Uruguay Culture & Language

Mate is carried, not served. Uruguayans drink more of it per head than anyone on earth, and the sight is unmistakable: a gourd in one hand, a thermos tucked under the same arm, walking down the street. Uruguayan mate is unsweetened and the gourd is larger than the Argentine version. It is shared — one gourd, one bombilla, passed round — and as elsewhere, saying gracias means you have finished, not that you are being polite.

Asado is the other institution. Beef cooked slowly over wood embers, never gas, at a parrilla, with sweetbreads, chorizo and morcilla — including the sweet version made with orange peel and walnuts — before the beef arrives. Uruguay competes with Argentina for the highest beef consumption per person in the world. The chivito, a steak sandwich built with ham, cheese, bacon, egg and salad, is the national fast food.

Carnival runs about forty days, the longest anywhere, on two tracks. Candombe is Afro-Uruguayan drumming descended from the enslaved population, played on three drums of different pitch, and its Las Llamadas parade through Barrio Sur and Barrio Palermo is recognised by UNESCO. Murga is the other half — choral companies in painted faces performing sharp political satire nightly on neighbourhood stages called tablados, a form that survived the dictatorship by saying things nobody else could.

Tango is shared with Buenos Aires and Uruguay makes one specific claim within it: La Cumparsita, the most recorded tango ever written, was composed in Montevideo in 1917 and is officially the country's cultural anthem.

Football is a national identity rather than a pastime. Uruguay won the first World Cup in 1930, hosted at the purpose-built Estadio Centenario, and again in 1950 with the Maracanazo that silenced Rio. The four stars on the shirt count the two Olympic titles of the 1920s as well.

Socially the country is informal, quiet and undemonstrative — Uruguayans are markedly less voluble than their neighbours and rather enjoy the contrast.

Spanish is the language, in its Rioplatense form, shared with Buenos Aires. Two features define it: vos instead of tú, with its own verb endings, and the pronunciation of ll and y as a "sh" sound, so calle is "cashe" and yo is "sho". Standard Spanish is understood perfectly.

English is common in Montevideo, Punta del Este and tourism generally, and thinner in the interior.

Italian immigration left a permanent mark on the vocabulary and on the gestures, many of which are Italian rather than Spanish.

Worth having: bo (the all-purpose "hey" — the most Uruguayan word there is), ta (okay, right, fine), championes (trainers), ómnibus (bus), bizcochos (the pastries eaten with mate), salado (impressive), ni ahí (no chance).

Along the Brazilian border, people speak Portuñol — a genuine mixed Portuguese-Spanish variety, now formally recognised, and not a joke about bad Spanish.