etymology of guay: update

Three people tell me that 10-15 years ago when they were kids they used to use guay amongst themselves in the way Ms/Mr Fages suggests in my original post, eg Esto es guay de(l) Paraguay. One thought the phrase came from a song or radio ad but, strangely, none of them was aware of the word’s former meaning. There’s an interesting post on Yahoo that throws some light on Latin American usage:

• Ruben D Romani says that in his(?) part of Argentina, guay is used as a prefix in many toponomics of indigenous, local and Inca origin. He also notes that guay, presumably in the old (Judeo-)Spanish configuration, is sometimes used to warn and may be accompanied by a flourishing of fists.
• Cecilia Casamajor says that the suffix guay in Paraguay, Uruguay and Gualeguay is Guarani, but she has evidence of homonymic use as well.

For Latin Americans, guay obviously means something authentic (as well as retaining the meaning imported from Spain). But how do the indigenous population use it? I’ve found a couple of suggestions:

• Guai is the Guarani word for “born” which, combined with their ana, “kin”, could lead one to believe that the Guianas suffer from inbreeding.
• Guai means “young men”, which is tangentially of interest, in that some folk here think that the Spanish guay derives from the English gay.
• If I understand poster Nora correctly, gua-i is the Guarani word for back-to-front, which is how the Guaranis describe the Paraguayans’ way of life.

A back-to-front word from a back-to-front people. And now I’m going to do some work.

Trevor @ 11 November 2003 7:25 AM

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Comments

1. Eugenio
   11:53 PM on 31 January 2007

   When I heard my son use the word “guay” meaning “good” (about 25 years back), I remember to have had the hunch that it came from “wild”, that would sound very similar to spanish ears. At that time other hippie expressions were entering the slang of spanish youths: “chutar”, until then exclusively a soccer term, at that moment acquired the meaning of “shooting dope”; “friqui” came obviously from “freak”; “flipar” from “flip out” etc.
   Maria Moliner lists in her Dictionary both the old and the recent senses of “guay”, but she gives no etymology.

2. Trevor ap Simon
   2:29 PM on 2 February 2007

   My dear Eugenio, that’s such a wonderfully hippy, sorry, jipi explanation that it never would have occurred to me.

   (My favourite Hispanic Anglicisms come from the USA–here’s a list with strange things like moso for muscle, negachuri for niggershooter, and yoga for jug.)

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