Arab Argentines

Arab Argentines
عرب الأرجنتين (Arabic)
Árabe-argentinos (Spanish)
Argentina Arab League
Arab-Argentines during the Day of the immigrants in Buenos Aires.
Total population
+ 3,500,000 (by ancestry)[1]
7.6% of Argentina's population
(+ 2,000,000 Lebanese)
(+ 1,510,000 Syrians)
(+ 30,000 Palestinians)[2]
Regions with significant populations
Predominantly in the Argentine Northwest, the Greater Buenos Aires and Córdoba
Languages
Spanish • Arabic
Religion
Majority: Catholicism · Eastern Orthodoxy
Minority: Sunnism · Shiism · Druze
Related ethnic groups
Arabs · Arab Brazilians · Arab Americans · Arab Canadians · Arab Australians · Arab Spaniards · Arab Colombians

Arab Argentine refers to Argentine citizens or residents whose ancestry traces back to various waves of immigrants, largely of Arab ethnic, cultural and linguistic heritage and/or identity originating mainly from what is now Lebanon and Syria,[3] but also some individuals from the twenty-two countries which comprise the Arab world such as Palestine, Egypt and Morocco. Arab Argentines are one of the largest Arab diaspora groups in the world.

Although a highly diverse group of Argentines — in ancestral origins, religion and historic identities — Arab Argentines hold a common identity in the Argentine consciousness, being universally known as turcos ("Turks"),[4][5] like in the rest of Latin American countries.[6][7]

The majority of the Arab Argentines are from either Lebanese or Syrian background with a smaller amount of Palestinian, Egyptian and Moroccan background.[8] The interethnic marriage in the Arab community, regardless of religious affiliation, is very high; most community members have only one parent who has Arab ethnicity. As a result of this, the Arab community in Argentina shows marked language shift away from Arabic. Only a few speak any Arabic and such knowledge is often limited to a few basic words. Instead the majority, especially those of younger generations, speak Spanish as a first language, and have thoroughly assimilated in the local culture,[9] Arab Argentines have been a regular presence and distinguished themselves in all walks of national life on a par with the rest of the country's melting pot population.

  1. ^ "Inmigración sirio-libanesa en Argentina" (in Spanish). Fearab.org.ar. Archived from the original on 20 June 2010. Retrieved 13 April 2010.
  2. ^ Data vary widely among sources: 1,300,000 https://web.archive.org/web/20100606073714/http://www.islamhoy.org/principal/Latinoamerica/argentina/ciarla.htm Islamhoy] (c. 2001); 3,500,000 Inmigración sirio-libanesa en Argentina Archived 20 June 2010 at the Wayback Machine (uncertain, but more recent date)
  3. ^ Barros, Carolina (23 August 2012). "Argentina's Syrians". www.buenosairesherald.com. Retrieved 4 November 2016.
  4. ^ Klich, Ignacio; Lesser, Jeffrey (1996). "Introduction: "Turco" Immigrants in Latin America". The Americas. 53 (1): 1–14. doi:10.2307/1007471. ISSN 0003-1615. JSTOR 1007471.
  5. ^ Victoria (16 December 2018). "11 Essential Argentina Slang Expressions You Can Start Using". Spanishland School. Retrieved 13 August 2020.
  6. ^ Moore, Aaron; Mathewson, Kent (1 January 2013). "Latin America's Los Turcos: geographic aspects of Levantine and Maghreb diasporas". Noesis. Revista de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades. (in Spanish). 22 (43).
  7. ^ Civantos, Christina (5 February 2016). "The Surprisingly Deep Centuries-Old Ties Between the Middle East and Latin America". Americas Quarterly. Retrieved 13 August 2020.
  8. ^ "Sirios, turcos y libaneses" [Syrians, Turks and Lebanese] (in Spanish). oni.escuelas.edu.ar. Archived from the original on 11 December 2008.
  9. ^ Civantos, Christina (3 July 2019). "On Becoming an Arab Argentine Writer: Juan José Saer's La grande". Review: Literature and Arts of the Americas. 52 (2): 177–184. doi:10.1080/08905762.2019.1681768. ISSN 0890-5762. S2CID 213820380.