I bet your mother never said "Hey, man..."Â ;-)
Going from the Spanish use of "hombre" to the American colloquial use of "man" is quite a stretch IMO.
What's Spanish for "dude?"Â ;-)
Nill
~~
www.toulme.net
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For some unknown reason, my original reply to you has just vanished and another thread appeared on the screen. I shall try to get back to where I was.
Nill, it was my mother who was bi-lingual. Though I´ve lived in Spain for ages it doesn´t mean that I have managed to enter the world of the truly young native! In fact, at my age it would be embarrassing to try and totally destined for failure.
Dude in Spanish. Well, I have heard several different forms of address but they seem to consist of only señor, chico, muchacho, hombre and that´s about all I can summon up. The term for smartass is sometimes listo, which normally means ready - not difficult to reason why. Gambero is sometimes used for young hooligan, and the word hombre occurs even in all-women situations when one will say to the other ´hombre!´as nothing more than an alternative to the other´s name. This doesn´t really surprise me: in a country where the most female of female parts is a masculine noun, all rules are out!
I am really convinced that the American use of hombre/man derives from the influence of the pervasive Hispanic language; that it is nothing more nor less than a result of the mixing of language, the migration of one into another different, neighbouring ghetto, where it becomes assimilated by association.
French has been formed like that - influenced by invaders from all parts of the European and even North African spectrum - why American any less so?
Ciao - Rob C
