The name of the city of Buenos Aires (pronounced [ˈbwe.nɔs ˈaj.ɾɛs]), the capital of Argentina, means "Good Air" or "Fair Winds" in Spanish. There are other places, mostly in the Americas, that go by the same name.
Sardinian origin
When the Aragonese conquered Cagliari, Sardinia from the Pisans in 1324, they established their headquarters on top of a hill that overlooked the city. The hill was known to them as Buen Ayre ("Bonaria" in the local language), as it was free of the foul smell prevalent in the old city (the Castle area).
During the siege of Cagliari, the Aragonese built a sanctuary to the Virgin Mary on the hill. In 1335, King Alfonso the Gentle donated the church to the Mercedarians, who built an abbey that stands to this day.
A miracle was soon connected to the site. The story goes that a statue of the Virgin Mary was retrieved from the sea after it miraculously helped to calm a storm in the Mediterranean Sea and placed in the abbey. Spanish sailors, especially those from Andalusia, venerated this image and frequently invoked the "Fair Winds" to aid them in navigation and to prevent shipwrecks. A sanctuary with the same name would be later erected in Seville [1].
In 1536, Spanish seaman Pedro de Mendoza established a fort and port in current-day San Telmo (slightly south of Buenos Aires city centre) and called it Santa María del Buen Aire ("Our Lady of the Fair Winds"). The city name was chosen by the chaplain of Mendoza's expedition, a devotee of the Bonaria Virgin. (Another version [2] says that one Leonardo Gribeo, that witnessed the original miracle, was on Mendoza's crew.)
Mendoza’s settlement soon came under attack by indigenous peoples, and was abandoned in 1541. A second (and permanent) settlement was established in 1580 by Juan de Garay, who sailed down the Paraná River from Asunción (now the capital of Paraguay). Garay preserved the name chosen by Mendoza, calling the city Ciudad de la Santísima Trinidad y Puerto de Santa María del Buen Aire ("City of the Most Holy Trinity and Port of Saint Mary of the Fair Winds"). The short form "Buenos Aires" became the common usage during the 17th century.
Demonyms
The inhabitants of the city are called "porteños" ("people of the port") to acknowledge the centrality of the port in the development of the city and the nation.
Since the city's federalisation in 1880, Buenos Aires proper includes the former cities of Belgrano and Flores; the resulting city was separated from Buenos Aires province. The inhabitants of the province are called "bonaerenses".
Most of the population of Greater Buenos Aires lives in the suburbs, which are part of the province. Depending on context, they may be called porteños, bonaerenses, or (more commonly) by the demonym of their town (e.g. quilmeño to refer to a person from Quilmes).
Formal and informal names
In the 1994 constitution, the city was given autonomy, hence its current formal name: Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires (Autonomous City of Buenos Aires).
To differentiate the city from the province of the same name, it is common to refer to the city as Capital Federal ("Federal Capital"). This name was used extensively in road signs, for postal addresses, and in everyday speech (shortened to Capital or even la Capi); its usage has somewhat diminished after the official 1994 name change.
The abbreviations Bs. As. and Baires are sometimes used, the first one mostly in writing and the second one in everyday speech. The abbreviation BUE gained currency since the 1990s.
The city is sometimes called la Reina del Plata ("Queen of the Plata") in a nod to its being the largest city in the Río de la Plata river basin, and to its position at the river’s estuary.
Some songs have given alternative names to Buenos Aires, such as Soda Stéreo's la ciudad de la furia ("city of fury"), or Fito Páez's ciudad de pobres corazones ("city of poor hearts"). The oft-used expression mi Buenos Aires querido ("my beloved Buenos Aires") is the name of both a song popularized by tango singer Carlos Gardel and an eponymous movie.
Because of its European influence, the city is sometimes referred to as "The Paris of the South".
Sometimes, the importance of Buenos Aires casts a heavy shadow over the rest of the country and impedes its development. This caused writer Ezequiel Martínez Estrada to refer to the city as la cabeza de Goliat ("Goliath's head").
External links
|
