The street map below, which I saw on a downtown Buenos Aires signpost, captures the linguistic “Alice in Wonderland” vibe I experienced on my recent trip to Argentina . The VOS ‘you’ in the yellow box south of the Plaza de Mayo on the map was intended as a “You are here” location marker. However, as I explained in my previous post , voseo — the use of vos instead of standard Spanish tú — is a hallmark of Argentinian Spanish, as well as certain other Latin American dialects. So to me, this map told me that “
I was accustomed to seeing vos and its associated verb forms in Latin American novels, but spotting and hearing them ‘in the wild’ was a real thrill throughout my trip. As soon as I arrived at Buenos Aires’s Ezeiza airport I saw posters like the ones below, whose vos command forms tell the traveler to ‘connect yourself’ with WiFi, and ‘tempt yourself’ with the airport’s delicious food.
Later in my trip I was tickled pink to glimpse this large “VOS” featured on a branch office of the insurance company “La Segunda.” (I snapped this cell phone picture through a taxi window, hence the funny angle.) Its slogan Lo primero sos vos ‘You are first’ tells customers that they are the company’s top priority.