A language that is not a language, a dialect that is not a dialect. And a dance that is not just a dance. I am the «lunfardo» and the tango, different twins with the same date of birththe second half of the nineteenth century, the same cradle, Argentina which, under a formidable wave of migration from Europe and Italy, changed its face in just a few years.
Lunfardo and tango share the same history of «migrations, languages and music»: The book, just released by Pungitopo, by Messina professor Mariagrazia Panagia tells us about it with passion. A book that is an offshoot of his doctoral thesis, discussed in 2022 at the University of Granada, but is above all the synthesis of a life of research that runs parallel to a life of passion for tango and its culture, of which Panagia , who teaches Spanish language and literature in Messina, but has studied and taught in Spain and Great Britain, is a long-time supporter and protagonist.
Migrants came from everywhere (migration is the history of humanity, after all) to Argentina in search of workers: they embarked with their instruments (the guitar, the violin, the flute, a little later that prodigy that is the bandoneon), with their nostalgias, with their dialects, and were looking for a place in the New World. They found him in Buenos Aires, on the banks of the Rio de la Plata, in Rosario, in Santa Fe. Where even the gauchos moved from the countryside to the cities; where there were the descendants of those slaves taken from Africa, who had brought with them dances and languages and rhythms. From all these movements, from this enormous melting pot, not only new economies and demographic booms emerged: words germinated to understand each other, mixing dialects, and music to keep company, mixing traditions, genres, instruments, sounds.
We call “lunfardo” that corpus of words, many still in use (berretín, chapar, lungo, mina, pibe, salami), born then, together with and within the tango, the other miraculous human product of response to pain and nostalgiawhich still fascinates us today with music and movements codified many many years ago. Panagia recounts this double and reciprocal construction, and follows it among the texts of some of the most significant tangos of the tradition (as well as in a precious final “Etymological Dictionary”). Even after that magical and dawning period: when the time came for closure, dictatorship, censorship. But now it was done: lunfardo and tango united men and women, and continue to do so, with their mysterious power.
The author will talk about it with readers today at 5.30 pm at the Mondadori Bookstore in Messina. The singer-songwriter and bandoneonist Merlina Illundain will perform some songs.