grassangel | (no subject)

I may be having feels because, as I read and listen up on Polari due to a little headcanon about Aziraphale using it because Soho and ‘discreet gentleman’s club’, there are some words like queen and cruise that have, for 300+ years more or less kept their meaning amongst gay men.

(Also there was enough of a population in places like London that 300 years ago, you could live in a gay community like today.)

And then Polari has bits borrowed from Italian and some school boy French thrown in too and I’m eyeing Crowley’s ciaos very suspiciously because I could very well imagine him saying something like bona nochy or calling police lillies.
There’s also a delightful ‘translation’ of the Bible done into Polari.

So yes, feels because this is part of (British) gay/queer heritage, and yes it should be recorded and noted as such, and yeah it has problematique elements but the delightful thing is that it’s a language and as such it can change and become more inclusive.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ol8MIXWouiY (a BBC four short documentary, interviewing both academics as well as a small group of older gay men/drag artists familiar with the terms)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBa6f2E9IGE (THE Polari documentary - again with interviews with older gay men, drag artists and academics. Also features a slightly more in depth look at the etymology. Warning: contains historical descriptions of homophobia from 5:05 to 6:25)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0FE3rIHU1o (A basic look at Polari, but notable for the fact it seems like it’s sort of still being used in the London drag scene. Content warning for the g-slur @ 1:39-:41)

https://www.theallusionist.org/allusionist/polari

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-forgotten-secret-language-of-gay-men

https://m.dailykos.com/stories/2018/5/1/1761050/-Gays-don-t-have-decoder-rings-but-we-do-have-our-own-secret-gay-language-Polari

https://daily.jstor.org/unspeakable-linguistics-camp/

https://thelanguagecommunity.tumblr.com/post/174921321566/this-post-is-meant-to-be-a-directory-of-every

https://bonapalare.tumblr.com/