WHERE DOES THE EXPRESSION "QUILOMBO" COME FROM?

We cannot deny that the word "Quilombo" is part of the popular heritage and in our vocabulary. Obviously, like many words or expressions, we say them and we don't know where they come from. Let's see then how this word arises in the Argentines;

When a foreigner arrives in Argentina, he or she comes across a word: quilombo. What is a quilombo in Argentina? What does this popular term mean?
It is one of the most commonly used terms in the streets of Buenos Aires and throughout Argentina. However, its origin and provenance is a real mystery for the vast majority of Argentines. We tell you where the word quilombo comes from and what this popular term means to us.
It is one of those words so common in urban jargon that its semantics are almost incomprehensible... Beyond its etymology, the word is nowadays used to express a large number of ideas which, although they are somewhat similar, will mean different things depending on the intention of the person pronouncing it.

Generally in Argentina, someone refers to a situation as a "quilombo" because there is a conflict, a problem that is difficult to solve and which in turn generates more chaos.
In Argentina nobody says "the traffic is chaos": at a popular level, the plainest and clearest thing for everyone to say is "the traffic is a mess". The same thing happens when the national political climate becomes dense: obviously ... "es un quilombo" (it's a mess).

However, for a long time, Argentines also used this term to refer to brothels, in this case taking on almost a representative entity. Going to a quilombo literally meant going to a house where prostitution took place.

But to make things a little more complex, the word quilombo also has a positive meaning among its interpretations. For example, when a party or a meeting is fun because there are a lot of people, it is said that "this party is a quilombo".

The word is undoubtedly one of the most important words in Argentine lunfardo. Lunfardo is one of the most notable characteristics of the speech of the inhabitants of Buenos Aires, originally linked to tango lyrics but which emerged from the arrival of millions of immigrants to the Río de la Plata at the beginning of the 20th century.
The largest number of foreigners came from Italy and Spain, although there were immigrants from all over Europe. Each arrived with his or her own language and, while learning Spanish with difficulty, came into contact with other immigrants who spoke different languages and even dialects within their own.

The newly arrived immigrants settled in the now famous tenement houses where they lived with the lower classes of the city. It was there that these language exchanges took place: Italian and confusions were mixed with the gaucho, aboriginal and African words that were already in use.
But why does this word have the meaning of a mess, a racket, a complicated situation? Quilombo comes from kilombo, a term from the Kimbundu language spoken in Angola. In colonial times in Latin America, the term was used to refer to the place where black slaves gathered.

"Quilombo'' then originally refers to the settlement of people who fled from slavery, namely in Brazil, sites where runaway slaves who gained freedom, escaping from the plantations they were condemned to work on by the Portuguese colonisers, settled for almost 200 years.

There, the freedmen were joined by their descendants, indigenous people, as well as all kinds of outlaws and fugitives from Portuguese justice of all races and conditions, reaching in some cases, as in the case of Quilombo de los Palmares (state of Alagoas, Brazil), almost 20,000 inhabitants and a fortified perimeter of 6 km.

Fortunately, language, a living element of human culture, modifies words as it pleases, like the adaptable communication tool that it is. Thus, ''quilombo'', in Spanish, came to be synonymous with an outlawed, expatriate and - for some - problematic place, and nowadays it has come to mean all these things that we Argentines express.

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