How would Argentina look like today economically, politically, culturally, socially, and linguistically speaking had the Irish or the German immigrants populated Argentina first instead of the Italians?
Irish or German-dominated Argentina instead of Italian
- Thread starter Joseph Solis in Australia
- Start date
Well, in popular opinion in TTL Argentine Spanish will sound more harsher/guttural, as if someone wanted to spit you in the face all the time. Of course, that's not necessarily true (I'd still see the zheísmo going on, as well as the retention of voseo), but what would happen is that the gaucho dialect would have a much healthier life. The Hiberno-Teutonic influence would only enrich it, like how the Italian influence enriched Argentine Spanish in OTL.
Of course, what won't go away is Spanish immigration to Argentina, so there's still that. I wonder what would happen if Galician (as in OTL many of the Spanish immigrants were from Galicia) were to have to have some influence on the development of Argentine Spanish.
Of course, what won't go away is Spanish immigration to Argentina, so there's still that. I wonder what would happen if Galician (as in OTL many of the Spanish immigrants were from Galicia) were to have to have some influence on the development of Argentine Spanish.
The Italians didn't started comming in grat numbers after the 1860s, and mainly after the 1880. So did post-independence Spanish immigrants.
MAybe if the country had settled its internal differences in the early 1820ies, and had a progressive government earlier, it might have been attractive to immigrants at a time were the only large collective of potential European emmigrants available where Irish and German (I guess Catholic Germans would be favoured), since this was before the begining of Italian and Spanish emigration to the New world.
I don't know, however, if maritime navigation technology and trade routes were developped enough to enable the transportation of large quantities of poor peasants from Europe the Buenos Aires...
MAybe if the country had settled its internal differences in the early 1820ies, and had a progressive government earlier, it might have been attractive to immigrants at a time were the only large collective of potential European emmigrants available where Irish and German (I guess Catholic Germans would be favoured), since this was before the begining of Italian and Spanish emigration to the New world.
I don't know, however, if maritime navigation technology and trade routes were developped enough to enable the transportation of large quantities of poor peasants from Europe the Buenos Aires...
I think many personalities who developed Argentina later on in OTL would be butterflied away like Juan Peron had the Italians never came in massive numbers in Argentina and Uruguay but instead the Irish and Germans came.
In conclusion, Argentina would be way more stable economically and politically speaking had the Irish and the Germans dominated the Argentine population as most of the Italian immigrants have leftist tendencies.
In conclusion, Argentina would be way more stable economically and politically speaking had the Irish and the Germans dominated the Argentine population as most of the Italian immigrants have leftist tendencies.
Pangur
Donor
To make it more Irish you would have to have the US in the late 19th C a far less welcoming place for the Irish and the same time have the Irish that made it to the Argentina very successful. I think that this would imply that there was a cold war type relationship between the US and the UK as well
Argentina in 1840s and 1850s was in the midst of civil war between Unitarians and Federalists that the stability only came in 1860 when Buenos Aires finally merged with Argentine Republic. Had Argentina stabilize earlier, let say in 1820s, Argentina would have been flooded with Irish, German, or French immigrants while the Italians and Spaniards would go anywhere else (although there would be still Italian and Spanish immigrants but not as numerous compared in OTL).
Not necessarily.
Many personalities involved during the 1930 coup would have butterflied away like Juan Peron.
Maybe English language will compete with Spanish with more Irish immigrants.
To answer that I've just one phrase: El Che was Irish-descendent.
His family usually said that he caried the "restlessness" of the Irish Rebels in his veins.As for the question, the only main change would probably be linguistic. Argentinian accent, specially the porteño, would be very different without the Italian influence. As a matter of fact, OTL's Argentine society was very much influenced by the British culture: Polo and Rugby are pretty popular down there (sports that are virtually unknown in the rest of the Americas) and you'll probably see examples of British architecture in the oceanic cities, this Europhile thought gradually changes when you got your way into the continent, where you have a much more Spanish-oriented Criollo culture (this is a major leitmotif in their literature, btw).
Summarizing, I don't think that would change a lot the country in political or economical terms, BUT if we have an earlier pacification of the hinterlands with an influx of immigrants thus we'll probably have a much more populated (thus stronger) Argentina.
This part somewhat happened OTL. Irish started arriving in the late years of the XVIII century, before our independence, and way before the big wave of foreign immigrants.
They were very succesfull, to the point they achieved something most later immigrants didn't: they mix and intermarried with the Hispanic merchant and landowning elite. The case of the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camila_O%27Gorman]O'Gorman[/url] family is just one example of this.
Most of the immigrants who came in the second half of the XIX century became first part of the working class and then part of the middle class, but it was only by mid XX century that some had adquiered ennough wealth in industry, trade or enough professional prestige to be accepted by the landowning elite familes as good candidates for their daughters. (Of course, this is an exageration and there are many exceptions).
The thing was that Irish immigrants where few. An earlier, stable Argentina might attract more, especially if, as you say, the US is less attractive.
I agree. What's also interesting is what would happen to German. In OTL, Italians, who spoke different dialects, soon assimilate to the Spanish-speaking population (well, maybe not the fist generation, but their kids did). In the countryside it took longer, and Italian dialects were sopken till well advance the XX century, but eventually the dialects disappeared.
German immigrants, instead, tended to preserve their language longer, even if they were way My German teacher was the granddaughter of Germans, and spoke perfect german). Well, maybe they preserve it because they were fewer, and this might change if there had been way more German immigrants..
But it would be interesting if there was more stuff like Belgranodeutsch.
Well, the fact that Spanish was similar enough to Italian, give or take the presence or absence of some sounds, probably helped. To take one example, the best one is with the /r/. Now, in Spanish most varieties (including the literary standard) use an alveolar trill as a default, tapping it when between vowels (a geminate <rr> cancels this). Pronouncing this /r/ as a so-called "guttural R" is stigmatized as being a speech defect; where it does exist, it's largely confined to "dialect" in the Caribbean (particularly Puerto Rico, where /r/ > [X], in large part because in Puerto Rico the <j> /x/ shifted to /h/ [as in English <h>], giving the /r/ room). Here, the Spanish /r/ is typical of Indo-European languages, with the tapping analogous to the process of leniting the voiced stops in Spanish. Italian has the same /r/ as Spanish, so here there's nothing unique. However, in French and German, whilst there is some wide variation (including African French and Swiss German - both the Alemannic dialects and in Swiss Standard German - where a trilled /r/ is common), a uvular /R/ is considered normative (though the precise phonetic details too vary, with a uvular trill preferred in German and a uvular fricative - more precisely, an approximant - preferred in French). In addition, this is also true of Portuguese, so there is some precedent in Iberian Romance. For the most part, however, these uvular pronunciations have no equal in Spanish due to the stigma; it wouldn't be that hard to surmise that when speaking Spanish, German immigrants would probably pronounce the <r> as in German, which over time could be the normative pronunciation in Argentina (and Uruguay - let's not forget them here linguistically, as both Uruguay and central Argentina share the same variety of Spanish) and thus lose its stigma. (In Uruguay, the closer one gets to Brazil in TTL, the likelier the chance that this <r> is voiceless, reflecting the Brazilian Portuguese pronunciation due to Portuñol.) Considering that the original gaucho dialect itself is divergent, adding a uvular R to it would make it even more so.
I agree with you on that.
Oh definitely - that would make for a more interesting Argentina, with German dialects like Belgranodeutsch functioning in much the same manner as lunfardo and cocoliche in OTL. One could also mix it up a bit so that different regions of the German-speaking world could be represented in Argentina. So, one could have three communities side by side, one speaking Swiss German and another speaking Yiddish and one speaking something akin to Pennsylvania Dutch - all of which are completely different - and yet would be all equally recognized as German, with a good portion of the younger generations also having competence in Spanish but with a Germanized pronunciation. Spanish would also function as the catalyst for new words introduced into the language - i.e. a cell phone in *Argentine German wouldn't be called a "Handy" as in Germany, but a "selular" as per Argentine Spanish "celular".
To answer that I've just one phrase: El Che was Irish-descendent.
What I mean here is that most Italian anarchists who came in Argentina would have go somewhere else and probably, Che Guevarra's life would have been different (if he still exists) through or maybe he might be butterflied away.