How Queer Communities Created Secret Languages | Otherwords
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- Опубліковано 21 чер 2023
- Across the globe, queer communities have relied on secret lexicons known as "argots" to communicate safely, which have developed over the years into what some call "verbal jazz."
Otherwords is a PBS web series on Storied that digs deep into this quintessential human trait of language and fınds the fascinating, thought-provoking, and funny stories behind the words and sounds we take for granted. Incorporating the fıelds of biology, history, cultural studies, literature, and more, linguistics has something for everyone and offers a unique perspective on what it means to be human.
sources:
books.google.com/books?id=5WC...
www.out.com/out-exclusives/20...
www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/s...
www.bbc.com/culture/article/2...
files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED...
• The LGBTQ+ LANGUAGE of...
www.vice.com/en/article/7bmb4...
issuu.com/gaypages/docs/autum...
theconversation.com/how-cape-...
www.sahistory.org.za/article/...
sites.google.com/boisestate.e...
Host: Erica Brozovsky, Ph.D.
Creator/Director: Andrew Matthews & Katie Graham
Writer: Taylor Behnke
Producer: Katie Graham
Editor/Animation: Andrew Matthews
Executive Producer: Amanda Fox
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Director of Programming for PBS: Gabrielle Ewing
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Otherwords is produced by Spotzen for PBS.
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In 1979 as a queer teenage boy (chicken, twinkie, filiomi) in San Francisco, I appreciated the knowledge of my elders, many of whom were from the far reaches of Queerdom. Hearing first hand stories of Stonewall only 10 years after, all the laws and ways around them is where I began to understand the importance of Polari. It wasn't just camp talk, it was a necesssary survival tactic that had to evolve faster than the police could decipher it. Losing most of my friends over the next 10 years just as I was getting to know them still sticks with me, as does everything they shared.
P.S. Thank you for using the term Queer, it's so much easier than reciting the alphabet
It must have been awful to live through that time, especially when it took so long for something to actually be done about it.
Have you seen the TV programme "It's a Sin"? It really opened my eyes to the realities of the AIDS epidemic and just how little was known about it at the time.
Queer is alright, but have you tried "alphabet mafia"? or "Legit-a-bit-qua premium"?
@@stormchi Legit-a-bit-qua premium I can't wait to tell my ⚧kid about that one
So it's right to think gay people are pedophiles?
I just say LGBT+ or LGBTQ+ those are the ones I like as the first is the longtime term with + for the rest then the other is adding Queer+ incase some terms do not fit the term Queer like Ace/Non Sexual as those people can be straight Ace/Non Sexual or the like.
Didn't expect Swardspeak (known colloquially as: Gay Lingo/ Bekimon/ Bekinese/ Bekispluk) to be here honestly, I don't know why 😭, but I'm glad they included it
And she's not kidding about Swardspeak needing complex cultural knowledge cuz the words feels like an inside joke most of the time. And the fact that it borrows words from like 5 languages makes it even more complex 💀💀
I was waiting for it to be mentioned lol. It's the first thing I thought of upon clicking the video
From my experience, it's evolving too. As a gay male, the gay lingo used when I was in my teens is mostly unused now and from my observation, there seem to be differences depending on your dialect.
Then, I only knew a few words and now, I'm completely clueless what they are talking about. It's a fascinating language though.
there is also a filipino gay sign language
@@Jackben1mble That's news to me. Language is amazing! I'm bad a pronunciation but love to learn stuff about this.
What's the swardspeak/bekinese for police? The once I know is for security guards-- ERMINGUARD and LADY GAGUARD (male and female guard respectively)...
One of the main features of queer speech in Hebrew is to use second-person feminine for masculine people (על הנש, literally "on the fem"). This practice is believed to have originated in gay men calling each other on the phone, so it would sound like they're talking to a girlfriend rather than being affectionate towards a guy.
That's very interesting!
omg i was about to comment about this. there are also alot of terms in hebrew gay slang that have arabic origins to them(for example "אוחצ'ה" or "oxtia", directly translating to ''young feminine gay man.) aswell as english, some turkish, some spanish, a little bit of german and a little bit of french.
@@mackayladavis4021no? How?
That’s not “queer speech” that’s just lying 🤥
@@jinjasdiorlocketsure Jan
Honestly subculture language and how it shows up in mainstream culture language is interesting. Like how Game Over literally started as a poorly translated end screen in a video game and then as video games grew in popularity more games used it to the point where it became main stream use for, "This situation is over in a bad way."
It really is fascinating IMO. There's a whole world of cants, argots, creoles, and pidgins that developed over the centuries that were just ways to speak covertly when dealing with people who might want to cause you harm. Or as a way of keeping an ancestral language alive in an ever changing world. Sociolinguistics is fascinating stuff.
Also, not necessarily over in a bad way, game over in arcade games just means "playtime has ended/credit is up"
@@nc3743which for a gamer that was a bad ending
If that's a mistranslation, that's noteworthy - which I interpret to be contrary to what you're addressing
Nc3743 - that phrase means, practically exclusively, what you're saying - the point I took out of the first comment was that a particular usage gave rise to this.
It's difficult for English speakers to grasp just how fascinating swardspeak can be. It's VERY playful and often double-entendre, to the point that even just speaking it can be entertaining to listeners AND the one speaking it. It relies on quick wit to understand what the other person is trying to say. It's also highly fluid, new words are continually added, and swardspeak today is very different from swardspeak in the 70s. And yes, it's almost incomprehensible to an outsider.
The Philippines is historically one of the most accepting cultures when it comes to LGBT identities due to the historical importance of feminized men as shamans in the pre-colonial era. As a result, swardspeak words have a tendency to become mainstream. The swardspeak word for "boyfriend/girlfriend", for example, has entered standard Filipno TWICE. Once in the 80s to early 90s As "siyota", and again in the late 90s as "jowa". Both replaced the now formal-sounding "sinta"/"kasintahan".
If there's one thing word nerds love, it's wordplay! - Dr. B
And it is also cute finding straight men speak swardspeak co's they don't have a choice but to adapt. 🤣
I know siyota means "short-time" like, not a long term partner. What does jowa come from?
@@ericzephyr based on my research, it is said that 'jowa' came from 'asawa'
It started with the trend of adding "j" in front of words like; junakis (anak) and josok(pasok)
"Asawa" became "Jusawa" and became shorter to Jowa
pero di ko syur bes yan lang nabasa ko sa internet HSAGHSGAHGSJHA
@@Mon-ru3zy tenks momshie, kahit keri naman mag google ni akesh, mas better parin from source from the madlang people na use it daily
"is it possible to sound gay?"
Matteo Lane: "yes. and in different languages. Even click tribes are like, " gurl!" 😄
Ha! The algorithm served me that Matteo Lane stand-up comedy clip about an hour before I watched this video.
Matteo Lane 🔥
Has anyone else noticed how Dr. B painted her nails lavender for a video about Lavender languages? One of the best Easter Eggs I've seen in a while❤
Not until you mentioned it! That is so sweet. 💞
@@lbjcb5sweet?
Honey that’s white af
And maybe even the flower earrings because lavender is a flower? 🤔
@@KhanaHatake I mean she always wears that. I’m sure her nails aren’t coordinated with whatever video they have for today. I’ve only heard lavender in the context of weddings.
Thank you for making queer history visible. We have always been everywhere. We are normal. 💜🏳️🌈
I've actually never heard of lavender language before.
It sounds cool! ^_^
Cap
😂
👎
An honorable mention to Brazilian queer argot Pajubá, which fuses vocabulary from Portuguese and West African languages (like Yoruba, Kikongo and Fon, for example), as LGBTQ+ people and Afro-Brazilian religions members got along as marginalized groups in Brazil.
Thx 4 another sickening video, Otherwords! U werk! 🌈🧑🏫
I was waiting for this comment!
@@yuriferraz8707 😁😁😁😁
I think you might misunderstand what “sickening” means. It means “disgusting” or “repulsive”
@@Megan-hu5is actually it has quite the opposite meaning in LGBT slang 😅
@@Megan-hu5isAs usual the reactionary recycles the same comment and insists that they're an individual.
This really helps me feel better when being trans has been so hard lately. Thanks for keeping the history alive
Same, though my situation is very, very recently realizing that I'm non-binary (possibly trans, but I don't want to claim it before I'm really sure). I'm still working out the whole pronoun thing, how to introduce myself to new people I might not want to have know, and how to introduce myself to people I do want to know. Add in the fact that my self-identity Lincoln Log Cabin just got flipped around a few times by the angry toddler that is Life, and well... It's rather overwhelming.
Pronoun-wise, I'm kinda leaning towards "any, providing they're used with respect".
@athena8794 It's a journey that a lot of people are scared to even make (despite being relatively young, I was definitely concerned about coming out and being honest with myself). Good luck and remember you deserve love! 🏳️🌈
You people create your own misery.
@@vOtEbIdEnTosAvEdEmOcRaCy Trans is easily the most divisive bit of the LGBTQ+ community. I wish you all the best; you seem like a nice enough guy!
You lost your Oreos 😢
when I clicked this I was like “please talk about beki” (filipino gay lingo) because it’s so extensive and you did not disappoint! keribels!
Oh, so many little things I want to say. The whole lavender as the reference is defaulting to the male. Lesbians, though we use these terms too, we have our own terms too. The funny part is in the queer community, putting the feminine as the default is defaulting male. We're a fun community that way. I'm a butch lesbian so I tend to get masculine terms as reference. I'm the guy friend, I'm the king, or boi if I were cute. But the finny moment was when I said my male cat was being a drama queen and a friend said he's not a queen he's a boy and I'm like, that's just the term. If he were a girl she'd be a drama king, if she was especially dainty, then a queen or princess.
But seriously, thanks for doing this. It's nice to be seen.
I'm bi and when I started dating my first girlfriend, she referred to herself as "my boy" sometimes and I (clueless at that point) was like "No, I love you for being a girl!" and she was like, "No, your BOI!" and yeah - i've learned a lot since then. :D
Except with cats, the dichotomy would have to be drama queen / drama tom! 🤣 Layer up that wordplay!
My cousin is pretty butch, and she uses dude, bud, guys, etc. as her default for everyone. It always makes me so happy to hear because it feels like I’m in on some secret that our fundamentalist family is oblivious to. I’m also a closeted transmasc, so even if it’s not the intent, it makes me feel seen, and a little less tense while hanging around said family.
Knowing now that it’s not just something she and I do makes me kinda giddy lmao
Swardspeak is also called Bekimon. And a lot of these words have become so common that even straight people can understand whole paragraphs composed of entirely swardspeak words.
Even in terminally online, heavily anglo-centric spaces on places like reddit or tumblr, trans people have come up with slang terms to better express an idea or be able to talk about trans things in public
When I was a teenager in my late teenage years ! I recall finding this documentary on Polari ! As a bisexual teen soon to be a woman as I was 19 at the time ! I was oddly mesmerized by the fact that it was a code! But a bit sad because in a ideally nobody would have to hide their truth ! Still it’s a fundamental part of history in the LGBT+ ⚧️ 🏳️🌈 🏳️⚧️ community! So I’m that notion I also feel like it’s a crucial part of LGBT + history, that we must preserve
Terrific episode about a very important topic. I loved the point you made at the end about the most-researched lavender languages being mostly used and developed by cis gay men - it makes me wonder about lesbian lavender languages, and other possible less-studied queer community languages.
Right?! They totally glossed over Sapphics
@@himesilva Sapphic who wrote this episode here! I hoped to find more research on wlw language too, but most of what i found focused on differences in pitch and vowel production (If you want to dig in, look for papers from Dr. Benjamin Munson and Dr. Auburn Barron Lutzross) but no full on argots. I saw a bit hypothesizing that sapphics and straight women have less distance btwn their language styles than gay and straight men, perhaps because gendered socialization also impacts our language styles, perhaps because there's less distance between or social communities. Certainly more to be explored! I keep a lookout for future wlw language research, so hopefully we can come back with more info someday.
@@ItsRadishTime and thanks to periodic patriarchal purges and book burnings, there's also such an erasure across the board of Sapphic history and culture. it's heartbreaking to think of how much cultural knowledge we've lost as Sapphics, to have only scraps of Sappho's poetry.
thank you for doing this research, writing for this show, and keeping our culture alive!
@@ItsRadishTime Thank you for the wonderful work you do!
There's a hidden language argot in a Doctor Who episode from 1970, where a 'showman' recognises the third Doctor as another 'showman' and tries 'the palare', which the Doctor does not understand, even though all languages are translated for him due to the link with the TARDIS, his time machine.
But then Doctor 3 Jon Pertwee (Perthuis) was a sailor in earlier life and knew several argots connected with British servicemen, the Royal Navy and actors, which venn-diagram nicely onto other argots like Polari.
My father was a soldier in WWII (and HIS father was a 'showman' in the transport and support parts of travelling circuses).
His command of military argots (usually based upon Hindi, Arabic and Mahratta words but some are untraceable, and some are limited to one regiment only), and his exposure to how the British Army segregated gay soldiers into the bandsmen (who were also the stretcher bearers) or the mortar platoon taught him a lot about slang, let's say.
In Brazil we have "Pajubá", that mixes Portuguese, Tupi and Yorubá languages with slurs to avoid recognition of the countent of the message.
Lavender language is a lovely phrase
I thought the same
It also gave the Lavender scare
So "swardspeak" is "meta" or references to a multitude of many other things that alludes to another meaning or a double entendre. It's like an inside joke within an inside joke.
Yes and….. one extra distinction not made in this video , is the huge influence the Queer African-American community has had on white queer and non-queer people/ now media. The American, Black queer experience has given us so much.
Probably in the US
Me and my Dad (may he rest in peace) have been working on a comic series where one of the main intentions of it is to provide a safe place for minority people to enter whenever they want, and one of the methods we plan on doing that is by having a well informed understanding and usage of what we're writing, and consider this added to that plan. =)
that sounds great and i hope you're able to carry out your project!
@@ellam5931 Thank you very much, you're the first person who ever told me that so that meant a lot. =)
There's *PLENTY* of other things in it but that's really the main point of that project. . one of the things we planed on doing was donating a portion of the money earned from the sales of the comics to charities like The Trever Project and others. =)
But still, thank you so much for those kind words, and I hope you have a nice day. =)
@@tommyfox854well there's two now! This is awesome, I hope it's get made. Wish you the best 😁
@@Direct0rkrennic Are you joining the fight, cause if you are then welcome aboard doc, I hope you're ready to figuratively kick the teeth of the injustice that plagues our world in. >=)
And thank you very much for the kind words Justto, they're always welcomed. =)
In Brazil we have it too. It’s called Pajubá and is mostly used by travestís (a Brazilian trans identity).
You talked about straight people being able to understand some "gay lingo" and it made me think, from what I see in the US lavender language as you said started in the ballroom scene, then drag queens popularize it, then gay people repeat it, and eventually straight people start saying it because they hear us saying it, so it really does seep into everyday language.
It has been that way for a long time. There are words still used in certain circles that first got their start in the burgeoning US drag scene that developed immediately after the Civil War. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
(Cuts to eight year-olds calling everything bussin')
I love thé fact that Swardspeak has Pop Culture Deep Cuts. That’s our jam 😂
And it's 5 languages into 1.
Visayan is also one of the contributors in swardspeak which is not mentioned in the video.
@@cyrienjamesola1913for example: dzuh, dzaiiiii
When she said Swardspeak apparently incorporates Japanese, I suddenly remember a fashion designer friend suddenly saying "Antokyo Japan" and realized that's it
Super cool video! I'm a little suprised there wasn't a mention of "are you a friend of Dorothy," but that's pretty universally known. Happy Pride everyone!⚧🏳🌈🏳⚧
"Is it possible to sound gay?"
me, a Known Gay: yes, absolutely
Give, eat, period.
i like how “antibiotic” was cited here 😆 didn’t know that that existed as a swardspeak word but it definitely makes sense
I just got it. Does that mean anti-bayot?
@@scorpioninpink i mean it's the only thing i can think of that would lead to antibiotic honestly
In South Asia, we have Hijra Farsi, most prominently used by the trans community, this lavender language isn’t much documented as it changes it form with the multiple local languages that surround it.
Hijras are mostly transvestites and a few eunuchs
The term "transgender" doesn't really apply to them
I’m currently working on a project to archive the local argot here in Beirut, Lebanon, and this video has given me so much motivation!
One of my favorite swardspeak words is "yuvmademestronger" which means lesbian, which comes from Tomboy > yobmot > yobmotch > yuvmotch > yuvmae > yuvmademestronger 😂
i think of this CONSTANTLY like why do we make ourselves do so much mental gymnastics 😭 conyo/katips slang 🤝🏽 swardspeak
I've heard that "trade" came from Polari. Apparently it was common for closeted upper-class men in London to trade money or gifts for the companionship and secrecy of other men. I personally learned the term trade in the context the black gay community in the US where it's used to describe a certain kind of man. He's a fit, masc, straight passing man who has sex with men. These days, mainly because of Rupaul's Drag Race IMO, the term gets used in a very loose way to describe pretty much anyone someone finds attractive lol.
'Trade' in the Royal Air Force is a codeword meaning 'enemy detected, will pass details to you'.
1940 Battle of Britain, used in the film 1968: 'Rabbit leader this is top Hat control, enemy for you, hostile four will be your target, maximum cruise speed climb to twelve thousand feet.' would be simplified to 'Rabbit, Top Hat, trade four, buster angels one two.' for example.
Back in the late 90s, when I was in college in Puerto Rico, the way we found each other was by our coded language. If you thought someone might be gay, you’d throw a few c words here and there in your conversation. If the other person was also gay, they’d make a reference to “soy familia” (“I’m family”), and that was it. LOL Our communities have helped protect each other in myriad ways, language is just one more tool we have to help and protect each other. Thanks for doing this.
She-ing is my absolute favorite just for how it throws people off. I was trying to explain it to my cousin once, and the poor girl was so confused. She was like "you use she/her? should i have been using them for you?"
Interesting. This reminds of an encounter I had 20 years ago, back when I was still working as a bank teller.
Me: Okay, I'll have your transaction done in a second. Anything else?
Guy (Staring at me): Are you part of The Family?
Me: Huh?
Guy: Are you part of _The Family?_
Me: ...Like the Mafia?
Guy: **Sigh** Never mind.
I didn't realize what he was asking until years later. And yeah, I was part of The Family.
Yep, I came out in the 90s, and this was absolutely a thing. Someone would be talking about a person, and we'd be like "But are they _family_?"
Back in the day, we lesbians would sometimes refer to other lesbians as “belonging to the same church”.
Funny. Gayness being more accepted is nice. But sometimes I do miss the group closeness we had all being in the trenches together.
As a queer and trans second generation Filipino American, learning about Swardspeak made me so giddy oh my god. I know there's tension between Filipinos of the motherland and Filipinos of the diaspora like myself in terms of how different our cultures are, but the fact that we're all from the same roots always gives me a sense of pride, especially for someone like myself (a child of immigrants living in the US as Asian hate incidents continue to grow).
More like Filipinos versus Americans.
I wish y’all had the funding to do deep dives into subjects; every country probably has some form of lavender language and it would be interesting to learn about some with less visibility than Polari or Ballroom.
edited for typos
*Thank you* for highlighting all the other lavender languages outside of Polari. And I love the switch from "their" to "our" at the end. Happy pride, Dr. B
In my native language, Indonesian, I frequently found words like "eyke" (I or me) and "yey" (you), which are most likely taken from Dutch, used by queer community in the country. Even though I'm not really sure if it is true in real life since I mostly heard them from TV. It is fascinating to find out that it also exists in other languages too!
Are your talking Bahasa, or a more regional language? I'm only asking because I find this stuff fascinating, and I know Indonesia is more complex that it often seems on this side of the world (the US).
@@RevShiftyit depends on where I am and whom I'm talking to! I'm from East Java and am a native Javanese, so I'm speaking Javanese (regional) at home or in other regions where people mainly speak Javanese. But when I meet people from other regions or different ethnic groups, Bahasa is the best option since we understand each other very well. But there's one interesting situation, if I may say, for me personally when geographical locations matter more. For example if I wasn't in Java and met Javanese people, it feels odd to speak Javanese with them, I'm more comfortable to use Bahasa instead. And vice versa, it's odd to speak Bahasa at home even with people who don't speak Javanese.
It's called Binan! Definitely has Dutch influence, but also regional languages like Javanese and Sundanese
@@ratihcahyani9438 ahhh I never heard of it, thanks a lot for pointing it out to me! I'll definitely learn more about it
Some trans lingo for you: egg (someone who hasn’t figured out that they’re trans yet), feminems (estradiol pills), T (testosterone), clock (to recognize someone as trans), deadname (someone’s former name before transitioning), enby (nonbinary), the dolls (trans women collectively)
An excellent video for Pride Month. I love how queer culture is so deep and universal.
I LOVE this!!!! And I was waiting for you to bring up Swardspeak, or as it's locally known, beki. I didn't know about other Lavender Languages, but I remember thinking how similar it was to Cockney rhyming slang.
FUN FACT because of prominent LGBTQ+ figures in TV "pang-masa" (for the masses; local channels watched by millions of Pinoys) your average Filipino knows a lot of queer slang even if they're not queer. My straight best friend knows way more beki than I do, I'm still trying to learn :'D
Some of my favourite Beki phrases include:
"Ganda ka?" - literally "are you beautiful?" it's an ironic compliment, sort of like "oh you must think you're amazing huh?"
"Alicia Keys" - sounds like "alis" which means to leave; Let’s go
"Keribells" - similar to "carry on"; used as OK, cool; Gorabels = let's go
"Baboosh" "Itech" "Anetch" - bye, ito (this), ano (what?)
"Churva" - a filler word, roughly meaning "stuff"; when you forget a word for something you say "churva"
There's lots more but I don't speak it as well as my friends do ;3;
A guy can say any of this too a woman. Vice versa
Thanks for the examples!! I love the pop culture elements thrown in - Dr B :)
Fun fact: "Naff" reportedly started out as an acronym, NAFF, meaning so nasty (or painfully straight) that the individual in question was "Not Available For F___ing."
Reminds me of one of my favourite exchanges from "Are you Being Served," where the store was mandated to be more "hip":
Captain Peacock: Wilberforce?
Mr. Humprhies: Yes, Stephen?
Captain Peacock: Strides for the omi with the naff riah.
[EDIT]: My thanks to the commenter who corrected me on the final line, but whose comment seems to have vanished, since.]
You sure about that? Sounds like a "backronym".
This is more of a folk etymology but it does make me chuckle.
@@skepticalbadger No, hence "reportedly." But I heard it off a fairly reliable source.
Don't see a lot of Are You Being Served references these days!
@@Domdrok Ar. I wasn't even born when it started, but I made sure I caught up on it. Thankfully, PBS carried a lot of British shows, when we were living in the States.
It's so awesome to keep learning more and more each episode. Never stop being amazed at how people are amazing in what they can create and cultivate!
Question: why would someone speaking Swardspeak need a code for rain? Do these languages develop codes for ordinary, non-threatening things as a way to overwhelm the non-fluent listener? For instance, if all the unusual words I speak only deal with taboo subjects like drugs or sex, would that maybe give the game away a bit? And so I code ordinary things too, like rain, in order to make guessing the taboo words more difficult? Or is it because rain itself has taboo connotations that aren’t obvious at face value? Or is there some more organic, and less thought out reason?
i think it’s just because it’s fun and we like celebs. see “jinit jackson” during the “verbal jazz” part of the video? that just means that it feels so damn hot 😭 init = heat
it's really mostly because the gays here are really extra 😭 and the language, while mostly used by queer people isn't really used in secret; in fact, most people outside the lgbtq+ community here find the language quite entertaining to just listen to.
in turkey we (i mean lgbtiqa+ folks) use Lubunca. (lubunya means something like queer) so it can be named "queerish" when u translate to english. The history of Lubunca goes back in history and the reason for its emergence is based on the safe communication between sex worker trans women. its a lot like Polari.
hahaha i was looking for this comment:D
I use to be so ashamed of my voice I wouldn’t even speak aloud. I’m glad I get to learn about this
As Filipino, I kinda expect gaylingo to be in this video given how wonderful it is and people in LGBTQ+ here are very common and mostly accepted. Here's a very common gaylingo that even common Filipino uses, particularly millennials and gen z's.
"daks" means huge pp
"dyutay /jutay/" means small pp
P.S. LGBTQ Filipinos are the best people existing. They're the very definition of "social glue." Also, yes, I sound gay.
I have a Filipino friend who speaks Gay Lingo, And sometimes he'll give literal translations of some phrases and it's wacky as heck lol, I love it.
Fortunately quite a bit of British lavender language is recorded, as it got used quite freely on a radio series called 'Around the Horne' decades ago. Look up the 'Julian and Sandy' skits.
Most Brits who study comedy know quite a bit of palare / Polari thanks to this. 'Homie' or 'omie' for man, 'eek' for face, 'bona' for good.
I'm glad someone brought up Julian and Sandy :)
As a queer person who doesn't use Lavender Language often, it's nice to hear about the concept of 'sounding queer' without just being noticed for the stereotype of a high-pitched, flamboyant younger man.
4:42 yup, quite common to hear kalurkey here in the Philippines said by gays. Some words like “keri” (i.e. can you carry/handle this?) and “i-push mo yan” (go for it) seem to be sort of in the realm of everyday lingo.
I taught some students about argots about a year ago in the GSA club - nice to see them also spoken about here too!
Philippine Gay Lingo Words I know.
Visayan:
Shudi abash et
Shudi from the word dili/di meaning "Do not" with a prefix "Shu" (I think it is the Shhhhh Sound).
Abash - reverse spelling of saba meaning noisy.
et - reverse spelling of te/ate meaning big sister.
Shudi abash et = do not talk about it or don't be noisy.
Tagalog:
Charot - meaning "Just Kidding" from the visayan word char.
Maoy - meaning a drunkard with an uncontrolable emotion (dancing happily, throwing things angily, fighting people)
from the visayan word maoy meaning sad.
Dorobo - a thief, from japanese word.
Okane - money, also from japanese.
And there's a lot more..
She calls it swardspeak, but it's locally better known as "bekinese" or "bekimon."
Swardspeak walked so bekimon could run.
love this topic, i feel like how interconnected the world has become bc of the internet that community specific language is harder to keep within specific groups which can jeopardize safety. secret lexicons Shouldnt be necessary but they are with the society we live in, im curious if languages are just inevitable to spread beyond their intended groups or if the continuous innovation by the in groups keeps the language safe still (both can be true of course).
Interesting points. But I think there are a few "secret" languages that will never break out of their communities. My wife and I both work from home, and I overhear her tech-industry conference calls all the time, and boy, do they LOVE their TLAs (Three-Letter Acronyms) and ETLAs (Extended Three-Letter Acronyms -- in other words, Four-Letter Acronyms). I can't imagine anyone apart from other TechBros ever wanting to appropriate that nonsense, especially when they flash around terms they clearly don't understand in the first place.
@@Beedo_Sookcool Brother, I would _absolutely_ adopt and counter-conventionalize TechBro jargon if given half a chance.
@@normanclatcher I am reminded of the scene in "Good Morning, Vietnam" where Robin Wlliams rattles of a string of acronyms at someone for 4D Stun Damage.😉
Darmok and Jalad on the ocean; Sokath, his eyes uncovered.
Shaka, when the walls fell
The Oscar Wild play, “The Importance of Being Ernest” was written almost completely in coded Polari language. It was a hit with main stream society, but those who understood the coded language laughed on a whole other level.
One of my favorite phrases is "Friend of Dorothy." IIRC, it was basically a way for gay americans to ask if the person they were speaking to was also gay. It was a reference to the characters from Wizard of Oz who some interpreted to be gay due to them lacking traditional traits ascribed to straight men in fiction at the time.
Then, when the US government was strongly against having LGBTQ+ in the military, navy, and so on, they had undercover individuals who would go to bars and try to phish for gay people. They kept hearing "Are you a friend of Dorothy?" And took it literally, spending millions of dollars, and putting out a bounty for any information on this Dorothy that all the gays knew some how. Very funny.
I feel bad for anyone named Dorothy 😂 that’s amazing
in south asia, most prominently north india and Pakistan, the historical Hijra/ khwaja sira communities also have a language called Hijra Farsi/Gupti. It also follows some rules of reversing syllables.
because i grew up with a LOT of queer family members, i literally used swardspeak on a regular basis as a child, up until i moved to a different country! phone calls from neighbors, messing around with friends, and family gatherings had conversations peppered with lavender language lmao.
and she really wasnt kidding when she said that it was hard to understand if you werent used to speaking it because a solid 90% of the slang terms are either inside jokes from the 50’s, pop culture phenomena that no one really remembers but everyone uses it anyway, or loanwords. 💀
Thank you for featuring Swardspeak I love it! The language evolves every day.
I've literally watched Yas Queen go from secret lingo to something straight people say to each other. It actually kind of passes some people off in the community linking ti appropriation. Likewise many words used prejoratively have been reappointed by the community and are used casually in some circles almost like racial slurs in music but it rubs some members the wrong way to hear other members of the community use it (not going to write any for fear of being banned for hate speech but use your imagination)
It's interesting cause trans people in the US in my experience tend to speak to each other in a way that almost ices out a cishet person. Our spaces online have very "in-crowd" vibe, that if failed it's "gtfo". There's tests within the language to smoke out trolls and vet cishet people to see if they're allied. It's actually quite subtle that I think a linguist could explain the nuances of. I wish that it extended to irl more, because there tends to be an insular and disparate tightly closed cliques. That can be frustrating interpersonally and even for protective collectivism- currently more individualist in many respects. Fun thing people should know, we borrowed a term from Star Trek with our "gender prime directive" where we don't crack eggs before they're ready to hatch- meaning we don't convince a closeted trans person or a person that seems closeted they're trans. Bad form to try to tell someone who they are, and we know a person has to come to the conclusion themselves. They ask questions, we'll answer usually with personal anecdotes. The discourse about us says we "groom" people to become trans, it couldn't be farther form the truth.
Boy _howdy_ did I get slapped with that culture shock when I first poked around Tumblr in 2015. Nice to understand it in retrospect, because I couldn't understand that culture warren to save my life.
Is polari inspired by the cockney accent and rhyming scheme? ex. "going out for britneys" = "going out for beers" Britney SPEARS rhyming with BEERS
Partly, but Cockney rhyming slang is its own separate thing that was "added to the mix," so to speak. There's also a lot of Italian in Polari (which itself derives from the Italian "parlare," meaning "to talk"), as well as a number of other outside influences.
Cockney rhyming slang also crosses over with a thieve's cant, such as quantities of money being described as 'ponies'.
Discovered Otherwords recently and been on a binge, you are so much fun to listen to! I'd listen to you narrate anything
My favorite series on this channel, honestly. Love it.
Dr. B is fabulous. I could listen to her all day long.
I just learned about the word straggot a few days ago and though i don't really have any contextual reasons to use it, I get a massive kick out of its existence.
as a queer peruvian this is my first time hearing about loxoro, this was a very interesting video and now i feel like looking up about the speech more
Props for the pride month representation ❤
Lavender language, what a delightfully gentle sounding phrase. Much better than the definition of purple prose. And it is specifically halfway between pink and light blue. I love how clever people can be with words.😊
It seems like one aspect of "sounding gay" is missing from the analysis: everything regarding diction, inflection, melody, tone, etc. I'm pretty sure it has been studied somewhat. However, I guess it's harder to pin down and way less conscious.
There's a documentary called Do I Sound Gay? that explores this!
Filipinos typically refer to Swardspeak as Beki. It has some interesting features of how they twist the vocabulary from the vernacular languages back and forth between English and Tagalog, that are wholly separate from Taglish. Like, "kalurkey" which was briefly featured in the video is derived from "kaloka", which in Tagalog means something that could drive you nuts/insane. Adding the Er sound and the eY sound are features of English injected into a Tagalog word. Swardspeak also borrows heavily from English, like "jubis" is just obese with a Jin front of it, and it's a word that they use to mean fat. It takes the O sound and the long E sound from English and turns it into short U and I sounds that are available in the Tagalog language.
Because LGBTQ folks are culturally open in some industries and most areas of Metro Manila, a lot of straight folks learn some phrases or words pretty quickly.
Some of my favorites are these examples of cultural context. Like, there is a journalist named Ces Drilon, so we say we're feeling Stress Drilon. Or there's an actor named Gardo Versoza. So we say we're already Haggardo Versoza at the end of a workday.
She-ing is also extremely common now in Metro Manila, especially among office workers. It's common to call your friends endearingly as "mamsh" (short for mumshy), "mhie" (like -my at the end of the word Mommy), sis/ses for sister. And these days we even say it with friends who are straight males. And they say it back. I can't tell anymore if this had its roots in gay and trans communities, but I make the safe bet that they originated the trend. It's usually the case.
I appreciate you talking about this topic, especially as an educational channel 🧡
Hi 👋 I'm Dr.Gaurang queer in India. We have very old and rich queer argot language. We is call riwala or kothi riwala or kothi language. It is also a language for queer secret communication. It's believed that it's use become more popular in homophobic Islamic rule where the language borrowed the word from tribal tongues. The language became a real thing in British Raj (colonial era) after independence the language had also borrowed some words from English.
What makes this language unique is in India there are 28 official languages the riwala used in the state is influenced by the words from the languages of neighbouring states but not that state language. Though theses languages vary region to region there is a consistency of base vocabulary so everyone queer across the India who knows riwala can understand other.
I'm concerned about loosing this language as it is a valuable part of queer culture in India and gen z queers like me prefer English over riwala. The research in this field is limited as India still remains a conservative country. Can we as a international community participate in research and revive the language of rainbow.
Have you heard of Hijra Farsi? Apparently some Indian and Bangladeshi Hijra speak it
Another awesome episode! Thank you so much, The Aids tragedy cost us so much as a species and now I will add a language to that cost.
In Brazil there’s a dictionary of words created by queer people,funny bc even straight ppl nowdays use those words
I love all the videos you make! its so fun and entertaining, lots to learn too!
In Brazil we have Pajubá as our queer dialect
I had no idea zhuzh was borrowed from Polari ! I yelled "thats awesome!!" lol. As others have said, thank you for making queer history more visible and easily accessible!
One aspect of queer lingo that is more controversial but I enjoy it (maybe because I'm Gen Z) is turning slurs on their head to refer to cis or hetero people, as well as using slurs as terms of endearment for our community (such as queer).
I knew about Polari from Kenneth Williams using it extensively on his BBC Radio comedy, but hadn't heard of all these other lavender languages. Wow.
Don't forget Hugh Paddick as well. Their Julian and Sandy are still bona!
I don't know how I feel about hearing straight white men or straight men in general using shade, tea and other such words that used to be part of our own secret language of sorts for more than 70 years.
Asexuals have their own words too. “Allosexuals” meaning sexually attracted people. “Cake” we use to detect other asexuals “I prefer just eating cake” Etc.
Such an important topic to cover! Thank you
Commenting just for the engagement. Love the videos! Keep it up!
This was absolutely fascinating! Thank you so much. ❤
Pajubá is widely used in Brazil by queer communities and sex workers. It uses a mix of Portuguese and diverse African languages words, along with slangs.
This is super interesting, thank you! Some of this I’ve noticed in my own speech but wasn’t sure precisely where I picked it up. I had no idea of the existence of some of these!
Granted, this excellent video was for an English/Indo-European speaking audience, but it would have been great to include other language families which often correspond to different views on homosexuality. Here in Israel, LGBT slang is similar to Polari -- comprised of the dominant language Hebrew, plus minority languages like Arabic and Ladino -- yet more rapidly assimilated into mainstream society. The smash hit "Tel Aviv" by Omer Adam was originally a promo song for an LGBT circuit party of Jews of Middle Eastern background in 2013, and is full of lavender language; now, it's a hit heard at straight weddings and sung by people of all ages and identities.
Nice lavender nails to go with the video :)
I learned so much! Thank you.
Beautifully done. Lavender is a wonderful language
And the Swardspeak word BONGGA (extravagant) has been added into the OED.
Nalingaw kos "Antibiotic"! hahahahaha. I really love how alive Swardspeak is here in the Philippines and how most of the words are based on the speakers creativity and improvisation.
swardspeak = da most difficult language to decode. 😂😋 THANK YOU fo diz episode, dr. erica and otherwords team. ❣️💟💗💖💕💓💝
Fantastic work!! Thank you!
great video, i want more on this topic!!
My favourite thing about yesteryear gays is that they would write letters and invite people to secret gardens with specific flowers. We should bring that back.