Lunfardo in Tango: The Slang Language Hidden in the Lyrics

A Secret Language in the Music You Dance To

Every time you dance to a golden age tango recording, you're moving to lyrics written in a language that even many Spanish speakers struggle to understand. It's not standard Spanish — it's lunfardo, the slang of Buenos Aires, a colourful, subversive, poetic argot that grew up in the same streets, ports, and tenement houses that gave birth to tango itself.

Understanding lunfardo won't change your ochos, but it will change your relationship with the music. Behind those familiar melodies lie stories told in a language of the streets — raw, witty, melancholic, and deeply human.

What Is Lunfardo?

Lunfardo originated in the late nineteenth century among the immigrant communities of Buenos Aires — primarily Italian, but also Spanish, French, Portuguese, and others. These immigrants, crowded into the conventillos (tenement houses) of La Boca, San Telmo, and other working-class neighbourhoods, created a hybrid language that blended elements of their native tongues with local Spanish.

Initially, lunfardo may have functioned partly as a coded language — used by criminals and marginal communities to communicate without being understood by authorities. But it quickly spread beyond the underworld into the everyday speech of working-class Buenos Aires, and from there into the lyrics of tango.

Today, many lunfardo words have been absorbed into standard Argentine Spanish. When a porteno (Buenos Aires resident) uses words like laburo (work, from the Italian lavoro), mina (woman), or guita (money), they're speaking lunfardo — often without realising it.

Lunfardo's Italian Roots

The Italian influence on lunfardo is overwhelming, reflecting the massive wave of Italian immigration to Buenos Aires in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Some examples:

• Fiaca — laziness, from the Italian fiacca
• Laburar — to work, from lavorare
• Morfar — to eat, from morfa (mouth in dialect)
• Nono/Nona — grandfather/grandmother, from nonno/nonna
• Pibe — boy or kid, possibly from Italian dialect
• Birra — beer, directly from Italian

For London dancers with Italian heritage or knowledge of Italian, listening to tango lyrics can produce surprising moments of recognition.

Vesre: Lunfardo's Playful Trick

One of lunfardo's most distinctive features is vesre — the practice of reversing the syllables of a word to create a new one. The word "vesre" itself is an example: it's reves (reverse) with its syllables flipped.

Some famous vesre words that appear in tango lyrics:

• Tango itself may come from tambo (a drum or gathering place) reversed, though this etymology is debated
• Gotán — tango (tan-go becomes go-tan)
• Jermu — mujer (woman), with syllables reversed
• Feca — cafe, reversed
• Garpa — pagar (to pay), reversed

This playful linguistic inversion reflects the irreverent, anti-establishment spirit of the culture that created tango.

Key Lunfardo Words in Tango Lyrics

Here are some of the most frequently encountered lunfardo terms in the tango songs you dance to, with their meanings:

People

• Mina — woman (originally from Italian, possibly meaning "mine" as in gold mine, slang for a desirable woman)
• Pebeta — young woman, girl
• Bacán — a wealthy man, a sugar daddy, someone who lives well
• Compadre/Compadrito — a tough guy, a man of the streets, someone who carries himself with swagger
• Otario — a fool, a naive person
• Atorrante — a layabout, a bum, someone who lives by their wits

Emotions and States

• Afanar — to steal, but also to work hard or to desire intensely
• Bancar — to endure, to put up with, to support
• Engrupir — to deceive, to sweet-talk, to seduce with words
• Mangar — to beg, to ask for something
• Morfar — to eat, but also to endure or suffer
• Yirar — to wander the streets, often with an implication of working as a prostitute

Places and Things

• Bulín — a small room or flat, often used for romantic encounters
• Cotorro — a room, a dwelling
• Guita — money
• Faso — a cigarette
• Bondi — a bus (still used in everyday Argentine Spanish today)

Famous Tangos and Their Lunfardo

Let's look at how lunfardo appears in some well-known tangos:

"El Choclo" (Angel Villoldo)

One of the most famous tangos ever written, "El Choclo" (The Corn Cob — itself slang) includes references to the compadritos and the world of the arrabal (the outskirts, the poor neighbourhoods). The later lyrics by Enrique Santos Discepolo are rich with lunfardo imagery of the Buenos Aires streets.

"Yira Yira" (Enrique Santos Discepolo)

The title uses the lunfardo verb yirar — to wander aimlessly, to drift through the streets. The song is a bitter lament about a world that doesn't care about your suffering, told in the voice of someone who has been abandoned by everyone. The repetition of "yira, yira" captures the endless, aimless walking of the dispossessed.

"Cambalache" (Enrique Santos Discepolo)

A cambalache is a junk shop or second-hand store — a lunfardo word for a place where everything is mixed up without value or order. Discepolo uses it as a metaphor for the twentieth century: a disordered mess where nothing has its proper value.

"Mi Noche Triste" (Pascual Contursi)

Considered the first tango with lyrics meant to be sung (rather than just played), this song is full of lunfardo. The narrator describes his cotorro (flat) after his percanta (woman, girlfriend) has left him. The domestic details — her absence from the familiar spaces — are described in the language of the streets.

Why Lunfardo Matters for Dancers

You might wonder: if I don't speak Spanish, why should I care about lunfardo? The answer is that understanding even a few words transforms your relationship with the music:

• Emotional context — knowing that a song is about abandonment, betrayal, or nostalgic love helps you dance it with appropriate feeling, even if you can't follow every word.
• Cultural depth — lunfardo connects you to the world that created tango: the immigrant streets, the working-class struggles, the poetry of everyday life in Buenos Aires.
• Musical appreciation — when you recognise even a few words, the singer becomes a storyteller rather than just a vocal instrument. The music gains a narrative dimension.
• Respect for the tradition — taking the time to understand the lyrics shows respect for the culture you're participating in, even from thousands of miles away in London.

Learning More

If lunfardo intrigues you, there are ways to explore further:

• Translated lyrics — many tango lyrics have been translated into English online. Reading translations of the tangos you dance to most frequently is a rewarding exercise.
• Tango poetry — the line between tango lyrics and Argentine poetry is blurred. Poets like Enrique Santos Discepolo and Homero Manzi wrote lyrics that stand as literature in their own right.
• Argentine friends — if you know Argentine dancers in London, ask them about lunfardo. Most will be delighted to share this aspect of their culture.
• Books — several excellent books explore the language and culture of tango lyrics, including their lunfardo vocabulary.

The Language of the Dance

Tango has two languages: the language of the body and the language of the lyrics. As London dancers, we often know the first intimately while barely glimpsing the second. Exploring lunfardo opens a door into the poetic, irreverent, deeply human world that the music carries within it.

Next time you hear a singer's voice rise above the orchestra at your favourite milonga, listen for the lunfardo. The streets of Buenos Aires are speaking to you.

Discover more about tango's rich culture and find your next milonga on TangoLife.london.