The tango as a musical genre is a good example of various cultural and social encounters. I will discuss the tango constructing semiosis (act of signification) of an encounter of signs and sign systems in various semiospheres (cultural spaces, Lotman 1990) as cultural heritage and living culture as a local and global phenomenon. In 2009, the tango as a Río de la Plata’s expression was inscribed on UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. The Argentinian and Uruguayan tradition of the tango since the end of 19th century, now world music, was developed from many sources (cf. Castro 1991; Collier et al. 1995). The expression of this local identity, the music, dance and poetry of tango both embodies and encourages diversity and cultural dialogue. The local (a geographical area) becomes global (various geographical areas) and are rooted in a local culture, something that happened in Europe, especially in Finland (cultural relocation, cf. Kukkonen [1996] 2003, 2000). I will also discuss some signs and sign systems of the tango, especially tango lyrics in order to show similarities and differences. The concept of chronotopos ‘time and place’ is central (Bakhtin 1981); the beginning of urbanisation, the cultural and socio-semiotic processes, from the last decades of 19th century in South America and in Europe, is manifested in the tango as history, culture, communication, and language. Culture in semiospheres (Lotman 1990), that is, semiotizing, semiotic translation, is to translate, to interpret and to understand the own and the other culture. Tango lyrics as discourses mediate meanings and significations (semiosis) in that they carry cultural memory and heritage. According to Lotman (1990), the main point is the interaction between different semiotic systems, the irregularities of the semiotic space, semiosphere, showing various borderlines. The tango is a manifestation of multicultural and multilingual practices, the idea of language as dialogue and discursive plurality, cultural diversity, polyphony, and intertextuality (cf. Bakhtin 1981). In cultural semiotics, the central task is to study sign systems and their mutual relations and function in culture. The wide concept of translation shows how translation transfers cultural heritage, promotes understanding, and self-understanding, and avoids misunderstanding between nations and cultures. References Bakhtin, Mihail M. 1981. The Dialogic Imagination. Four Essays. Ed. Michael Holquist. Trans. Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist. Austin: University of Texas Press. Castro, Donald S. 1991. The Argentine Tango as Social History 1880–1955. The Soul of the People. Latin American Studies Volume 3. Lewiston, Queenstone, Lampeter: The Edwin Press. Collier, Simon & Cooper, Artemis & Azzi, María Susana & Martin, Richard 1995. ¡Tango! The Dance, the Song, the Story. Special photography by Ken Haast. London: Thames and Hudson Ltd. Jakobson, Roman 1959. ”On linguistic aspects of translation.” On Translation. Brower, Reuben A. Ed. Harvard Studies in Comparative Literature 23. 232–239. Kukkonen, Pirjo [1996] 2003: Tango Nostalgia – The Language of Love and Longing. Finnish Culture in Tango Lyrics Discourses – A Contrastive Semiotic and Cultural Approach to the Tango. 2nd revised edition. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. Kukkonen, Pirjo 2000. “El tango en Finlandia.” El tango nómade. Ensayos sobre la diáspora del tango. Compilador Ramón Pelinski. Buenos Aires: Ediciones Corrgidor. 279–308. Lotman, Yuri M. 1990. Universe of the Mind. A Semiotic Theory of Culture. Trans. by Anna Shukman. Introduction by Umberto Eco. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. UNESCO 2009. The tango. Intangible Cultural Heritages.