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Global Gay Nation => Gay Homeland Movement => Topic started by: Rain on September 09, 2007, 09:02:19 PM

Title: Endorsed or official languages in the Gay Homeland.
Post by: Rain on September 09, 2007, 09:02:19 PM
I propose that certain varieties of gay speech should be endorsed (if not outright made co-official) languages of the Gay Homeland.  I suggest the endorsement of Polari (http://members.aol.com/frij/index.html) from London's gay community and Faggish from New York's.  

Both are quite similar in many ways...but Polari is an actual literary vehicle with a small but expanding dictionary. Faggish (sometimes referred to as "Linguash" or "the Queen's English") has  sporadically gone on to influence American English by transmitting certain words and idiomatic phrases ("you got served", as in the movie about breakdancers...the term is a Faggish idiom used in the ballroom scene and borrowed by breakdancers).  Faggish is not yet a literary language.  It does, however, have a rich and expanding musical output being the main vernacular for the ballroom scene and for various house music songs (i.e. "Do You Speak the Queen's English" by Joey Rolon).

Both also employ coded rhyming slangs.  London's Polari uses the Cockney rhyming slang of the East End.  Faggish uses two mutually intelligible forms of a pig Latin-based rhyming slang...one version is predominantly used by the African-American gay community, the other by the Puerto Rican and Dominican gay community.

BTW...for those who want to know...I speak Faggish fluently.  I have also set about expanding the vocabulary of Faggish and resurrecting some words that had died out (like "carta"...the face, or "ling"...when something's done to overkill...like this post...ha ha ha).  I was not at all suprised to learn this about myself either:

I speak New Yorkese (http://www.blogthings.com/whatkindofamericanenglishdoyouspeakquiz/).

***Your Linguistic Profile:***


50% General American English

35% Yankee

10% Dixie

0% Midwestern

0% Upper Midwestern
Title: Endorsed or official languages in the Gay Homeland.
Post by: Feral on September 10, 2007, 03:47:01 AM
Quote
Your Linguistic Profile:

(http://images.blogthings.com/whatkindofamericanenglishdoyouspeakquiz/general.jpg)

50% General American English

20% Upper Midwestern

15% Yankee

10% Midwestern

0% Dixie



Well, duh. Though don't tell too many people that my incomprehensible accent is "Midwestern." Midwesterners especially have difficulty understanding it. (That would be, I very strongly suspect, because I'm prone to using words like 'incomprehensible.')

I loved this bit:

Quote
What do you call a traffic situation in which several roads meet in a circle and you have to get off at a certain point?


That would be.... a figment of your imagination. Roads do not do this. They meet at tidy right angles, just the two of them at a time. Of course, from time to time there are insane roads that really ought to be ripped out that meet an otherwise tidy intersection at a forty-five degree angle (usually without crossing it). That would be called "that stupid intersection that ought to be ripped out."
Title: Endorsed or official languages in the Gay Homeland.
Post by: Rain on September 12, 2007, 05:14:13 AM
I'm still waiting for berto to take this test.  Even if letters of the alphabet are not part of the questionnaire.
Title: Endorsed or official languages in the Gay Homeland.
Post by: Rain on September 12, 2007, 05:21:30 AM
Quote
That would be.... a figment of your imagination. Roads do not do this.

No...there are a few famous examples of roads converging onto a cricular "roundabout", to use a British term. Piccadilly Circus in London is one of them.  The other is the Place de l'Étoile (Place Charles de Gaulle) in Paris.  In NYC we have Columbus Circle which has a strange assortment of streets that do not so much radiate out from it, but just seem to coalesce there in no particularly orderly way (a perennial source of indignation for all New York drivers).
Title: Endorsed or official languages in the Gay Homeland.
Post by: berto on September 12, 2007, 10:14:06 AM
Quote
No...there are a few famous examples of roads converging onto a cricular "roundabout", to use a British term.


The semi-notorious "Confusion Corner" (http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=Confusion+Corner&btnG=Google+Search&meta=cr%3DcountryCA)
Title: Endorsed or official languages in the Gay Homeland.
Post by: Feral on September 12, 2007, 10:27:26 AM
Quote from: "Rain"
Quote
That would be.... a figment of your imagination. Roads do not do this.


No...there are a few famous examples of roads converging onto a cricular "roundabout", to use a British term.  Piccadilly Circus in London is one of them.  The other is the Place de l'Étoile (Place Charles de Gaulle) in Paris.  In NYC we have Columbus Circle which has a strange assortment of streets that do not so much radiate out from it, but just seem to coalesce there in no particularly orderly way (a perennial source of indignation for all New York drivers).


Yes, yes, yes... these savage and chaotic places do indeed encumber themselves with such monstrosities. The squares in Savanah with their byzantine yield/right of way rules might well be another example.

Where I come from, such things do not occur at all. They may even be illegal. Lots of things that are common-place in the East (and in many parts of the world) just can't be in the Mid-West. Houses that abut each other (I hear they call those things 'terraces' in the UK and what's more, they date back to before the middle ages)... against the building codes. Trees anywhere near an intersection where they might block someone's view of oncoming traffic (so common  where I live now that I think they must have been required by ordinance at some point in the past)... liable to be cut down by city employees without notice or compensation (to the contrary -- a fine may well be in the offing).

Nope... while they have such meetings of many roads in savage, chaotic, and blessedly distant lands, the place of my birth is free of them. Many of the less well-traveled denizens would require photographic evidence of the existence of such things, and then they might well suggest that said evidence has been photo-shopped. It goes without saying that the local dialect has no word for this thing that cannot exist.
Title: Endorsed or official languages in the Gay Homeland.
Post by: berto on September 12, 2007, 11:01:32 AM
gawd... I've fallen in love with Feral, KT and Rain, based on language alone...

Am I ill?
Title: Endorsed or official languages in the Gay Homeland.
Post by: Feral on September 12, 2007, 11:06:19 AM
yes
Title: Endorsed or official languages in the Gay Homeland.
Post by: Rain on September 12, 2007, 07:23:54 PM
yes!
Title: Endorsed or official languages in the Gay Homeland.
Post by: Rain on September 12, 2007, 07:31:07 PM
Quote
No...there are a few famous examples of roads converging onto a cricular "roundabout", to use a British term.


I'm laughing hysterically...and if you were Puerto Rican, you would know why.  I just realized that I mispelled "circular" as "cricular".  The word "crica" is a Puerto Rican vernacular for "vagina".  While I was typing that entry I was downloading this:

(http://i209.photobucket.com/albums/bb72/bxmuchacho/BritneyToto.jpg)

A freudian slip, no doubt.
Title: Endorsed or official languages in the Gay Homeland.
Post by: Rain on September 12, 2007, 07:57:59 PM
Quote
Many of the less well-traveled denizens would require photographic evidence of the existence of such things, and then they might well suggest that said evidence has been photo-shopped.

(http://www.mysteriesofcolumbus.org/Portals/33/Loc2b-Columbus-Circle.jpg)

This picture was found on a site appropriately enough entitled:  The Mysteries of Columbus.  This particular arrangement of streets remains a mystery to all New Yorkers to this day, deviating as it does from modern Manhattan's rigid grid pattern for no reason at all.  One street defies all logic in New York...Broadway.  But that's out of tradition and convention.  It was originally an Algonquin footpath prior to European settlement and was maintained as the main route to the hinterlands by the early Dutch and, later, the English.  Broadway continues it's strange bisecting diagonal course across the island to this day.  The beauty of it is that its transcepts form some of NY's best-known intersections (Times, Herald, Union Squares among them).

The other day I went downtown to that part of the city that dates to the time before the modern grid pattern was laid out.  I was shocked, amused, and a little thankful to see that the city has seen fit to add to the further confusion of the colonial jumble of streets below 14th Street by adding new and very European-looking traffic islands for buses.  For some odd reason, those islands actually look like they should have always been part of the plan.  The streets below 14th Street are more akin to the European model than to the orderly quilts of American towns and cities.  I was once informed that back in the days of streetcars (we call them "trolleys" or "trams" here in NY) the city had plenty of traffic islands.  They were all ripped out when the trams were banished in favor of buses. 

By the way (and I know berto's gonna love this), the Los Angeles Dodgers trace their name back to New York's early trolley line system..."trolley dodger" being the nickname given to Brooklynites by other city dwellers because of the large number of trolley lines that ran through that borough.  So, when the Brooklyn Dodgers moved to L.A. they effectively took a name with them that has absolutely no connection with their new home.
Title: Endorsed or official languages in the Gay Homeland.
Post by: Feral on September 12, 2007, 11:12:42 PM
Quote from: "Rain"
I'm laughing hysterically...and if you were Puerto Rican, you would know why.  I just realized that I mispelled "circular" as "cricular".  The word "crica" is a Puerto Rican vernacular for "vagina".
...
A freudian slip, no doubt.


Oh? And here I thought you were describing the shape. You know... a cricular road.

Freudian, huh? If that's your story and you're sticking to it, I shall take you at your word.
Title: Endorsed or official languages in the Gay Homeland.
Post by: Rain on September 13, 2007, 12:15:59 AM
Ahh...I also misspelled "misspell".  Spell checker, please!  But then again, English is not the easiest of languages to spell.  And those divergences between the Brit and Yank norms are enough to send any level-headed person to drink...notice all the alcoholics amongst the languages' literary greats.

No...I intended to use "circular".  Cricular would have done nicely, I suppose.  However, it was the sudden shock of seeing Britney's shaved twat that impelled my brain toward what is considered one of the filthiest words in Caribbean Spanish.  So rude and sobering was the shock.  I have to admit that I had never seen that particular piece of hairless cunt before...never really having cared for Ms. Spears in the least.  But an online discussion with a friend about her MTV Video Awards performance prompted him to email me said snatch.  I downloaded her hairless one-eyed cat for the benefit of my bf who has rather plebian tastes.

And, yes...that's my story and I'm sticking to it.
Title: Endorsed or official languages in the Gay Homeland.
Post by: vanrozenheim on September 13, 2007, 09:52:38 AM
Ahem, you guys stick on topic in this thread? :wink:

Whatever the future lingua franca on the territory under Gay sovereignty will be, it should be sufficiently easy to learn for all those not native speakers. IDO have been suggested previously, but some simplified variety of English isn't out of question either. From a more practical viewpoint, at this time in history, English is used among writers, avctivists and all kinds of skilled workers for global communication.

One can hardly impose a language upon an entire population against the will of its constituents. One can, however, create conditions under which the use of a particular language is stronly supported. Let's assume that IDO were the official language, than the government can prescribe that citizenship may only be acquired by individuals who passed the exam. Or government can impose a general value-added tax of 25% for books but exempt those in IDO from taxation.

The Japanese were facing a similar problem when they strived to educate general population in written Japanese. There were too many Kanji's to learn and an ordinary person was hardly able to read the newspaper or official communication without a dictionary. They solved the problem by issuing a list of "official" Kanji's (some 2,500) and strongly recommended the newspapers and government officials not to use any Kanji's not on the list. The result was that citizens are able now to partake in the public life, but also letting scholars and literati to use anything they wish.

GHF's customary law includes so far:

1) The opinion of Master Feral on the proper capitalization of names of peoples;
2) The opinion of Master Vicky on the depricated use of "MSM" for Gay and Bisexulal men.

Beyound that, anyone is using anything resembling English to the best of his abilities.  :wink: Use of words from other languages is encouraged, if they are best suitable to describe something which has no name in English.

Some thughts on the issue can be found also on GHF's Forum (http://forum.gayrepublic.org/index.php/topic,317.0.html).
Title: Endorsed or official languages in the Gay Homeland.
Post by: Feral on September 13, 2007, 10:34:46 AM
Oh yes... the names of peoples and nations are properly capitalized in English. Gays are a people. The only proper excuse for writing 'gay' without a capital letter would be if one means "happy and light-hearted." There are, after all, many gay Gays (as well as the usual crop of surly, bitchy ones). ;)

"Imposing" language upon people is at once an immensely difficult and utterly simple prospect. Sure... people resist such things. Resistance, however, is futile (did I just type that?) Language is an instrument of usage. There are any number of hideous neologisms and malapropisms that I have railed against for decades now... all to no avail. Take, for instance, that ever-popular American "carrot and stick." The classic illustration of the phrase "carrot on a stick" is of a donkey pulling a cart being ridden by a boy. This clever lad bears a short pole, from which dangles a nice, tasty carrot, and he induces the donkey to pull the cart by dangling the carrot just beyond the creature's reach. The boy is not going to strike the donkey, he is only bribing the donkey. Actually, he is cheating the poor beast, since the carrot will perpetually be just out of reach, no matter what the donkey does. Think of it as the usual hijinx the Democratic Party gets up to every time they want money and votes -- the carrot dangles from a stick. Any sensible donkey would decline to pull the cart under these circumstances, but donkeys are not sensible.

Alas, there is also that oh-so-American notion of "speak softly but carry a big stick." Americans love their big sticks. It's not such bad advice.

Somehow, the 'carrot ON a stick' has become a 'carrot AND a stick.' The poor donkey is no longer cheated... he is offered one carrot in exchange for pulling the cart, and if he declines the offer (which really is much too low), then he gets whacked with the stick. I have long felt that if this sort of gangster-like activity really is common enough to merit entering the English language as a catch-phrase, then some clever person ought to make up one. There's neither call nor need to go mangling perfectly good and long accepted sayings.

Times change, language changes, and there's very little anyone can do about it.

Usage is king.

If there is something Gays wish to say in a 'Gay' way, then let them do so. If people wish to understand what is being said, then they will learn the new words. The trick is... if one wishes to BE understood, it's generally wise to use the old ones. You have to stop caring if you're not generally understood to employ argot effectively. That, after all, was the entire point of Polari... to not be understood by those who did not understand. There is a place for such behavior. Most every social group, no matter how small, deploys its own special jargon to confound the uninitiated.
Title: Endorsed or official languages in the Gay Homeland.
Post by: berto on September 13, 2007, 02:45:34 PM
Quote from: "Rain"
By the way (and I know berto's gonna love this), the Los Angeles Dodgers trace their name back to New York's early trolley line system..."trolley dodger" being the nickname given to Brooklynites by other city dwellers because of the large number of trolley lines that ran through that borough.  So, when the Brooklyn Dodgers moved to L.A. they effectively took a name with them that has absolutely no connection with their new home.


Ackshully, I knew this tidbit already. I did not know this:

Quote
It was originally an Algonquin footpath prior to European settlement and was maintained as the main route to the hinterlands by the early Dutch and, later, the English.


You (like Fer) are an endless source of fascinating information, my dear...
Title: Endorsed or official languages in the Gay Homeland.
Post by: berto on September 13, 2007, 02:48:23 PM
Quote from: "Rain"
I'm still waiting for berto to take this test.  Even if letters of the alphabet are not part of the questionnaire.


The "test" is Yanqui-centric. I do NOT speak Yanqui...
Title: Endorsed or official languages in the Gay Homeland.
Post by: berto on September 13, 2007, 02:51:47 PM
Quote
There are, after all, many gay Gays (as well as the usual crop of surly, bitchy ones). :wink:


Gawd, you make me LAFF sometimes...

*kisses to Fer*
Title: Endorsed or official languages in the Gay Homeland.
Post by: Rain on September 13, 2007, 04:50:14 PM
Wait...

How did we get away from Britney Spears' shaved twat?
Title: Endorsed or official languages in the Gay Homeland.
Post by: Rain on September 13, 2007, 05:48:30 PM
Anyway...going back to Polari and Faggish....

While the use of Yiddish is commonplace in New York and many other cities with large Jewish populations, in Israel, Jews have had to fight to preserve it, sometimes with violent opposition from other Jews (because this language has strong connections to the Holocaust).  

We should see to it that unique forms of Gay (happy, Fer?) speech be preserved and indeed encouraged.  Both Yiddish and Polari/Faggish share interesting commonalities, both being languages of oppressed minorities which evolved under hostile conditions to serve as codes of group identity.
Title: Endorsed or official languages in the Gay Homeland.
Post by: Feral on September 14, 2007, 07:32:04 AM
Quote from: "berto"
Quote from: "Rain"
I'm still waiting for berto to take this test.  Even if letters of the alphabet are not part of the questionnaire.


The "test" is Yanqui-centric. I do NOT speak Yanqui...


Ahem. I have heard you speak. It is a variety of "Upper Midwest" with not so much of the Cheddar-Head in it. I suspect it's a prairie thing. I'm not all that clear on the more western variations of the accent. Considering where you're from, I would not be at all surprised if there was more than a touch of western Minnesota in your accent. Of course, there's still that problematic west-coast surfer-boy thing you do with some of your vowels... but that's neither here nor there.

You talk like a Cheddar-Head with a cold. Not that that's a bad thing... Wisconsin is just crawling with really very nice people. (Too nice... disturbingly nice... suspiciously nice.... No one is that nice).

Quote from: "Rain"
Wait...

How did we get away from Britney Spears' shaved twat?


Um... Divine Grace? Phenomenal luck? Outstanding karma?

Quote from: "Rain"
unique forms of Gay (happy, Fer?) speech


Positively giddy. It's made me so gay that there are little Snow White blue birds flitting about the room. It's annoying the cat.

But... I seriously agree with you. Gay modes of speech should be encouraged. So... um... GO RAIN! Rah Rah!

or... you could teach me something. :)
Title: Endorsed or official languages in the Gay Homeland.
Post by: Rain on September 14, 2007, 09:53:15 AM
Quote
GO RAIN! Rah Rah!


Lesson #1:  In Standard Spoken Faggish (because there is no WRITTEN form, standard or otherwise), the expression "rah, rah" is  pejorative.  It is also a noun.  

Examples:  "Guhrl...she cackled so fiuhzly she doned gived me da rah rahs!"  or  "Last night I got yakked by this oyse banjee trade til it gave my amyugs da rah-rahs!"  An African American would use "amyugahs" in that sentence instead of "amyugs".  The word is a pig latinized form of the Faggish word "yams"...a common word for arse, ass, butt, behind, butthole...you get the picture.  Note that there is always a "uh" in the middle of the word "guhrl", lest it be confused with the real thing.

To give someone the rah-rahs is to give them the blues or to hurt them (usually unintentionally).  Or even, to annoy.  Like what the queens did to me when I first came out of the closet and discovered that NYC fags had not one, but TWO forms of gay slang and both of those had subtle racial varieties.  It wasn't until a few years later when I watched "The Boys in The Band" that I realized that this form of speech had been developing for a long time.  Later on, my own research led me to this little nugget:

It is quite common for gays in the U.S. to use the term "queen" when referring to one another.  It's even common in other English-speaking countries.  But that word is not the same word as the one used for Elizabeth II.  Although the word that today means monarch and the one that gays use for each other are both indeed derived from a common Old English word that originally meant "woman".  This word diverged into two strains...the king's woman or "queen" and the other, spelt "quean", was used for a harlot, a prostitute, a woman of ill repute.  THIS is the word that has been passed down since the days of the Venerable Bede to the present as the common gay "queen".

I shan't give you the rah-rahs any longer.  That concludes your first lesson in NYC Faggish.  Class dismissed.
Title: Endorsed or official languages in the Gay Homeland.
Post by: Feral on September 15, 2007, 06:32:18 AM
Mmmmmm... class is in session.

One day I may even learn How to Read (http://gaypimp.com/index.php/component/option,com_subscribe/Itemid,112/).  :panick:
Title: Endorsed or official languages in the Gay Homeland.
Post by: Rain on September 15, 2007, 10:33:22 PM
I LIVEEEEEEEEEEEE!  Mecca Revlon is none other than the former Mecca Ninja (he changed houses).  He's my adopted nephew/neice.  Another one of Willi Ninja's proteges.  Nice to see he's still active in the ballroom.  I had almost started to believe that krystal and extasy had done him in.
Title: Endorsed or official languages in the Gay Homeland.
Post by: Feral on September 16, 2007, 11:13:14 PM
Nope (http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=68788361).

And I have to say... that's one of the better uses of the "Imperial March" from Star Wars ever.
Title: Endorsed or official languages in the Gay Homeland.
Post by: Rain on September 20, 2007, 01:34:31 AM
Ahh...very good.  Thank you, Fer.  I had no way of getting a hold of Mecca.  I expected to see him at Willi's funeral and he was a no-show (they had a bitter falling out just before Willi died).  He'll be surprised to find out that I remixed his song with Kevin Aviance's "Ugly" while I was recuperating from double pneumonia.  Yes, I really SHOULD kill the boyfriend.  LOL.  He'll get a kick out of it since he and Kevin and Nita Aviance (the dj for the House of Aviance) are very close.
Title: Endorsed or official languages in the Gay Homeland.
Post by: Rain on September 20, 2007, 02:21:49 AM
Quote
And I have to say... that's one of the better uses of the "Imperial March" from Star Wars ever.

I'm impressed...and shocked.  He's a Revlon.  That in itself is no small thing in the NYC underground gay ball circuit.  Jose "Stiffy" Revlon was his main competition when he was a Ninja.  They will make a formidable force to be reckoned with in any voguing competition.  As it is, the "new way" vogue children are all trying like mad to learn the "old way" (circa 1980-1994) style of voguing.  It's grueling, physical, and requires attention to detail and Olympic-style precision.  It's a pity the ballroom children have always considered ourselves the "bastard children of the gay community".  The amount of creativity and artistry is astounding.
Title: Endorsed or official languages in the Gay Homeland.
Post by: Feral on September 20, 2007, 08:13:20 AM
"Bastard children of the Gay community?"

I think not.

"Front-runners," perhaps. "Harbingers," maybe. I'm not in the least bit astounded by the levels of creativity and artistry that have filtered down to me (and really... I'm not even watching).

It is one thing to rearrange the elements of the world to one's liking -- everyone should do it to some extent. Redecorating is, quite often, absolutely essential. It shouldn't be a way of life, however. Creating something new and distinctive -- that is real power. Not a lot of people know what to do with real power (they're much to en rapt by the glittering illusions offered up by fake power).

Whenever Gay people set their minds to making something of their own, for their own use, without the advice or the consent of any other people... the results are pretty much always breath-taking.
Title: Endorsed or official languages in the Gay Homeland.
Post by: Rain on September 21, 2007, 02:49:36 AM
Quote
Whenever Gay people set their minds to making something of their own, for their own use, without the advice or the consent of any other people... the results are pretty much always breath-taking.


There is a certain amount of genius in overcoming prejudice and oppression.  That same genius is put to other, more creative uses.
Title: Endorsed or official languages in the Gay Homeland.
Post by: Feral on September 21, 2007, 01:47:13 PM
Yup. And I'm a huge fan of pretty much every one of those other, more creative uses. There should be more of them.