After my intellectual encounter with the works of Lorca, more precisely - "Romancero gitano" I fell inescapably down into the rabbithole of caló's linguistic influence on Spanish. From a linguistic point of view, caló is certainly a unique language, as it is characterized by diglossia (a social situation in which a linguistic community uses two varieties of one language/two different languages). It is almost paradoxically that the language that has been persecuted and banished for centuries still played a huge role in the development of castellano. What is even more interesting, the examples of caló influnce in vocabulary has touched not only Spain but also parts of Latin America.

Here are some examples of especially curious caló words that I have found in different sources across dictionaries and websites.

currar (trabajar, Esp.)

sandungueo (gracia con que baila/anda una persona, Cub.)

chamullar (hablarle a alguien con habilidad para lograr algo de él, Arg.)

chachi (esplendido, estupendo, excelente, Esp.)

chungo (malo, peligroso, difícil, Esp.)

chaval (niño, joven, Esp.)