Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!aplcen!jhunix!pv_troia
From: pv_troia@jhunix.HCF.JHU.EDU (Paolo V Troia-Cancio)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: What's ST mean?
Message-ID: <2898@jhunix.HCF.JHU.EDU>
Date: 12 Oct 89 16:27:37 GMT
References: <1111@nigel.udel.EDU> <339@enea.se>
Reply-To: pv_troia@jhuvms.bitnet
Organization: The Johns Hopkins University - HCF
Lines: 25

In article <339@enea.se> tope@helios.se (Tommy Petersson) writes:
>Is tre any native Spanish-speaking on the net? I wonder if there is
>such a word as 'amiga' in Spanish. Amigo is male friend, and we always
>think of our Amiga at home as a female friend, but I don't really think
>it's a real word. The ending of words with the letter 'a' is an indication
>of 'femaleness' in many languages (like Russian and Polish), but can
>anyone who is *sure* say if Amiga is a constructed word or not?
     Amiga is indeed a Spanish word and it does mean "female friend".
The -a ending is an indicator of femenine gender too in Spanish, while
the -o ending is indicative of the masculine. I'm possitive on this,
as I am a native speaker of the language. Also, the only meaning I
know for "amiga" is female friend. You can look for the word in the
Spanish Real Academy dictionary, which the *official* dictionary of
the language. I've *never* heard "amiga" used to mean anything else.
Even if such a slang usage existed in other parts of the
Spanish-speaking word (and to the best of my knowlwdge it doesn't),
the meaning that is most likely to be conveyed by the word "amiga"  
is friend. 

					Hasta la proxima!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Paolo V. Troia                          BITNET: pv_troia@jhuvms.bitnet
The Johns Hopkins University, MD        Phone:  (301)889-8613
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------