gringo

Forms

gringo m (plural gringos, feminine gringa, feminine plural gringas)^[1]

Etymology

It is generally explained as an alteration from Spanish griego (“Greek; unintelligible language”), used first of a foreign language and then of the person who spoke it.^[2][3][4][1] The Academy's dictionary calls the origin disputed.^[5] Spaniards had long used griego for speech they could not understand, as when Cervantes in 1615 pairs speaking Greek with jerigonza (“gibberish”), and Corominas connects this with the habit of naming Greek next to Latin and with the Church's view that Greek was not needed for Catholic learning.^[2][3] The Latin form behind it is Latin Graecus, from Ancient Greek Γραικός (Graikós).^[6]

Corominas sees two steps: *grigo, an ordinary Spanish reduction of the diphthong (as in prisa), though not attested in this word, and then the inserted /n/, which he does not take as a regular sound change but as an imitation of the velar /ŋ/ heard in foreign languages such as English, with its ending -ing and words like English drink.^[2] He agrees with Spitzer in comparing French gringotter (“to hum, warble”), recorded by Oudin in 1616, and adds that Spanish words of the same shape such as ringo-rango may have helped.^[2] Wiktionary also mentions possible influence from peregrino (“pilgrim”).^[1] Bénaben finds this derivation likely and one from the English phrase “green, go” far less likely.^[7] The Spanish Wiktionary rejects the tales of a cry “green go!” aimed at American soldiers, since the word is recorded in Spain in the 18th century, and calls an origin from the word for gibberish unlikely.^[8] Etymonline also rejects the story of Mexicans mishearing soldiers singing “Green Grow the Rushes”.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Terreros's dictionary, written between 1765 and 1783: in Málaga gringos were foreigners whose accent kept them from speaking Castilian easily, and in Madrid the name was given in particular to the Irish.^[2][3][10] The word thus named people from the start, though it was formed on the name of a language.^[3]

Semantic evolution

In Spain the word was used mostly of language: cantar en gringo in Bretón de los Herreros, ¿hablo yo latín o gringo? in Antonio Flores.^[2] The Academy entered it in 1884 only as a synonym of griego in the phrase hablar en gringo, “to speak unintelligibly”.^[11][12] Salvá in 1846 already gave the sense of a person who speaks a foreign language, and noted that in South America the common people called all foreigners so, especially Italians.^[13]

In the Americas the word was applied to people everywhere, with local specialisations: in Argentina often Italians, in Mexico only Americans of the United States.^[2][14] Granada wrote in 1890 that in the River Plate it meant any foreigner whose speech differed from Castilian, never a Spaniard, Brazilian or Portuguese.^[15] In Lima it meant an English man or woman.^[16] In Chile it was a nickname for the English.^[14] Today the Academy gives “foreigner, especially an English speaker”, “American of the United States” in much of Latin America, “Englishman” and “Russian” in Uruguay, and “fair-haired, fair-skinned person” in Bolivia, Honduras, Nicaragua and Peru.^[5] In the pampas it could also mean “clumsy, unskilled”, from the foreigner's poor handling of farm work.^[2]

English took the word as English gringo by 1841, in a Chilean context; an English novel of 1831 by Telesforo de Trueba y Cosío already has an Irish character named O'Gringo.^[9]

Timeline

• 1615 – Cervantes uses hablar en griego for speech the hearers cannot understand.^[2][3]
• 1765–1783 – Terreros records gringos for foreigners in Málaga and the Irish in Madrid.^[2][3]
• 1831 – the English novel of Telesforo de Trueba y Cosío names an Irish character O'Gringo.^[9]
• 1845 – first record from the Americas, in Uruguay.^[17]
• 1846 – Salvá defines it as a nickname for a speaker of a foreign language.^[13]
• 1856 – recorded in Lima; 1862 in Chile, of the English.^[17]
• 1884 – the Academy enters it, only in the phrase hablar en gringo.^[11]
• 1917 – Alemany adds the American sense, a foreigner whose language is not Castilian.^[18]

Meanings

Adjective

1. (colloquial, sometimes derogatory) foreign, especially English-speaking; also as a noun, a foreigner who does not speak Spanish: Llegó un grupo de gringos al pueblo.^[5][19]
2. (colloquial) Of a language: foreign.^[5]
3. (much of Latin America) American, from the United States; also as a noun.^[5][20][1]
4. (Uruguay) English;^[1] Russian.^[5]

Noun

1. (Bolivia, Honduras, Nicaragua, Peru) A fair-haired, fair-skinned person.^[5][1]
2. (colloquial) Unintelligible language, as in hablar en gringo.^[21][19]

Word family

• agringar
• engringarse

Related words

• griego
• greguería
• English gringo

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 211
3. ^ a b c d e f Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. gringo
4. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 336
5. ^ a b c d e f g Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. gringo
6. ^ Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. griego
7. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. gringo
8. ^ Wikcionario (Spanish Wiktionary), es.wiktionary.org
9. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
10. ^ García Icazbalceta, Joaquín (1899), Vocabulario de mexicanismos comprobado con ejemplos y comparado con los de otros países hispano-americanos, México: La Europea
11. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 542
12. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 504
13. ^ a b Salvá, Vicente (1846), Nuevo diccionario de la lengua castellana, París: Librería de Don Vicente Salvá, p. 563
14. ^ a b Friederici, Georg (1947), Amerikanistisches Wörterbuch, Hamburg: Cram, de Gruyter, p. 263
15. ^ Granada, Daniel (1890), Vocabulario rioplatense razonado, 2nd ed., Montevideo: Imprenta Rural, p. 225
16. ^ Arona, Juan de [Pedro Paz Soldán y Unanue] (1883), Diccionario de peruanismos, Lima: J. Francisco Solís, p. 251
17. ^ a b Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, p. s.v. gringo
18. ^ Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 851
19. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. gringo
20. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. gringo, ga
21. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. gringo