Thread: where does slang come from

Almost all the slang I use I believe originated in American black culture. I am often surprised to see words I use in black cultural artifacts of 20 years ago or more, for example the film Wild Style. I am from California, and we have a few "Californian terms," I'd say, such as our use of "dude", perhaps, but I'm hard pressed to come up with slang terms that are not taken from the colloquial language of American blacks. Does anyone have any examples of slang that they can prove did not originate in American black speech?

No tengo la menor idea... pero muuuuy personalmente, estoy inclinado a pensar que se origina a partir del descubrimiento del "nuevo" mundo... dado que los naturales de nuestro continente, deseaban vengarse de alguna manera de los conquistadores, por lo que crearon "códigos", como el conocido "albur" mexicano, utilizando palabras mezcladas de las diferentes lenguas, i.e. el "tzingari" nativo, que significa: "abrazar fuertemente", se transformó en "chingar" e.g. "no me chingues" = "no me abraces fuertemente" ó "no me molestes".
Lo anterior, en base a los argumentos de Octavio Paz en "El Laberinto de la Soledad" y el conocido grupo rockero "Botellita de Jerez".
(Insisto: es mi opinión personal.)

Slang comes from the combination of 2 words - Secret LANGuage

There have been many different versions of slang throughout history, in particular the Cockney Rhyming slang which was introduced to fool the police so they couldn't understand what was being said by local criminals in the street.

Originally Posted by marcourt

Slang comes from the combination of 2 words - Secret LANGuage

There have been many different versions of slang throughout history, in particular the Cockney Rhyming slang which was introduced to fool the police so they couldn't understand what was being said by local criminals in the street.

Great comment, I didn't know it!!!

Nunca lo hubiera imaginado... Excelente comentario...