existing literature is the research and debate about the term 
pidgin and the social status of pidgin languages—and closely related creoles. There is an 
extensive body of research regarding many different pidgins and creoles around the world. So-
called pidgin and creole languages are highly stigmatized and “[t]o those who speak European 
languages, pidgin sounds like a ludicrous mispronunciation of their own tongues; for that reason, 
it is often castigated as a ‘bastard lingo’ or ‘gibberish,’” (Hall 124) lending to the negative 
reputation that pidgin languages can have. For instance, in 2015, “the U.S. Census Bureau […] 
recognize[d] Hawaiian Pidgin English as a [formal] language [category],” and “acknowledge[d] 
the legitimacy of a tongue widely stigmatized,” (Wong The Atlantic). While this is incredibly 
important and “reinforces a long, grassroots effort by linguists and cultural practitioners to 
institutionalize and celebrate the language—to encourage educators to integrate it into their 
teaching, potentially elevating the achievement of Pidgin-speaking students,” (Wong) it is 
problematic that pidgin languages and other stigmatized contact languages require legitimization 
by a formal entity to be recognized by a larger community. The expectation that contact 
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languages need validation from other sources only serves to reinforce the stigma they carry of 
being for un(der)educated and lower-class groups of people.  
The Problematic Considerations of Cocoliche and Lunfardo 
Cocoliche is often referred to as a so-called pidgin language because of the nature of its 
creation as the specific events that influenced the meeting of these two groups of people were 
influenced by colonialism, largely from Spanish coming to the Southern Cone through colonial 
missions during the 16th century. The term pidgin is contested by sociolinguists because of its 
reputation and stigma as a lower prestige form of communication than other supposedly formal 
languages. Some linguists do not consider so-called pidgins to be complete languages, although 
they are probably the minority. Pidgins also face criticism because they are not written which in 
popular, non-scholarly opinion, makes some believe that pidgins lack validity. This complicates 
the nature of cocoliche as a formal language and the background of its recognition and place in 
Argentine society. So-called pidgins have been defined as languages which develop in a situation 
of language contact and limited exposure to the target language (Wardhuagh 413) or a language 
that has no native speakers that develops as a means of communication between people who do 
not share a common language (Holmes 120). Pidgins are considered to have no native speakers, 
making it no one’s native language. Not only does the term pidgin carry negative stigma but it 
also lends itself to defining lunfardo and cocoliche speakers as lacking any correlation with this 
language as a mother tongue when it adapts certain words and semantic information to create a 
mix of Spanish and Italian. Cocoliche adapts specific elements of both Spanish and Italian in the 
process of the language exchange through circumstance and learning the other language and 
adding in Italian speakers’ own linguistic knowledge and background. Cocoliche is, rather, 
defined as a contact language in this paper to separate it from the stigma associated with being 
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described as a so-called pidgin which carries its own associations of perceived and assumed 
inferiority. 
Cocoliche has also been considered a transitional language of Italians in Buenos Aires as 
they learned Spanish (Italiano-McGreevey, ix) which is problematic because of the way the term 
transitional implies that language exchange is linear and goes only in one direction and that 
Italian immigrants as a whole would immediately abandon their language to assimilate. Lunfardo 
has also been framed in problematic ways with terms that drive the stigma around languages and 
varieties that are considered to be less than or non-languages. Lunfardo has been defined as a 
dialectal Spanish variety of the Southern Cone’s largest urban sprawl of Buenos Aires (Guillén, 
vii), the term dialect referring to a particular way of speaking, usually associated with a 
particular region or group of speakers (Wardhaugh 419) or any set of linguistic forms used under 
specific social circumstances (Holmes 692). The term “dialect” is problematic in considering 
languages because it invalidates the status of a language by defining it as less than a formal or 
supposedly “real” language.  
Another important consideration of contact languages in general, but especially in the 
cases of lunfardo and cocoliche, is the political dimension of terms like pidgin, creole, dialect, 
etc., and the background and context of colonization or enslavement that usually accompanies 
discussions of languages like these. These languages are distanced from European languages 
which impacts the image of the people who speak the developing language because of their 
perceived subordinate position as the colonized, not the colonizer (Wardhaugh 254). This is a 
crucial consideration because of the way that language shapes ideologies and vice versa which 
greatly impacts the perceptions of languages as less than or not full languages, attaching an 
image or stereotype to the people who speak it. 
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With the literature explored so far, there are limited resources that investigate the 
relationship between social stigma and power and language in Argentina regarding cocoliche and 
lunfardo. These sources (Moosekian, Iribarren Castilla, Ennis) highlight the nature of the 
creation of both languages and how they interacted with the Italian immigrants by influencing 
their position or reputation in the greater Buenos Aires area based on the language they spoke 
and where they were from. Much of the stigma surrounding lunfardo and cocoliche speakers 
arose from a conflict between non-elite natives, who lashed out by mocking their foreign ways 
and ignorance, and Italian immigrants who filled a need for inexpensive labor and brought 
foreign words and language (Cara-Walker 38). The creation of cocoliche was, at its beginning, 
organic, truly a language built from contact between two peoples (Aimasso 32). Lunfardo “is the 
idiom of the Buenos Aires underworld, a thieves’ cant comparable to English Alsatian and 
French argot […that was] deliberately coined to serve as a secret language which would be 
unintelligible to the uninitiated.” (Grayson 66) It was created within the Argentine prison system 
and network of criminals as a language meant to protect them from being overheard by speaking 
in a language few knew. Lunfardo, regardless of having become a part of the everyday language 
of the higher-class people (Grayson 66), carries negative connotations with the broader 
Argentine population because of its association with crime and criminals and has negatively 
reflected on Italian immigrants and communities that spoke or speak lunfardo as a result.  
Because of its association with crime, organizations like the Real Academia Española 
(RAE)—the Spanish language authority based in Spain—likened lunfardo to the French argot 
(Grayson 66), another unofficial language used by a specific class or group, largely criminalized 
people or those of a lower social class related to jargons associated with criminals (Conde 3). 
Argot has been identified as a slang that is currently in use in everyday life, in literature, and in 
18 
 
 
many other places by native speakers. Similarly, lunfardo and cocoliche are languages that 
remain unofficial but are used among specific social groups peoples. Lunfardo’s stigma as a 
lexicon associated with criminals and lower social classes set the tone for generations of 
Argentinians to negatively associate lunfardo with the most undesirable members of Argentinian 
society (Moosekian 4). This stigma and perceived relationship to delinquency reveals that there 
is a paramount relationship between social stigma and power and the use of language. This has 
been explored at a lesser level in existing literature, most authors stopping at simply stating that 
there is a stigma but not going further to analyze it even though it is a well-documented reality of 
the use of lunfardo (as stated above).  
Many authors analyze and detail the formation of these languages and how they relate to 
Argentine society, how they have influenced culture, and many more topics (A. Cancellier; Cara-
Walker; Civale; Ennis; Kaplan). The main focus of the impact of lunfardo is its reputation as a 
criminal language and its influence on Argentine tango—as it appears frequently in the lyrics 
(Andre)—and theater. Such impact is well documented and analyzed, highlighting how the 
criminalized language made its way into such important aspects of the culture in Argentina, but 
the work does little to point out any stigma besides how the research refers to lunfardo and its 
reputation. As common slangs, it is inevitable that lunfardo and cocoliche would have an impact 
on the development of popular culture and media. 
The gaps in the available literature exist regarding this specific investigation of cocoliche 
and lunfardo as there is limited research or literature about the nature of these languages and 
their relation to power and social stigma in Argentina. Even though lunfardo has been associated 
with criminals and working-class immigrants and the language is “rich in terms denoting the 
19 
 
 
various types of criminals and their special crafts” (Grayson 66), few works explore the deeper 
relationship between the contact language and power as it influences social stigma. 
Much of the existing literature about linguistic stigmatization focuses on the relationship 
between social stigma and language and how it impacts people and discusses that the language 
itself and the stereotypes or ideologies associated with it might not matter when considering 
which one causes the other. In their article Mixed Grammar, Purist Grammar, and Language 
Attitudes in Modern Nahuatl, Jane and Kenneth Hill discuss the judgment and stigmatization of 
people who speak an indigenous language and use hispanisms and how those dynamics relate to 
the stigmatization of language (Hill). Social stigma can be associated with people regardless of 
what language they speak. In the cases of lunfardo and cocoliche, the stigma was likely attached 
to the group of people or socioeconomic class and therefore, it did not matter what language this 
group of people spoke. Whatever language they spoke would be stigmatized eventually because 
of who they were or what they had. The fact that the language is different or perceived as impure 
automatically makes it a target for stigmatization and judgment from others who speak a so-
called purer language. 
Because lunfardo and cocoliche combine two languages with two different systems for 
conjugations, expressions, and semantics, they can be—and are—viewed as impure because they 
do not follow a prescribed linguistic rulebook of either major language from which they 
originate. These contact languages just exist further from the standardized languages that they 
are associated with, especially Argentine Spanish, earning them a reputation as less pure. To 
make this even more complicated, many of the immigrants come from smaller regions and bring 
not only a standard Italian, but a regional variant that strays even further from the “pure” version 
of the language (Moosekian 12), especially with the early wave of immigration due to the 
20 
 
 
unification of Italy during the 19th century. This was when the language was standardized across 
Italy and much of the emigration was in resistance to the new rule, leaving many people who left 
with their regional variants. These so-called impurities make cocoliche and lunfardo more likely 
to be stigmatized because they are different and do not prescribe to a specific set of linguistic 
rules. 
21 
 
 
Representations in Media and Art 
Italian Immigrants in Theater 
Several forms of Argentine theater and performance showed images of Italian 
immigrants. One important form of theater for Argentina was the sainete theater genre which 
portrayed stereotypes of the working class of Buenos Aires and the struggles of assimilation and 
acculturation (Sanhueza 8). The sainete portrayed everyday life and customs in vernacular 
language with the characterizations and political irony represented in the criollo circus (part 
traditional circus acts, part vernacular style theatrical representation), from which cocoliche 
caricatures largely derive (Sanhueza 8). The sainete presented situations in places like the shared 
housing conventillos and common struggles of the working class to reflect what was happening 
to them at the time (Sanhueza 9). The conventillo, often the setting for sainetes and tangos, was 
an important social space because of the role that they played in Argentine society, from tenant 
strikes to a carnival’s cocoliche (Italiano-McGreevy 24). One of the reasons the sainete was so 
influential—in addition to the importance of using the cocoliche character—in impacting the 
propagation of linguistic stigma was the popular use of lunfardo in these performances to convey 
authenticity (Sanhueza 9). By combining the use of the cocoliche caricature or “buffoon” 
(Sanhueza 10) and lunfardo slang vocabulary, sainete theater contributed to the widespread 
dissemination of stereotypes, stigma, and social subjugation of Italian immigrants through the 
use of stigmatized language. The Italian character common to the sainete was typically 
ridiculous, representative of humorous stereotypes, and “primitive” (Sanhueza 10). These 
representations and stereotypes fuel the discrimination and negative images of Italian 
immigrants, especially in connection with the origin of lunfardo as a prison slang or code that 
resulted in Italians being heavily criminalized by way of their language use.  
22 
 
 
 In contrast to the common theme of using Italian immigrants and their language as 
entertainment, many plays by Alberto Vacarezza, José Bugliot, Rafael José de Rosa, and 
Armando Discépolo used their platforms to reveal the suffering and conditions of poverty of 
Italian immigrants, demonstrating a different lived reality than that communicated by the 
government and creating some visibility for those populations (Sanhueza 17). Discépolo in 
particular presented Italian immigrants beyond stereotypes and created representations of hostile, 
unfamiliar places where they were promised land and good wages (Sanhueza 10-11). Discépolo 
gives a kinder and more understanding background to the moral issues commonly associated 
with Italian immigrants (e.g., the honest thief) and the victimization they suffered (Sanhueza 13-
14). Discépolo’s works were a welcome departure from the typical representations of Italian 
immigrants and provided a more honest portrayal that worked against the proliferation of 
stereotypical imagery and stigma. 
 In addition to the sainete and works of other playwrights, the origin of the cocoliche 
circus performances was detrimental to the image and stereotypes of Italian immigrants because 
of the way it was created by mocking the foreign accent and language of that population. What 
began as an actor breaking character and speaking with a circus crewmember from Calabria 
became a scripted character played by both native citizens and foreigners with an Italian-
accented Spanish meant to entertain the audience. This made the linguistic expression of Italian 
immigrants the focal point of the humor and led to other adaptations and impressions away from 
the circus stage and gave the mixed Italo-Argentine speech of Italian immigrants its name: 
cocoliche (Sanhueza 16). Cocoliche became a derogatory term employed to refer to not only the 
speech of Italian immigrants but also to insult aspects of their daily lives, clothing, interior 
decorating, etc. (Sanhueza 16). By attaching a negative stigma to the language spoken by a group 
23 
 
 
of people, that language then becomes a marker and a vehicle for continued stigmatization and 
discrimination against them. In this case, this stereotype being presented readily to a wide 
audience and reproduced frequently, contributed greatly to the social subordination of Italian 
immigrants as a function of their language and culture.  
Florencio Sánchez and “La gringa” 
Florencio Sánchez’s plays provide a unique insight into the everyday lives of Italian 
immigrants and are rich sources for examining the stigma they faced and their subordination. 
Sánchez was a Uruguayan playwright who used his works to represent and highlight the daily 
life in the rioplatense basin and the circumstances that plagued certain communities or peoples in 
Argentina and Uruguay. His works “M'Hijo el dotor,” “Barranca abajo,” and “La gringa” have 
been highlighted by scholars as those most influential and revealing of the social ills in this 
region during the expansion and influx of immigration during the late 19th and early 20th 
centuries (Ramirez 586) and deal largely with a similar theme of the gaucho character being 
presented as the last of their kind whose tragic lives evolve from their inability or unwillingness 
to adapt themselves to the changing society (Ramirez 589). However, for the purposes of this 
argument, I will examine “La gringa” because of its direct relation to the discrimination against 
the community of Italian immigrants. 
The gaucho is one of the most distinctive and popular figures of the rioplatense literature 
that has been related to the paisano or criollo, (Ramirez 589). Paisano refers to a (fellow) 
countryman and has often been equated with the term gaucho (Trifilo 395) and criollo typically 
refers to people born locally with Spanish or European ancestry or of full Spanish descent born 
in the viceroyalties, entities representative of the (in this case) Spanish monarch (Criollo); a 
native-born white elite (Donghi 7). In Argentina specifically, criollo colloquially refers to people 
24 
 
 
whose ancestors were already present in the colonial period, sometimes including Black people 
descended from enslaved populations and indigenous populations as many had assimilated and 
been integrated into the criollo culture (Donghi 19). Much like the Western cowboy of the 
United States, the gaucho is brave, unruly, and the epitome of masculinity but has also been used 
as an insult meant to convey someone as crafty and skillful in subtle tricks, skills useful in 
banditry and smuggling (Baretta 604). The gaucho remains a prominent national symbol of 
masculinity, a cowboy of Las Pampas, the fertile grasslands that surround the Buenos Aires area, 
whose life traditionally revolves around caring for their livestock and practicing an equestrian 
way of life (Trifilo 403). However, the gaucho survives through literature more than in reality. 
The social standing of the gaucho as a livestock worker typically of mestizo (European 
and indigenous American) descent was of a lower social class, belonging less to an ethnic group, 
even as they had a typical ethnic categorization by others. The RAE includes conflicting 
definitions in its Diccionario de la lengua española (DLE) for the term gaucho. Its historical 
definition of the noun is defined as a “Mestizo que, en los siglos XVIII y XIX, habitaba la 
Argentina, Uruguay y Río Grande del Sur, en el Brasil, era jinete trashumante y diestro en los 
trabajos ganaderos,” (Guacho) [Mestizo that, in the 18th and 19th centuries, lived in Argentina, 
Uruguay and Río Grande del Sur, in Brasil, was a transhumant horseman and skilled in 
livestock]. On the other hand, gaucho was also defined as a “Hombre de campo, experimentado 
en las faenas ganaderas tradicionales,” (Gaucho) [Man of the countryside, experienced in 
traditional farming activities]. These two definitions alone show the progression of the definition 
of gaucho, even though they touch on similar characteristics and habits. The DLE also has two 
varying definitions for gaucho as an adjective describing a person: “Noble, valiente y generosa,” 
(Gaucho) meaning valiant, brave, and generous, and “Ducho en tretas, taimado,” (Gaucho) 
25 
 
 
meaning skilled in trickery, cunning or sly, referring to their reputation as colonial bootleggers 
who dealt in contraband trade in cattle hides (Nichols 417). This dichotomy of positive and 
negative stigma carried by one word shows the significance and purpose of presenting this 
character opposite the new, adaptable Italian immigrant who was meant to fill the labor shortage, 
an area of expertise for the traditional gaucho. This conflict demonstrates a bias that would 
continue to negatively impact the gaucho and greater livestock working class as the Argentine 
military expropriated the lands of indigenous Americans in Las Pampas during the era in which 
Italian immigrants rapidly came to settle and work. 
By using the gaucho character as the center of his prominent works about social conflict 
and ills in Argentina, Sánchez points to the conflicting identity and perception of those identified 
(by themselves or others) as gauchos and how they related to the rest of Argentine society. This 
is especially relevant with the influx of immigrants as some gauchos supposedly disliked 
foreigners in tandem with their struggles represented in Sánchez’s work “La gringa,” a piece 
about the conflict between two families regarding the purity of their bloodlines and their place in 
Argentine society due to their origins. The play showed this animosity and racial intolerance for 
a foreign group that arrived and was given lands, encroaching on the territory of the gauchos. 
The name “La gringa” is very important as well because, in Argentina, the term was used mainly 
in rural areas to refer to non-Spanish European immigrants; but because Italian immigrants were 
such a prominent group, the word gringo was used to refer to Italians in particular (Crolla 4, 
Foster 100), especially ones who used lunfardo which more easily identified them as foreigners.  
Sánchez’s role as a sort of sociologist through his works reveals the social tensions at the 
time manifested in lack of willpower, alcoholism, poverty, the degeneration of the gaucho, and 
others. (Ramirez 587-588). In “La gringa,” the protagonist, Don Cantalicio, is a gaucho who 
26 
 
 
loses his ranch to an Italian immigrant named Nicola and when their children fall in love, the 
stereotypes, and perceptions of gauchos and criollos play into the Italian family’s belief that 
Próspero, Don Cantalicio’s son, is unworthy of Nicola’s daughter, Victoria. While the Italian 
family (and Nicola especially) was portrayed as hard-working as they had come to Argentina 
looking for a place to live and work, Don Cantalicio was portrayed as a representative of the set-
in-their-ways gaucho that was intolerant of the Italian immigrants taking up residence, being 
given land, and stealing his child away. This conflict is also illustrated in the perceived threat to 
Don Cantalicio’s honor from the ombú tree being cut down and his strong reaction, seeing it as a 
personal attack by Nicola (Sánchez 161, Sisto 452). Sánchez pleads for racial tolerance on both 
sides of this animosity (Ramirez 589-590) by presenting a solution through the marriage of 
Próspero and Victoria writing, “De ahí va a salir la raza fuerte del porvenir,” [From here, a 
strong race of the future will come] (Sánchez 178) referring to the general intermarriage of 
industrious Italian immigrants and haughty, indolent criollos, (Ramirez 590) and proposing a 
model of peaceful integration of a new chapter in the face of traditional values and lifeways 
(Rubio 125). Sánchez grounds a representation of the problem of racial intolerance of Italian 
immigrants in a realistic setting and offers a possibility of the end of this animosity between the 
two groups. Sánchez shows the Río de la Plata Basin for what it is and makes the audience 
confront what plagues them, attempting to rewrite a fundamental ideological narrative that 
impacted the Argentine national identity.  
Sánchez also uses tone and word choice to demonstrate the intolerance that Don 
Cantalicio has for Nicola and the new Italian immigrants moving in on the farming practices and 
threatening the gaucho lifeways. In the beginning of the conflict between Cantalicio and Nicola, 
the former is speaking to his son, complaining about the Italian and his takeover of their farm: 
27 
 
 
Próspero: …per se empeñó en seguir pastoreando esas vaquitas criollas que ya 
no sirven ni pa…insultarlas y cuidando sus parejeros y puro vivir en el pueblo, y 
dele al monte y a la taba…y, amigo…a la larga no hay cotejo. 
Cantalicio: —¡Velay!...Esa no me la esperaba…Llegar a esta edá pa que hasta 
los mocosos me reten…Salite de acá, descatao!… 
Próspero: —No, tata. No sea así…”Bisogna eser”. 
Cantalicio: —¡No digo!...Con que “bisoñas ¿no?…¡Te has vendido a los 
gringos!…¿Por qué no te ponés de una vez una caravana en la oreja y un pito en 
la boca y te vas por ahí a jeringar a la gente…¡Renegao!…¡Mal hijo!…(Sánchez 
140) 
[Próspero: ...but he insisted on continuing herding those Creole cows that are no 
longer good even for...insulting them and taking care of his couple and purely 
living in the town, and give him the bush and the taba...and, my friend...in the 
long run there is no comparison. 
Cantalicio: -Velay!...I didn't expect that one...To get to this age so that even the 
brats can hold me back...Get out of here, uncouth!.... 
Próspero: -No, Pops. Don't be like that... "Bisogna eser". 
Cantalicio: -I'm not saying!...What you need, right? You've sold out to the 
gringos!...Why don't you put a caravan in your ear and a dick in your mouth and 
go around and fuck people up...Renegade!...Bad son!...] 
In this brief excerpt, Sánchez demonstrates through his language use and word choice by Don 
Cantalicio and his son, the hatred the former holds against Italian immigrants. In this quote, not 
only do Don Cantalicio’s speaking parts show such outrage and self-victimization through his 
anger towards Nicola and his son for somewhat defending him, but he also uses and mocks 
Italian language specifically as an insult towards Nicola, demonstrating the general animosity for 
Italian immigrants that gauchos had. Specifically, Sánchez frames Cantalicio as defensive and 
victimized as he lashes out at his son due to his anger at having his farm stolen from him. 
Sánchez also specifically uses an Italian phrase “Bisogna eser” or “to have to be” to identify the 
source and direction of Cantalicio’s ire: Nicola, who is threatening his way of life and brining 
foreign ways and language. By having the gaucho character tell his son he’s “sold out to the 
gringos” or Italians, his strong emotional state is very clear. This is significant because of the 
way that Sánchez makes Cantalicio play the victim and has such outrage against Italian 
28 
 
 
immigrants for becoming integrated in Argentine society. He also specifically connects part of 
Cantalicio’s outrage to the use of Italian language and establishes it as a source of mockery 
against people like Nicola. Sánchez’s tone shows the feelings of Argentines and threatened 
gauchos toward Italian immigrants and reflects the animosity between the two groups and how 
language was a part of the Italian identity that served as a vehicle for their stigmatization.  
“La gringa” is important in revealing the role of language as a vehicle for the 
stigmatization of Italian immigrants because of the foreign linguistic characteristics displayed 
and used by Nicola (Rubio 118), the Italian immigrant who had supposedly stolen Don 
Cantalicio’s livelihood. By using linguistic characteristics and language expression of mixing 
Spanish with Italian as a way to denote Nicola’s ethnicity (Foster 102), the stereotypes and 
prejudices of the Italian immigrant population are reinforced through the play, especially when 
Nicola’s character is a threat to the life of the gaucho (Rubio 122), an important and long-
standing identity in Argentina, and could cause its extinction. Using “La gringa” as the title is 
also important because it communicates an image and identity that has been linked to accent and 
linguistic expression by highlighting that someone’s accent differs from that of rioplatense 
Spanish (Crolla 1).  
Representation in the News 
In addition to critiques of and feedback about Florencio Sánchez’s theater by scholars, as 
performances in the National Theater began to circulate, local newspapers spread news of 
showtimes and occasionally, responses. One of particular interest is by Carolina Muzzilli, an 
Argentine journalist, industrial researcher, and social feminist activist of Italian descent in the 
early 20th century (Longa 1). In an article published in the Vanguardia newspaper in January of 
1909, Muzzilli highlights the importance of works like Sánchez’s “La gringa” and “Barranca 
29 
 
 
abajo,” among others, because they not only entertain but also educate as spectacles with a 
national stage. Muzzilli discusses the importance of authors and art with a platform to educate 
even though, at the time, there were few (Vanguardia 2). She emphasizes that education and 
impact should be a central focus of theater—both the pieces and the companies—imploring that 
the public and the producers move away from apathy and insert themselves in theater as a social 
activity and join literature and science as broader sources of education, advocacy, and change 
(Vanguardia 2). 
Muzzilli’s perspective as a citizen of Italian descent is valuable in this case as someone 
who lived through one of the many periods of stigma and exclusions of Italian immigrants and as 
someone who held a significant role in society as a journalist and activist. By focusing, in this 
case, on the value of theater as a source for widespread social education through works like those 
of Florencio Sánchez who explored discrimination and racial intolerance towards Italians in 
some of his works, she digs into how theater transcends a singular experience and can reach 
broader audiences through a more appetizing source like entertainment. This is important also 
because, at the time, many sources of writing, information, and activism were available mainly to 
the elite who had greater access to popular theater and books or essays. Accordingly, Sánchez 
presented his social critiques and the ills of Argentina to populations that were mainly the 
aggressors of intolerance and Muzzilli emphasized how important works like his were to be 
shared to garner more significant change and attention to societal ills.  
In a 1915 article from the Chilean newspaper El Mercurio, an unnamed author describes 
Sánchez as a playwright, not a writer of literature, as he describes what he can see and observe in 
the society in which he was living and clearly communicates those issues (Mercurio). Discussing 
the success of a particular theater company that hinged on Sánchez’s plays, the author credits 
30 
 
 
Sánchez with representing important lived realities from cases of alcoholism to harsh life 
experiences in a way that effectively communicates the intense effects from the Buenos Aires 
society (Mercurio). While the author only mentions the play “M’Hijo el dotor” as one that had 
great success in Buenos Aires, “Barranca abajo” is mentioned as a harsh look at reality and the 
complexity of human nature in the moral dilemmas that the protagonist encounters (Mercurio). 
Sánchez’s works diffused through South American theater, presenting moral dilemmas and 
unique representations of social ills that plagued Buenos Aires and the Río de la Plata region that 
resonated with the elite from other countries and communities.  
These various sources demonstrate that the framing of people by the languages they 
speak makes them subject to discrimination and social subjugation, especially in the face of that 
linguistic stigma being reproduced and shown for entertainment and public consumption by the 
local Argentines. Plays like Sánchez’s confront the stigma against Italian immigrants and reveal 
ills in the contemporaneous Argentine society even though they do not specifically mention 
language as a main identifier or marker for stigmatization. Language functioned as a vehicle 
through which to subject Italian immigrants to discrimination, which was exacerbated by the 
traveling carnivals with the cocoliche character and reflected by Sánchez’s plays and articles like 
Carolina Muzzilli’s that circulated through the public.  
 
31 
 
 
Conclusions 
Language and ethnicity shaped the social status of lunfardo and cocoliche speakers in the 
late 19th and early 20th centuries in Buenos Aires, Argentina through their distinctive linguistic 
features to mock, discriminate, and socially subjugate them. I investigated the history of 
immigration of Italians into Argentina, the linguistic backgrounds of lunfardo and cocoliche, and 
contemporaneous plays and critiques of theater in order to establish this connection between 
language, ethnicity, and social status. In this analysis, I found that lunfardo and cocoliche and 
their use by Italian immigrants served as markers for and vehicles through which linguistic 
stigma, social subjugation, and discrimination operated to impact the daily lives of Italians in 
Buenos Aires in the early 20th century.  
These findings are significant because they broaden sociolinguistic understandings of the 
impacts of language and language ideologies on the perceptions and treatment of various groups 
of people. They also demonstrate ways in which language serves as a motivation for and conduit 
of social stigma and discrimination. This particular stigma emerged over a century ago. 
Nevertheless, these findings highlight the importance of language for examining discrimination, 
racism, xenophobia, and ethnic exclusion. Better understandings of languages in contact 
elucidate dynamics of stigma, power, ethnicity, and social status. This critical lens is important in 
evaluating instances of discrimination and stigma that hide behind language use and informs 
future studies of linguistic stigma. These results contribute to a larger body of research and 
further the understanding of these social dynamics and how they are tied to language in contexts 
beyond that of early 20th-century Argentina (Fuller and Leeman; Lippi-Green). 
As people continue to migrate due to social, political, or economic dynamics, as well as 
political strife, climate change, war and other conflict, the field of sociolinguistics remains 
32 
 
 
relevant and crucial to understanding social statuses and how groups of people interact with each 
other, and above all, how language and the multiplicity of language ideologies influence social 
hierarchies and stigma. As can be seen in the U.S. in the interactions between Spanish and 
English through code-switching and translanguaging, sociolinguistic analysis like this is 
important in recognizing the formation of a prestige language or perception of some languages, 
or ways of “doing” language, as being better than others. This perspective is significant for 
interrupting the subjugation of minoritized languages and the peoples that speak them and 
validating multiple ways of speaking. The impact of linguistic stigma on race, ethnicity, and 
power is crucial for understanding language-based discrimination and social subjugation.
33 
 
 
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