PAPIA, São Paulo, 24(2), p. 357-379, Jul/Dez 2014. Immigrants’ languages, lunfardo and lexical diffusion in popular porteño Spanish Línguas de imigrantes, lunfardo e difusão lexical no espanhol portenho popular Gerardo Augusto Lorenzino 1 Temple University, usa galorenz@temple.edu Abstract: In this paper, contemporary newspaper reports as well as criminological and sociological studies concerned with the life of the underworld in Buenos Aires, Argentina from the 1870s to the early 1900s will be analyzed to assess the supposedly exclusive association of lunfardo with the speech of the criminal. The linguistic analysis will focus on lunfardo’s lexicon — its composition, its formation and its inclusion of elements from immigrants’ languages. Specifically, the Italian dialectal varieties present in the city and the transitional cocoliche or imperfect Spanish spoken by Italian immigrants will provide the backdrop to the scenarios advanced here for lexical diffusion and the emergence of immigrants’ languages as Buenos Aires society was being transformed in the late nineteenth century. By comparing the first attestations of lunfardo with the porteño Spanish vernacular, one may view lexical diffusion as a linguistic ‘decriminalization’ of lunfardo as it was being progressively accepted by Argentine society. This investigation will argue that lunfardo, the Spanish sociolects spoken by the lower classes and the contact vernaculars spoken by immigrants 1 My gratitude to John Holm is as heartfelt now as it was twenty years ago when I published my first article in Papia and he was my doctoral advisor at the Graduate Center, cuny. This Festschrift has brought Papia, my Padrino and I full circle. I also would like to thank the comments and meticulous editing of an anonymous reviewer. ISSN 0103-9415, e-ISSN 2316-2767