from the dignity of the language. Furthermore, he references his travels throughout Spain, where he mentions that Spaniards do not speak better that Argentinians even with a "purer" Spanish, meaning that if anything, Cocoliche's influence has only strengthened the language. Its status as a pidgin has been contested by linguists and philologists throughout the 20th Century. Argentinian linguist María Beatriz Fontanella De Weiberg posits that the language never became a pidgin due to the clear attempts of the government to integrate immigrants, leading Cocoliche to quickly disappear as immigrants rapidly adopted the culture and Spanish language of Argentina. She states it didn't have the reason to remain and become a pidgin because it was not necessary to thrive in oppressive circumstances the way other pidgins have. Influence Following Cocoliche's introduction into normal Argentinian Spanish speech, and its subsequent disappearance as an independent language, it left many traces of itself in local language. It intermixed with existing Argentinian Spanish characteristics like voseo and yeismo while providing a new intonation for the Rioplatense Spanish variety and its neighboring dialects. Many Cocoliche words were transferred to Lunfardo. For example: ("to eat") from Venetian and Lombard ( in Italian) (fool) fungi (mushroom) -> in Lunfardo: hat vento (wind) -> in Lunfardo: money matina (morning) from Italian "mattina" mina (girl) from Lombard "mina" (busty woman or prostitute) laburar (to work) from Italian "lavorare" minga (nothing) from Lombard "minga" (negative particle like not in English or in French) yeta (bad luck) from Neapolitan yira (to go for a walk) from Italian "girare" salute (cheers) from Italian "salute" fiaca (laziness) from Italian "fiacca" Some of these words show a characteristic codialect evolution, for example in the case of manyar, the word manyar exists with the same meaning in Spanish even though it is considered jargon and not proper Spanish, being derived from Occitan and reinforced by the Italian . See also Adoniran Barbosa, composer in the analogous Italian-Portuguese pidgin. Italian immigration to Argentina Lunfardo Talian dialect Notes External links What is lunfardo Buenos Aires Italian-Argentine culture Italian-Uruguayan culture Italian language in the Americas Spanish language Languages of Argentina Extinct languages of South America Macaronic language Languages attested from the 1870s Languages extinct in the 1970s City colloquials