Is There Another Language Apart From Spanish Used in Argentina?
 

My (Spanish) wife and I watched a tv interview with a relative of that poor, deceased footballer Emiliano Sala the other night, neither of us could understand a single word he said, nor even what language it was - is there a language other than Spanish used in Argentina?

Such a dreadful tragedy - he seemed to be such a modest, charming chap with a great future ahead. I'd hate to think there was anything sinister in his death as the papers here are suggesting.

Just like in Spain, there are another 100 languages or so spoken in Argentina, but the interview was surely in Spanish.

Don't worry. When they started to screen a lot of films and TV programs from Spain in 1983 I couldn't understand spoken Spain's Spanish (Italian was a bit easier to me, even without having studied it). Later I grew accustomed to new sounds and lots of new words like canijo, cubata, tiquismiquis, cateto, bombona, guindilla, friqui, etc. Even now I stopped watching La Casa de Papel in episode number 3 just because the language was taxing to me, even being it slightly neutralized. But I enjoyed watching Merlí in Catalan with English subtitles.

My wife (born in Extremadura) lived for thirty years in Barcelona and cannot understand a word of Catalan. Our daughter spent a 'gap year' (which lasted for fourteen!) in Benidorm, Alicante, her partner had many friends from Columbia, I understood them perfectly; their Spanish was more 'sing-song' but perfectly comprehensible.

The first time I heard Catalan I thought it was Portuguese!

The worst Spanish I ever heard was in a documentary on UK tv featuring a minor nobleman in Córdoba (Sp.) who had transformed his stately home into a small museum. He was well-educated and quite rich but his diction was quite appalling.

I called my wife from the kitchen and asked "Has this poor bugger got a deformity in his mouth or something?". "No" she said "That's how they talk in Córdoba! Don't worry I can't understand him either!".

Today I watched an argentine film called "desaparecida" sometimes I had to read the subtitles to identify what they were saying , it was the words we usually use but they spoke very fast and it sounded different.
I din´t know there were different languages in Argentina, rather than Spanish, with its characteristics.

Curious. I can more-or-less follow it without taking any lessons. Maybe it's because I know more French than her?

I often get the impression that Castilian has diverged the most from the common ancestor of the Romance Iberian languages. I live in a Catalan-speaking area of Spain and visit Portugal for a few days most years, and I can confirm that Portuguese sounds closer to Catalan than it does to Castilian.

Many years ago I watched (and really enjoyed) an Argentine film "Bonbon el Perro" and understood most of it. I wish they'd put it on again!

I especially loved the tender, romantic scene where the dogo escapes to the builders' merchants yard and meets a scruffy old perra caliente, so romantic (not)!

well, it is the same language for sure, maybe I didn ´t express myself well, I said I didn´t know they spoke as many different languages as in Spain: Like Basque, Castilian or Spanish, Catalan and Galician.
Regional variations don´t count.

There's a big Native American population in Argentina that has a big influence on the country, and native languages (Quechua and Guaraní among others) are spoken maybe not so much in Buenos Aires but more likely in areas north and west.

I could never understand my father-in-law (muy extremeño) and my wife used to laugh at me, saying my Spanish wasn't as good as I thought it was! One year we stayed at his home in Barcelona for a few days before catching the train to stay down on the beach in Tarragona.

We took a taxi to the ralway station and my F.I.L. sat by the taxista, and jabbered away to him all the way. As we neared the station the taxista said "¿Perdón señor, es usted extremeño?", y le contestó, "Sí, ¿porqué?". "¡Pues es que no entiendo ni siquiera una palabra que Ud dice!".

Estaba un poco cabreado, ¡pero yo estaba reindo a carcajadas!

Argentina is also home to the largest Welsh-speaking population outside of Wales.