Cheli is a Spanish-language juvenile sociolect or jargon diatopically restricted to the Madrid area,[1] developed in the 1970s,[2] primarily associated to the post-Francoist counterculture.[3] It drew influence from the hampa and drug-dealing jargons, and it has been noted for Spanishizing Caló and English words as well as rescuing archaic Spanish-language words.[2] Some popular Cheli words (such as privar, molar or vasca) were actually recorded already in the early 20th century in dictionaries of argot, even if frequently with different meanings.[4]

Other phenomena related to the sociolect include the distortion of words, modified with -ata, -ota and -eta suffixes.[5] While as a non-technical jargon, many, if not most, of its words have fallen into disuse as the language evolves, some of them have proven resilient enough to remain in the spoken language at the expense of more recent words.[6]

See also

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  • La Movida – Countercultural movement during the Spanish transition after Francisco Franco's 1975 death

References

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Citations
Bibliography
  • Armenta-Lamant Deu, Ana (2016). "Le cheli : langage de rupture d'une génération" (PDF). Revue Hispanismes (8): 216–234.
  • Buzek, Ivo (2011). "Caló como un concepto plurivalente y los gitanismos en español" (PDF). Historia crítica de la lexicografía gitano-española. Brno: Masarykova univerzita. pp. 18–26. ISBN 9788021057883.
  • Espina Barrio, Ángel B. (1996). Manual de antropología cultural. Ediciones Abya-Yala. ISBN 9978-04-230-X.
  • Hoyos González, Margarita de (1981). "Una variedad en el habla coloquial: la jerga 'chelí'" (PDF). Cauce: Revista Internacional de Filología, Comunicación y sus Didácticas (4): 31–42. ISSN 0212-0410.
  • Rodríguez González, Félix (1987). "El lenguaje pasota, espejo de una generación" (PDF). Revista de Estudios de Juventud (26): 65–71. ISSN 0211-4364.
  • Rodríguez González, Félix (2002). "Lenguaje y contracultura juvenil: anatomía de una generación". El lenguaje de los jóvenes. Barcelona: Ariel. pp. 29–56. ISBN 84-344-4248-5.