connotation of English "bro"

Wed Jan 20 12:55:03 UTC 2010

Greetings all,

Waruno,

I question the idea of _bro_ in English being either derogatory or  
mening "white trash male." I have never heard it used in either of  
those ways, but rather it is used extensively among males of a certain  
generation (mine, in fact... i.e. baby boomers, I am 54). It is very  
much analogous to Australian "mate." It shows a casual intimacy, and  
it not derogatory at all. The younger generations, such as my  
daughters and their peers, tend to prefer _dude_ (which interestingly,  
is now gender NON-specific! my son-in-law calls my daughter "dude").  
Others use _bra_ which is cultural imitation of Jamaican/reggae  
version of _bro_.

Also, among the Batak of Palawan island, Philippines, _mistir_ is used  
as an English borrowing with the sense of "sir."

-Bill

On Jan 15, 2010, at 9:00 AM, an-lang-request at anu.edu.au wrote:

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>   1. FW:  Linguistic Contact in East Timor (Elizabeth Pearce)
>   2. Re: FW:  Linguistic Contact in East Timor (David Gil)
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> Message: 1
> Date: Thu, 14 Jan 2010 16:17:43 +1300
> From: Elizabeth Pearce <Elizabeth.Pearce at vuw.ac.nz>
> Subject: [An-lang] FW:  Linguistic Contact in East Timor
> To: "an-lang at anu.edu.au" <an-lang at anu.edu.au>
> Message-ID: <C774F427.F9EA%elizabeth.pearce at vuw.ac.nz>
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>
> And bro is used as a term of address among whites as well as among  
> Maori in New Zealand. (And I imagine in Australia also).
> Liz Pearce
>
>
> ------ Forwarded Message
> From: Waruno Mahdi <mahdi at fhi-berlin.mpg.de>
> Date: Thu, 14 Jan 2010 00:48:16 +1300
> To: Austronesian languages <an-lang at anu.edu.au>
> Conversation: [An-lang] Linguistic Contact in East Timor
> Subject: Re: [An-lang] Linguistic Contact in East Timor
>
> Thanks David. Yes, this funny use of _mister_ is interesting indeed,
> though I haven't heard it yet among Indonesians abroad. The funny
> thing about it is, that there had been a Javanese herbal-medicine
> (_jamu_) brand since the early 20th century, known as _jamu cap
> Nyonya-Meneer_ (lit. 'missus-&-mister brand herbal-medicine').
> On the package there was a picture of a Dutch couple, the word
> _meneer_ being Dutch (also spelled _mijnheer_) for 'mister'. The
> loanword in colloquial Indonesian Malay, _menir_, is/was gender
> specific (masculine).
>
> Also the earlier Portuguese loan _sinyor_ (attested since 17th cent.)
> was gender specific. Both (_sinyor_ and _menir_) were only used with
> regard to white persons. I did not mention either of them earlier,
> because they are no longer commonly used in the modern language.
>
> But the process of borrowing can sometimes have unexpected, or no
> longer apparent loopholes. The word _bro_ (short for _brother_)
> began to be used some years ago in Malaysia as gender-specific term
> of address to a (male) friend. I noticed recently that it has also
> started to be used by some young Indonesians.
>
> In view of the fact, that _bro_ in (American) English has a quite
> pronounced derogatory meaning (something like "white-trash male"),
> it seems very unlikely that the Malay word was a direct borrowing
> from English. I tentatively suspect, therefore, that the original
> precursor was _brother_ as term of address amongst Afro-Americans,
> and that Malay _bro_ was shortened from _brother_ in Malay itself,
> independently of the shortening to _bro_ in English. Does that
> sound likely?
>
> I forgot to mention in my former input that Malay borrowed a number
> of adjectives from Arabic, some with masculine ending (e.g. _hakiki_
> 'essential'), some with feminine (_alamiah_ 'natural'), but the
> loanwords were/are free of any gender connotation in Malay.
>
> Aloha,
> Waruno
>
>
>> Just a footnote to Waruno's excellent summary ...
>>
>> Any white person who has spent any time in Indonesia will be more
>> than familiar with the recent Indonesian loan from English "mister",
>> whose denotation is, simply 'white person', and is unmarked not just
>> for number but also for gender ...
>>
>> David
>
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>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Thu, 14 Jan 2010 12:26:38 +0700
> From: David Gil <gil at eva.mpg.de>
> Subject: Re: [An-lang] FW:  Linguistic Contact in East Timor
> To: "an-lang at anu.edu.au" <an-lang at anu.edu.au>
> Message-ID: <4B4EAB0E.7000408 at eva.mpg.de>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
> Waruno Mahdi wrote:
>> But the process of borrowing can sometimes have unexpected, or no
>> longer apparent loopholes. The word _bro_ (short for _brother_)
>> began to be used some years ago in Malaysia as gender-specific term
>> of address to a (male) friend. I noticed recently that it has also
>> started to be used by some young Indonesians.
>>
>> In view of the fact, that _bro_ in (American) English has a quite
>> pronounced derogatory meaning (something like "white-trash male"),
>> it seems very unlikely that the Malay word was a direct borrowing
>> from English. I tentatively suspect, therefore, that the original
>> precursor was _brother_ as term of address amongst Afro-Americans,
>> and that Malay _bro_ was shortened from _brother_ in Malay itself,
>> independently of the shortening to _bro_ in English. Does that
>> sound likely?
>>
> Well I'm not sure, but here are three reasons to suppose that it was  
> the
> shortened form _bro_ in English that was directly borrowed ...
>
> (a) In western Nusantara dialects of Malay/Indonesian, truncation to a
> monosyllable usually (if not always) retains the final syllable,  
> rather
> than the penultimate, eg. _abang_ > _bang_, _mister_ > _ster_,  
> _Dapit_ >
> _pit_.
>
> (b) In eastern Nusantara dialects, eg. Papuan Malay, there is no
> productive rule of truncation to monosyllabic forms, eg. _kaka_ >  
> *_ka_
> -- and in fact, in Papuan Malay, _bro_ has recently become very  
> widespread.
>
> (c) In Papua at least, my impression is that people -- mostly trendy
> teenagers -- who use _bro_ are also likely to associate with other
> artifacts of African-American culture, eg. rap music, shoulder bags  
> with
> rasta colours, etc., which suggests to me that they borrowed the form
> directly from African-American English.  (Which is consistent with  
> other
> comments that have been made in recent postings on this subject.)
>
> David
>
> -- 
> David Gil
>
> Department of Linguistics
> Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
> Deutscher Platz 6, D-04103 Leipzig, Germany
>
> Telephone: 49-341-3550321 Fax: 49-341-3550119
> Email: gil at eva.mpg.de
> Webpage:  http://www.eva.mpg.de/~gil/
>
>
>
>
>
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> End of An-lang Digest, Vol 79, Issue 8
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