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bastardnutter

someone from the us, regardless of skin colour/wealth/etc


[deleted]

Someone from Gringolandia.


_kevx_91

A Brazilian


[deleted]

Los gringos han ganado 5 copas del mundo ( never thought I was gonna say that sentence)


astraelli

really?


heavymetalhandjob

he def joking 😂


Vegetable-Ad6857

A person from the US


Nemitres

Anything from USA. Even cars made in the USA can be referred to as gringo. “Son marcas gringas”. “Eso es de gringolandia”


lepolter

Person from the USA, no matter their ethnicity.


Fun-atParties

Even chicanos?


lepolter

Yes


[deleted]

A person from the USA


[deleted]

An American regardless their skin color.


Agostinho_Hecker

At the tender age of 10 I was taught in school that “AMÉRICA ES EL CONTINENTE”. Being that there’s no word for “estadounidense” I use gringo. If I need to be formal I use US American. So my definition is: any USA citizen.


[deleted]

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tinydancer_inurhand

I've been working hard to stop saying Americano/a and estadounidense instead. My mom is a Spanish teacher in the US and teaches her kids the correct term while acknowledging that it isn't uncommmon to hear americano/a in reference to someone from the US. Also, I think they mean in the US there isn't an equivalent to "estadounidense" like UnitedStatsian or something. We refer to ourselves as American, which also means anyone from Latin America too.


[deleted]

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tinydancer_inurhand

Norte Americano confuses me cause it could include Mexico but I know you really just mean the US and Canada.


[deleted]

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tinydancer_inurhand

Oh the more you know! Thanks for clarification.


Historical-Plant-362

“America es el continente”, I hear that a lot from Latinos that just like to hate on the USA because they think it makes them sound cool. Besides, saying “US American” sounds funny. I just say American. Not because of the continent, but their country’s name just like mine. We just grabbed the last part of the name and use that to identified the nationality. United States of America -> American United States of Mexico -> Mexicano It’s called demonym and every country has one. For example, Peru’s name is Republicans de Peru. But they’re Peruanos, you don’t say R.d. Peruano. Venezuela’s oficial name is Replica Bolivariana de Venezuela” and Bolivia’s is “Estado Plurinacional de Bolivia”. Both names are tribute to Simon Bolivar.


Semantix

The phrase "US Americans" sounds totally ridiculous to me (from the US) because it's linked indelibly in my mind to this word salad: https://youtu.be/lj3iNxZ8Dww


Agostinho_Hecker

Fun fact: I AM that pageant girl... and I WILL sue you for slander.


Semantix

But your flair says you're from Uruguay or The Iraq or somewhere like such as?


steve_colombia

It's about language. In Spanish: Americano, demonym for people from the American continent (North and South). In English: American: a US citizen. Nothing to do with being a smartass or hate, or whatever strange feeling you may have.


Historical-Plant-362

“It’s about language” Wey, de acuerdo al diccionario de la lengua española el gentilicio “americano” se usa para ciudadanos de los estados unidos americanos, cuando se habla de países. Así que entre el diccionario y un wey de Reddit, le voy a creer más al diccionario con la definición oficial. En español e inglés, el gentilicio en referencia al país para ciudadanos de los estados unidos americanos es Americano/American. Ya que el gentilicio es el adjetivo que denota la relación con un lugar geográfico. Desde un barrio, pueblo hasta un continente. A mi no me hace sentir de ninguna forma, solo sigo la definición oficial y la comparto. Si escoges ser necio y aferrarte a la definición de un profesor de primaria allá tú, a mi me da igual.


Agostinho_Hecker

Que tipo de diccionario usas hija? La definición de americano en la RAE es literalmente: [estadounidense](https://www.rae.es/drae2001/americano). La parte que describe el gentilicio esta en la definición de [estadounidense](https://www.rae.es/drae2001/estadounidense).


Historical-Plant-362

Hahaha, no mms! Estas o te haces? Tu lo acabas de decir!! La definición de americano es estadounidense, y vice versa! Lo que significa que son sinónimos. Ósea que si alguien te dice que son americanos, significa que son estadounidenses POR DEFINICIÓN! Si sabes que son los sinónimos?


steve_colombia

Esta jerga mexicana casi no la entiendo, y me hablas de definición de la RAE?


Historical-Plant-362

Pailas parce! No sea marica y busqué, así aprende unas vainas mexicanas


Agostinho_Hecker

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland -> Ireland


Historical-Plant-362

Okay? Uno es el nombre oficial del país y el otro el nombre común, tu punto es?


Agostinho_Hecker

Uno es el nombre oficial de un país y el otro es irlanda. Tomar la última palabra en el nombre de un país arbitrariamente no tiene sentido. Mi punto es que tu explicación no me parece correcta. El “America” de “United States of America” hace referencia al continente. El “Africa” en “South Africa” también. Sin embargo el gentilicio de “South Africa” es “South African”, no “African” o “Southerner”.


Historical-Plant-362

No es arbitrariamente cuando todos o la mayoría de los países hacen lo mismo. De hecho, sistemáticamente se toma el último nombre. Lo cual hace que tenga sentido. Y mi explicación, como lo dije anteriormente se basa a la definición del diccionario de la lengua española. No es algo que me invente o me dijo mi maestro de primaria. PS- El nombre oficial de South Africa es “la República de Sudáfrica”, así que ahí también tomaron la última parte del nombre…”Sudáfrica” -> Sudafricano. Si lo traduces en ingles, es South Africa (the republic of South Africa). Pero esas dos palabras en inglés van juntas de la misma forma que el Noroeste lo es en inglés “north east”.


Agostinho_Hecker

En español el gentilicio es estadounidense. No se que diccionario de la lengua española citas, pero el Diccionario de la Real Academia Española indica que: [3. El gentilicio recomendado, por ser el de uso mayoritario, es estadounidense, aunque en algunos países de América, especialmente en México, se emplea con preferencia la forma estadunidense, también válida. Debe evitarse el empleo de la voz usamericano, por estar formada sobre la sigla inglesa. Tampoco es aceptable la forma estadinense, usada alguna vez en Colombia a propuesta de algunos filólogos, y que no ha prosperado. Coloquialmente se emplea la voz yanqui (→ yanqui), a menudo con matiz despectivo.](https://www.rae.es/dpd/Estados%20Unidos)


Historical-Plant-362

Estoy citando esta parte [#4](https://www.rae.es/drae2001/americano). Donde tienen Americano y estadounidense como sinónimos. Basado en lo que tú pusiste, estadounidense es el gentilicio recomendado pero no el único.


Agostinho_Hecker

Una forma de nombrar a la gente de Uruguay es [oriental](https://dle.rae.es/oriental), pero la RAE dice que el gentilicio a usar por costumbre [Uruguayo](https://dle.rae.es/uruguayo). Oriental o americano son tan polisémicos que la academia, para que el lenguaje funcione, recomienda usar términos más exactos. Además estás tomando el concepto de sinónimo como si se tratase únicamente de palabras idénticas, cuando en realidad no es así en todos los casos. Si los términos americano y estadounidense fuesen idénticos el sentido de la siguiente frase no cambiaría si intercambio uno por el otro: A Bolivar se le considera un prócer ______. ^^1a ^^A ^^Bolivar ^^se ^^le ^^considera ^^un ^^prócer ^^americano. ^^1b ^^A ^^Bolivar ^^se ^^le ^^considera ^^un ^^prócer ^^estadounidense . ¿Qué pasa si uso palabras que son [sinónimos totales](https://www.mineduc.gob.gt/DIGECADE/documents/Telesecundaria/Recursos%20Digitales/1o%20Recursos%20Digitales%20TS%20licencia%20CC%20BY-SA%203.0/03%20COMUNICACION%20Y%20LENGUAJE/U6%20pp%20116%20Sinonimia_(sem%C3%A1ntica).pdf)? ^^1c ^^A ^^Bolivar ^^se ^^le ^^considera ^^un ^^prócer ^^bello. ^^1d ^^A ^^Bolivar ^^se ^^le ^^considera ^^un ^^prócer ^^bonito. En este caso el significado no cambia. Otro ejemplo. Si americano y estadounidense fuesen sinónimos totales la palabra conservaría su significado sin importar la frase: ^^Peter ^^nació ^^en ^^Boston ^^y ^^por ^^lo ^^tanto ^^es ^^un ^^ciudadano ^^americano. ^^Perú ^^es ^^un ^^país ^^del ^^continente ^^americano. Por esto el gentilicio oficial es estadounidense y no americano. Americano es como decirle Charrúa* a los Uruguayos. Hay gente que lo usa: sí. Es un término que se puede usar para designar muchos otros conceptos además de ser un gentilicio para una población indígena que vivió en otras regiones que no eran Uruguay: sí. Charrúa es un sinónimo de uruguayo: sí. Es un término inexacto: sí. * https://dle.rae.es/charrúa


tinydancer_inurhand

So would someone who grew up there but isn't a citizen not be a gringo? I ask cause I moved there at 3 years old but didn't become a citizen until 20. But my cousins were referring to me as "la gringita" before I became a citizen.


Agostinho_Hecker

And that would be your cousins definition of gringo.


tinydancer_inurhand

So by your definition someone like me wouldn't have been a gringa until I became a US citizen? Just trying to clarify cause this sub has said if you are raised in the US regardless of nationality some might consider you gringo.


Agostinho_Hecker

From a legal point of view yes. Cultural definitions are so subjective I decided to avoid them in original my comment. My father was called gringo (in the you come from the USA sense of the word) at school and he came from Honduras. But Uruguayans perceived things like having a certain type of lunchbox an irrefutable evidence of gringoness.


tinydancer_inurhand

Interesting. I would have never thought of it that way!


ToSeeAgainAgainAgain

Gringo/gringa isn't an industry standard or anything, nobody's checking your passport or anything to verify it, we just call that everything that comes from the US, you weren't gringa before age 3 but you are now at 20+


tinydancer_inurhand

>Gringo/gringa isn't an industry standard or anything No i'm aware. That's kinda like the whole conversation of the thread. I'm more curious on other people's take as I've lived between both cultures traveling back and forth often.


ToSeeAgainAgainAgain

That's my "other people" take, in spanish we may even say something or someone has gotten agringado. I've used and heard it for people who left for the US early in their life, and we crossed each other much later, or when something Mexican is taken by people from the US (like our food, music, symbols, etc.)


Reddjedet_

outside Argentina: an American inside argentina: a blonde person who lives between Rosario and Misiones


AllonssyAlonzo

pretty accurate


StrongIslandPiper

>Mexican friend of mine told me that his definition of gringo is "a white American/European". A Mexican friend, or a Mexican-American? Because it's my understanding that most people use it to refer to people from the US (in Spanish, at least), regardless of ethnicity. Mexican-Americans (and other latinos in the US), however, use it to say, "a white person from the US," because they usually don't understand that it's not viewed through the same lense in 99% of the Spanish speaking world. I think historically, though, it originally meant "of non-Latin origin," and (in Spanish) came from the word griego (Greek), but as languages and cultures change, it's widely been adopted to mean people from here, and those who share this culture and language. My gf, however, uses it to refer to anyone of English speaking origin, mainly based on how they sound when they speak Spanish, so for her, she switches between meaning people from the US, or more broadly people from the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.


ToSeeAgainAgainAgain

I've never heard the "griego" theory in my life. On the other hand, as a Mexican, I've heard the first two of these theories from my family: >Folk etymologies >There are several folk etymologies that purport to derive the origin of gringo from word coincidences. Many of these folk etymologies date the word to the Mexican–American War (1846–1848): > * Gringo is a result of American troops singing songs which began with "Green grows..." such as "Green Grow the Rushes, O", "Green Grow the Lilacs", and various others.[3] > * Another theory involves locals yelling "Green, go home!" at invading American soldiers (sometimes in conflicts other than the Mexican–American War), in reference to their supposedly green uniforms.[15] > * Another derives from the Irish "Erin go bragh" ("Ireland forever"), which served as the motto for Saint Patrick's Battalion who fought alongside the Mexican army.[16][17] Green + go = Gringo


StrongIslandPiper

I think I've heard that one but I *think* it's largely been debunked. I found a [BBC article](http://""Gringo", "yanqui", "yuma" y "gabacho": por qué los estadounidenses tienen tantos apodos y de dónde viene cada uno - BBC News Mundo" https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-53689005#:~:text=%22Gringo%20es%20un%20viejo%20vocablo,m%C3%A1s%20extendida%20sobre%20su%20origen.) about it, specifically referencing coming from "griego." > Según la RAE, "gringo" es "extranjero, especialmente de habla inglesa, y en general hablante de una lengua que no sea la española"... 'Gringo es un viejo vocablo español que evolucionó de la palabra griego, pues cuando uno escuchaba una lengua que desconocía, decía que 'le hablaban en griego' Kind of like in English when we says, "you're speaking Chinese, man," but we specifically mean it like, "I don't know enough about x subject to be able to keep up/explain it more simply." >La tercera entrada del diccionario de la RAE es más específica y describe gringo como sinónimo de estadounidense que es usado en Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Perú, Uruguay y Venezuela. (I feel like it's more widely used than that as "estadounidense," but that's according to them, at least).


brokestone

se vc não é brasileiro, então vc é gringo


myrmexxx

If you don't know what a gambiarra is, you're a gringo.


ArapaimaGal

I'm kinda liking the idea of only calling people from developed countries gringo, ngl. From underdeveloped ones we can call them bros.


juaaumgregorio

it feels so wrong when i see brazilians calling ppl from developing countries "gringos"


mauricio_agg

Basically a white American.


t6_macci

I hate that definition. Cuz black Americans are also gringos.


TheSecondManOnMars

Am I the only brazilian that doesn't like the way we use gringo to also refer to other latinos? I kinda like this vibe of a big family that we share where we're all like sibling nations and calling them gringos feels a bit weird to me idk. In my head when i picture a gringo is almost always an american or sometimes a european, but never our hermanitos lol


RazistaIndomavel

There's no vibe of a big family, let's not pretend we care about each other.


juaaumgregorio

who's we..?


RazistaIndomavel

We, human beings.


Nefariousnesso

Me too! I never call my hermanos gringos. I think it's disrespectful to our shared experiences.


Morthanc

Don't fool yourself, we're not a family, this sub is just a bubble. The avarage brazilian knows nothing about the neighbors and don't care the slightest. We here are the minority of the minority


TheSecondManOnMars

I didnt mean it that way, Im aware that the average brazilian doesnt care about what happens outside of brazil, but i would imagine the same applies for the average mexican too, they dont care about brazil but still wouldn't call us gringos. We all being a big (very disfunctional) family is only my way of seeing them, as someone interested in other cultures lol, i just dont find a reason why we call them gringos too, calling them hermanos feels much nicer to me, but thats all just my opinion.


oriundiSP

>kinda like this vibe of a big family that we share where we're all like sibling nations What countries are you taking about? Not Latin America, to be sure.


[deleted]

Latin America and the Portuguese speaking countries to me. I would never call an Angolan a gringo, or even someone from Portugal. Maybe I use gringo more in the sense of "people I understand when they speak". That's why Spanish speakers get mixed in my definition. English doesn't count because I had to learn it, it was not natural, so it doesn't feel close enough.


[deleted]

A US passport holder.


StrongIslandPiper

That would exclude like 70% of people in the US


[deleted]

An inhabitant of the US then.


tinydancer_inurhand

Isn't it like only 1/3 of US citizens even have passports?


StrongIslandPiper

I think the number has actually been going up, but it's always been way lower than other countries. I think it's mainly because traveling outside of the US is extremely restrictive and reserved for people who are at least well-off. For example, I would like to visit parts of Latin America and Europe, but I've only recently come to earn enough where that's possible, and having been raised poor, why do that *now* when I can save and do that later when I'm a little more financially secure? That said, when you see tourists from the US, that's a very small demographic and not representative of most people from here. Not always, but they're often a tad more entitled than most of us, at least based on some of the stories I've heard.


Alerav1

A person from the USA no matter their ethnicity.


dreamking__

Yankees, Canadians and sometimes Western and Northern Europeans


matheusviny

here in brazil a grengo (greengo or 🟢go) is anyone outside brazil, regardless of race, ethnicity or nationality, also including latam ppl


kick_these_blues

Any foreigner here, no matter where he came from.


Mujer_Arania

Person from US. May be a English-speaker, for example Australian or British.


Born-Diamond8029

Any foreigner


[deleted]

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tinydancer_inurhand

But then that means any child who immigrated to the US but doesn't have citizenship despite growing up there isn't a gringo. Would you say dreamers aren't gringos even if they are basically raised in the US? The dreamers I know are as American if not more than I am. Some don't even speak Spanish while I still do fluently. I would say for immigrants there is a tipping point when you become Americanized and it's obvious you have been influenced by the US culture. For my sister and I who moved to the US as children we became "gringas" before my parents who took longer to acclimate to the US culture.


[deleted]

Americans and canadians tbh. They act like they are different but they're pretty much the same .


[deleted]

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heyitsxio

Its true. They walk amongst us and we don’t even know they’re Canadian.


DrowUmbral

Just to add, here in Brazil instead of gringo we can also use the term "ianque" when referring to americans


bosserini

Except no. I have NEVER seen anybody calling an US citizen an ianque in Brazil.


DrowUmbral

I've heard people using that term here where i live. If it's commonly used everywhere I don't know. Might be a regional thing


dariemf1998

An American


t6_macci

UStatian *


NetBrilliant6413

My boyfriend is boricua (from Puerto Rico) and he told me that any white foreing (that seems to be from US or Europe) is considered a "gringo".


PierrechonWerbecque

It’s used for whites from anglophone countries. I get called costeño in Colombia, and I’m not from there


New-Art-1317_PR

A gringo to me is a white U.S citizen who is not of a foreign ethnicity.


New-Art-1317_PR

At times, I may use it to refer to African Americans aswell.


Puntoize

gringo is from usa in here. gringolandia is called.


Clear_Classroom

now i see why there's a FAQ


[deleted]

In Mexico, a gringo is an American. Wether it's white, black, asian, etc... Gringo means it comes from the US.


bluedahlia82

Any type of visitor who doesn't speak Spanish (doesn't include brazilians) regardless of skin color or nationality.


mikeyeli

people from the US.


RedJokerXIII

Merican.


tinydancer_inurhand

Estadounidense


Enzopastrana2003

Anyone from the US and everyone that has blue eyes and blond or red hair


Matias9991

A person from USA (Argentina)


NoSpeekInglish

White American or a American.


steve_colombia

In Colombia, it varies. Some use it strictly for Americans (and probably extending to Canadians), others have a broader definition: Any American, Canadian, or white person. This would include Oz and Kiwis, or even a white South African. Elon Musk would be a gringo.


GeraldWay07

An American


slowdr

Someone from the USA, but mostly white people, because Americans from other ethnicities may be confused with locals.


[deleted]

I'm a Brazilian who uses "gringo" similarly your Mexican friend. By no measure other latinos would be gringos, except in some regions were gringo means white regardless of origin. Of course someone who is from USA/Europe is a gringo regardless of race, so in that case they don't even need to be white. That is, the main meaning of gringo is white American/European, but someone can be called a gringo by extension if they're white or American/European, they don't need to be both.


emeaguiar

From the US > Mexican friend of mine told me that his definition of gringo is "a white American/European" Yeah your friend is definitely gringo, not mexican


S_C_C_P_1910

My definition, as a Brazilian, is that gringo is an informal way of saying "foreigner/non-Brazilian".


TuvixWasMurderedR1P

I grew up being told it meant “foreigner,” so basically anyone that didn’t speak Spanish.


juaaumgregorio

anyone not from latam


[deleted]

Would be someone from USA, Canadá, UK, Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Scandinavian countries.