Where di the latin phrase for 'GRINGO' come from ?

Question

LAtins refer to most Americans as gringos.
My father told me this :

A long long time ago, Mexicans saw american soldiers in their unfirom, so the shouted ' GREEN GO" GREEN GO'

Is this true?

;o

Answer 1

How did the term "gringo" originate?

:
We had always assumed that it was simply a Spanish word meaning "a pesky European settler," but once we looked into the matter, it turned out that things weren't quite so cut and dried.

After entering the phrase "gringo origin" into the Yahoo! search box and clicking on some of the web page matches, we uncovered a controversy over the word's history.

It seems that many amateur etymologists believe the term comes from a song sung by American frontiersmen ("Green Grow the Rushes" or possibly "Green Grow the Lilacs") during the Mexican-American War. You can find details of this theory at a page hosted by Clan Sinclair, along with the lyrics to both songs.

A second theory postulates that American troops, during that same war, wore green uniforms and were taunted with cries of "Green go!" Frankly, we found that one hard to swallow. Thankfully, most of the sites we consulted viewed this idea with a healthy dose of skepticism.

One such site, a question-and-answer column called The Word Detective, offers a more compelling explanation of "gringo" and its origin. The detective says, "The most likely source of 'gringo' is the Spanish word 'gringo' itself, which means 'foreigner' or 'unintelligible gibberish.' The root of 'gringo,' in turn, is thought to have been 'griego,' Spanish for 'Greek,' often applied as slang to any foreigner."

Further research led us to conclude that this last theory is the most likely. The Word Wizard concurs wholeheartedly with the Word Detective, offering "griego" as the immediate root of "gringo."

Finally, we located a comprehensive article from Honduras This Week that outlines the long history of the term predating the Mexican-Amercian conflict. As far as we're concerned, it firmly places the far-fetched theories of overheard singing and anti-American sloganeering into the category of "urban myth," where they surely belong.

Answer 2

Green coat = Gringo. Broken English.

Answer 3

The Spanish etymologist Joan Corominas states that gringo is derived from griego[1] (Spanish for "Greek"), the proverbial name for an unintelligible language (a usage found also in the Shakespearean "it was Greek to me" and its derivative "It's all Greek to me"). From referring simply to language, it was extended to people speaking foreign tongues and to their physical features - similar to the development of the ancient Greek word βάρβαρος (bárbaros) - "Barbarian". Lots more on the subject at the site l listed as the source

Answer 4

gringo

NOUN:
Offensive Slang pl. gringos

Used as a disparaging term for a foreigner in Latin America, especially an American or English person.

ETYMOLOGY:
Spanish, foreign, foreign language, gibberish, probably alteration of griego, Greek, from Latin Graecus ; see Greek

WORD HISTORY:
In Latin America the word gringo is an offensive term for a foreigner, particularly an American or English person. But the word existed in Spanish before this particular sense came into being. In fact, gringo may be an alteration of the word griego, the Spanish development of Latin Graecus, "Greek." Griego first meant "Greek, Grecian," as an adjective and "Greek, Greek language," as a noun. The saying "It's Greek to me" exists in Spanish, as it does in English, and helps us understand why griego came to mean "unintelligible language" and perhaps, by further extension of this idea, "stranger, that is, one who speaks a foreign language." The altered form gringo lost touch with Greek but has the senses "unintelligible language," "foreigner, especially an English person," and in Latin America, "North American or Britisher." Its first recorded English use (1849) is in John Woodhouse Audubon's Western Journal: "We were hooted and shouted at as we passed through, and called 'Gringoes.'"

Answer 5

Because gringo means 'white man' in Spanish slang.
Gringa means 'white woman'
I've never heard of that story, but I do know my Espanol.

Where I live, there's this restaurant call' Los Gringos Locos', meaning the crazy white men. I'm not kidding.

;)

Answer 6

Gringo is sland for white person in Mexican.....well thats what the guys who work with me say it means! Gringo is male and Gringa is female.

Answer 7

Semper Fidelis

Answer 8

Spain

Answer 9

yes this is the source of this. its not seen as an insult in many countries. its also interchangable with white people

Answer 10

http://ask.yahoo.com/ask/20000821.html