The 1^st of February of 1887 it appeared in the newspaper La Nación a note without a signature titled “Caló Porteño (Callejeando)”(Caló from Buenos Aires – walking about the streets). Later in time Luis Soler Cañas arrived to the conclusion that its author was Juan S. Piaggio. ¿What kind of text this was? It was a popular tale in which a night in the Buenos Aires suburbs is described, with the background music of an “organito”(small portable organ), and two young “compadritos” have a dialogue in which we can read many of the words recorded by Lugones and Dellepiane which they had attributed to disreputable people, that is, to lunfardos (thieves). However, Piaggio makes it completely clear that his characters are not delinquent, when one of them affirms: “Nunca me he querido ensuciar para darme corte: me llamarán güífaro; pero lunfardo nunca” (I have never made improper acts to brag or receive attention. They can call me Italian, but they will never call me a thief) and the other one answers: “Bien hecho, compadre. Eso de refalar la mano tampoco nunca me ha gustao: siempre se lo he dicho a la mina: prefi­ero comer tierra antes que me llamen raspa” (Well done my friend. Stealing is not my thing: I have always told my woman: I rather fall down than being called a thief)

I will quote the following terms or phrases used by these characters of Piaggio, many of which are fully current nowadays: atorrar (to sleep), batuque (fun), bobo (clock), bulevú con soda (excess of courtesy), bullón (food), corte (a figure of the dance of tango), chafe (police agent), chucho (fear), darse corte (to brag), dejar tecliando (give somebody a beating), embrocar (to look), encanamiento (to capture somebody), ensuciarse (to steal), escarpiante (footwear), escabio (drunk), falluto (fake), farra (fun), firulete (adornment), de mi flor (excelent), a la giurda (excelent), grébano y güífaro (italian), jailaife(elegant), lengo (handkerchief), levantar (to seduce –a woman–), lunfardo (thief), marrusa (beating-down), mina (woman), mishote (poorman), morfis (fod), paica (lover of the compadrito), parada (simulation), pesao (daring and impudent man), raspa (thief), refalar la mano (to steal), seneisi (genove­se), tano (napolitan), tocar espiante (to leave), trambay (tramway), vento (money), viaba (beating).

A quick check over the preceding lines reveals that these terms were not at all exclusive of the delinquent world, but that they were generally used by the youngsters of the lowest social class. The existence of these lines written by Piaggio –and here I agree with José Gobello, the world’s highest authority in lunfardo- are clarifying. With this testimony, it is revealed that, what Lugones, Drago and Dellepiane had taken due to their professional point of view, as an exclusive jargon of the thieves ignored and unknown by the rest of society, was, strictly speaking a group of words and expressions used by the populus minutus, that is, by the lower class of Buenos Aires, inside which naturally must be included the delinquents. While the first ones –Lugones as a policeman, Drago and Dellepiane as criminal investigators- had heard these words by arrested thieves and believing that they were a special language of the lunfardos they gave it the same name to those words, Piaggio, who was a journalist and had his ear trained for the street, could understand that it was a popular lexical repertoire and absolutely not a professional jargon.

Oscar Conde. 

Note: This is the second part of an article that we have divided in three. You can read the third and last part here