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| == Etymology and history== | == Etymology and history== | ||
| The |
The term was first used in ]<ref>, Oxford Dictionaries</ref>, where it was sometimes written ''io''.<ref>''Yo'', Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary</ref>. Its current popularity has largely grown out of its use in Philadelphia, particularly by the ] immigrant population. During the mid-1940s, Philadelphia's adjacent Italian and African-American neighborhoods experienced significant growth, resulting in a mingling of the two cultures. The most influential of these transferences is the word "yo", a term that possibly stems from the Italian first person singular "io."<ref name="flappers2rappers" /> | ||
| In the Neapolitan dialect "]" (pronounced guahl-YO-nay) signified a young man.<ref>http://lyricstranslate.com/en/guaglione-kid.html</ref> The unlettered immigrants shortened that to guahl-YO, which they pronounced whal-YO.<ref>Roberts, William Howell; Turgeon, Gregoire (1989). About language: a reader for writers (2 ed.). Houghton Mifflin. p. 132. ISBN 0-395-43232-4.</ref> | |||
| Though the term has always had some use in the English speaking world since the 15th and 16th centuries, its current popularity seems to have largely grown out of its use in Pennsylvania, particularly by Philadelphia's ] immigrant population. During the mid-1940s, Philadelphia's adjacent Italian and African-American neighborhoods experienced significant growth, resulting in the merging of the two cultures. | |||
| From the late twentieth century it frequently appeared in ] and became associated with ], as seen in the title '']'', a popular American television hip-hop music program in the 1990s. | From the late twentieth century it frequently appeared in ] and became associated with ], as seen in the title '']'', a popular American television hip-hop music program in the 1990s. | ||
Revision as of 12:30, 7 November 2014
For other uses, see Yo (greeting) (disambiguation).Yo is an English slang interjection, commonly associated with American English. It was highly popularized after being used commonly in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania since the 1940s.
Although often used as a greeting, yo may come at the end of a sentence, often to direct focus onto a particular individual or group or to gain the attention of another individual or group. It may specify that a certain statement that was previously uttered is more important, or may just be an "attention grabber".
Etymology and history
The term was first used in Middle English, where it was sometimes written io.. Its current popularity has largely grown out of its use in Philadelphia, particularly by the Italian immigrant population. During the mid-1940s, Philadelphia's adjacent Italian and African-American neighborhoods experienced significant growth, resulting in a mingling of the two cultures. The most influential of these transferences is the word "yo", a term that possibly stems from the Italian first person singular "io."
In the Neapolitan dialect "Guaglione" (pronounced guahl-YO-nay) signified a young man. The unlettered immigrants shortened that to guahl-YO, which they pronounced whal-YO.
From the late twentieth century it frequently appeared in hip hop music and became associated with African American Vernacular English, as seen in the title Yo! MTV Raps, a popular American television hip-hop music program in the 1990s.
Notable uses
A famous example of a fictional Philadelphian bringing notice to the expression is Rocky Balboa, where the word is used throughout all of the Rocky films, and is part of the iconic line, "Yo, Adrian, I did it!", which was ranked 80th in the AFI's list of 100 best movie quotes.
The phrase "Yo, Blair. What are you doing?" was an informal greeting that United States President George W. Bush gave to British Prime Minister Tony Blair during the summit of the "G8" (Group of Eight industrialized nations) in Saint Petersburg, Russia, on 17 July 2006. The quote gained wide popularity across the media, and many began to use the phrase in a casual manner, interjecting it at certain points in sentences, as it was popularized.
The term is now widely used amongst all ethnicities in the Philadelphia metro.
Other uses
In Baltimore, and possibly other cities, yo (or a word coincidentally identical to it) has become a gender-neutral pronoun.
References
- Reference.com
- ^ Dalzell, Tom (1996). Flappers 2 Rappers: American Youth Slang. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam Webster. ISBN 0-87779-612-2.
- Yo, Oxford Dictionaries
- Yo, Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary
- http://lyricstranslate.com/en/guaglione-kid.html
- Roberts, William Howell; Turgeon, Gregoire (1989). About language: a reader for writers (2 ed.). Houghton Mifflin. p. 132. ISBN 0-395-43232-4.
- Susie Dent (2007) The Language Report: English on the move 2000-2007