"Argentine" or "Argentinian"? (and why I stand by what I said about El Ratoncito Pérez)

Ajouté : 2026-05-25

[00:00:00]Good morning. I'm about to go and do the German C1 exam. So, hopefully Hopefully kann ich das bestehen, but I have just enough time to make a video before that. And I want to make two I don't know if clarifications is the right word, but share two interesting things as a follow-up to the Ratoncito Pérez video, which I know was quite a while ago, but I have actually more things more things to add to it than I can fit in one video. I'm hoping to make a really detailed video about what I've learned about the law surrounding El Ratoncito Pérez.

[00:00:37]Um but for now, I want to respond to not the law, but two really specific um I guess linguistic two really specific like corrections that people made in the comments. Unlike the ones I was talking about in the U video, I don't think these corrections are entirely correct, and that's what's so interesting and I'd like to talk about that. So, the first one was Argentine, not Argentinian.

[00:01:04]And my first thought was, "Oh, maybe maybe they're right. Maybe I messed up by titling it Argentinian." But I was like, "I'm also fairly sure I have heard both words from English speakers my whole life."

[00:01:17]But I looked this up to be sure and I found a few different sources and basically all of them say there's no official guidance on which of those two terms is correct in the English language to refer to people from the country Argentina. The AP Style Guide, for example, has no official guidance on this. No official rule.

[00:01:35]Now, some people prefer the term Argentine partly because it's older, it's been used longer, and partly because it's more similar to the Spanish Argentina or Argentina. However, the articles I have read at least also acknowledge that the term Argentinian comes more naturally to some English speakers because the ending of it sounds more similar to the endings of other adjectives to describe nationalities like Brazilian or Colombian or Palestinian, for example.

[00:02:05]All of these end with -inian, and so it sounds kind of just consistent in our minds to a lot of English speakers to call it Argentinian, as well. I also just think the word kind of sounds cute, you know? Argentinian, especially when you're talking about a mouse, it's like Argentinian. I don't know, it just has a certain like pizzazz to it. Also, hi. Uh I'm recording this last little bonus point on another day because I forgot to mention when I was recording whatever you've just seen that I've also seen a YouTube channel run by someone from Argentina, which is called Argentinian Spanish with Gaja. So, it's not just stupid British people that sometimes use the word Argentinian. It's also Argentinian {slash} Argentine people, too. I'm mentioning this A cuz it's interesting and B cuz it's a fantastic channel that deserves a shout-out. A second comment also related to to the word Argentinian in the title, but criticizing a different aspect of it or criticizing it for a different reason, actually, is someone was arguing that El Ratoncito Pérez is not an Argentinian mouse, and so I was wrong to call him such.

[00:03:10]Which this is a bit more justified, I think. Like, I it's partly correct, and I don't want to get too much into the Ratoncito Pérez lore that I'm saving for a big awesome video, but it is true that the name Ratoncito Pérez first appeared in a story written in Spain in the 1870s, and the story about him collecting teeth was also first appeared in Spain, I think in the 1890s.

[00:03:40]But, I still kind of stand by my title, and here's why.

[00:03:46]The portrayal of El Ratoncito Pérez that I was obsessed with at the time I made that video It was the specific portrayal of him in an Argentine Spanish film. But yes, the film I was talking about was produced at least partly in Argentina.

[00:04:02]And so in my mind, the portrayal the specific version the incarnation of El Ratón Pérez that I was talking about and that I was obsessed with and that I titled the video in reference to was the incarnation of him in that partly Argentinian film.

[00:04:19]Would it have been a just as correct, maybe even more correct to call him a Spanish mouse?

[00:04:25]I guess, but then you could also have made the criticism, well, he's culturally relevant. He's a known mythical figure in all Spanish-speaking countries. So maybe the only truly accurate title would have been, I'm obsessed with a mythical mouse who is culturally relevant and recognized in a wide variety of Spanish-speaking countries. But that wouldn't have been as snappy a title. I hope you understand. Oh, also one final point is that this this is a completely valid correction. All of the people who pointed this out, I sta- I I stand corrected. The version of the film that I was watching on YouTube was not in Argentine Spanish or with Argentine accents.

[00:05:10]It was Although the original film was the version that was uploaded to YouTube is dubbed with neutral Latin American, which I mean, that in itself is like a whole can of worms because it's debatable what it means to be a neutral form of a language, but it is true that I was not listening to Argentine accents. I thought I was partly because when my supervisor in the lab told me about this video, she was like, "Oh, but you'll find it really hard to understand because it's all in Argentinian."

[00:05:40]So and at the time I made the video, I'd only watched like the first 15 minutes of it. So I kind of just took her word for it.

[00:05:46]But, yes, I now recognize it was not Argentinian Spanish that I was listening to. But, I stand by calling him an Argentinian mouse.