People

Argentina, unlike most Latin American nations, has a population that is principally of European descent, especially of Italian and Spanish origin. The mestizo portion of Argentina's population is very small, except in the northwest, because there has been little mixture between European and indigenous peoples. The native population, which has steadily declined since the coming of the Europeans, is still strong only in parts of the Gran Chaco and the Andean highlands. Italian, Spanish (including Basque), French, German, British, Swiss, and East European immigrants came to Argentina during the 1880s; other large in-migrations of Europeans occurred in the 1930s and following World War II. There has also been some in-migration of Chileans, Bolivians, and Paraguayans.

The gaucho, or Argentine cowboy, the nomadic herder of the Pampas—depicted in Martín Fierro, the great Argentine folk epic by José Hernández—is still a legendary national symbol. Many gauchos were people of mixed Spanish and African descent who had crossed the border from Brazil to escape slavery. By the 1990s, however, Argentina had a predominantly urban population with about four fifths of its people living in cities and towns; more than a third of the total population lives in and around Buenos Aires.

About 90% of the population is at least nominally Roman Catholic. The Jewish population, while only accounting for about 2% of the people, is the largest in Latin America and the fifth largest in the world. Spanish is the country's official language, although English, Italian, German, and French are spoken as well. Argentina has one of South America's lowest population growth rates (under 1%).

Culture

Argentine culture has been primarily informed and influenced by its European roots. Buenos Aires, considered by many its cultural capital, is often said to be the most European city in South America, as a result both of the prevalence of people of European descent and of conscious imitation of European styles in architecture. The other big influence is the gauchos and their traditional country lifestyle of self-reliance. Finally, indigenous American traditions (like mate tea drinking) have been absorbed into the greater cultural realm.

Language

The official language of Argentina is Spanish, usually called "Castellano" (Castilian) by Argentines.

Argentines are the largest Spanish-speaking society that universally employs what is known as voseo (the use of the pronoun vos instead of tú (you), which occasions the use of alternate verb forms as well). The most prevalent dialect is Rioplatense, whose speakers are primarily located in the basin of the Río de la Plata.

Some indigenous communities have retained their original languages. Guaraní is spoken by some in the northeast, especially in Corrientes (where it enjoys official status) and Misiones. Quichua is spoken by some in the northwest, and has a local variant in Santiago del Estero. Aymara is spoken by members of the Bolivian community who migrated to Argentina from Bolivia. In Patagonia there are several Welsh-speaking communities.

According to a survey, there are around 1,500,000 Italian speakers and 1,000,000 speakers of Levantine Arabic, but these numbers are probably no longer current, as the newer generations mostly switch to Spanish and do not speak the ancestral language in the home. The same phenomenon applies to the Galician language that was used by many Spanish immigrants, Yiddish, and Japanese. The usage of these languages is in decline, as the respective immigration waves ended in the first half of the 20th century.
More recent immigrants have brought Chinese and Korean, mostly to Buenos Aires. English, German, Brazilian Portuguese and French are also spoken in smaller extents. English is the most common languages tought at schools, with Portuguese and French far behind.