Back in the day, gay people had to invent a secret language to avoid being caught.
If you have any gay friends at all, you know that we have a language all our own. Granted, we boosted most of it from black girls, but any time you hear someone say ‘hunty’, ‘kween’, or ‘yass’, chances are that person is a homosexual.
Things weren’t always so great for us homos though, and there was a time when we had to use a secret language just to avoid being arrested.
Polari was a language used in Britain back in the 50s and 60s, when being gay was illegal. Nowadays it is being seen again, even in the lyrics of a song on David Bowie’s final album.
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Polari is derived from a mishmash of Italian, Romani, Yiddish, cockney slang, backslang—meaning spelling words backwards, and cant, a language used by 18th-century traveling performers, criminals, and carnival workers.
Polari was generally spoken by oppressed people in the working class, in an effort to create a queer culture at a time when such a thing wasn’t allowed. Homosexuality wasn’t legalized in England until 1967, and since then it has sort of died out.
Call me crazy, but I would take Polari over the ridiculous gay slang I hear strewn about in gay bars nowadays. Half the time I don’t even know what we are saying anymore, and I am a card carrying, silver star homo.
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