Linguistic and Cultural Aspects of the Irish Settlers in Buenos Aires as Seen in Tales of the Pampas, by William Bulfin

Abstract

This article is about Tales of the Pampas, a collection of short stories written and published by William Bulfin in 1900. The book refers to the Irish settlers within the “porteño” country, their days and works. My critical approach concerns language and cultural interrelations between the Irish, the natives, and the South American melting pot, exploring their behaviours, their attitudes and their words. I point out the curious fact that Bulfin’s literary speech becomes a strange mixture of Irish-English, Gaelic and Spanish. It was a slow process in which bilingualism preceded biculturalism. In Tales of the Pampas – we read – Bulfin reissues Sarmiento’s antithesis proclaimed in Civilización y Barbarie (1845): Barbarism (represented by the countryside) vs. Civilization (city), Natives vs. Europeans.