Polari - English gay slang
The final1styear paper by Valeria Grinevitch
TheHistory of Polari
Polari(also seen as 'Palare') is a gay slang language, which has now almostdied out.
Gay slang in Britain dates back to theinvolvement of the homosexual subculture with the criminal"underworld". The homosexual subculture of the EighteenthCentury mixed with the gypsies, tramps & thieves of popular songto produce a rich cross-fertilisation of customs, phrases andtraditions. As the Industrial revolution dramatically changedsettlement patterns, more and more people drifted away from villagesand small communities and moved to larger towns in search of work andopportunity. In these larger urban locations, the scope for thedevelopment of communities of outcasts substantially increased. Thegrowth of molly houses (private spaces for men to meet, drink, havesex together and practice communal rituals) encouraged the creationof a mollyidentity. A linguistic culture developed, feeding into thatprofession traditionally associated with poofs and whores: theatre.
WhenI started to research Polari, it was difficult to find any writtenmaterial about Polari as what little used to exist was out of print.However, in the last few years, more and more people have beenfinding out about it, and several web sites and magazine articleshave been written.
Polarifeatured heavily in the "Julian and Sandy" sketches on theBBC radio program "Round the Horne" in the late 60s, andthis is how a lot of people first heard of Polari. A few words like'bona' can still be seen in gay publications, used for camp effect.There are even hairdressers in London and Brighton called "BonaRiah".
Polariitself was never clearly defined: an ever-changing collection ofslang from various sources including Italian, English (backwardsslang, rhyming slang), circus slang, canal-speak, Yiddish and Gypsylanguages. It is impossible to tell which slang words are realPolari.
Linguistsstill argue about where it came from. The larger part of itsvocabulary is certainly Italian in origin, but nobody seems to knowhow the words got into Britain. Some experts say its origins lie inthe linguafranca ofthe shores of the Mediterranean, a pidgin in use in the Middle Agesand afterwards as a medium of communication between sailors andtraders from widely different language groups, the core of thislanguage being Italian and Occitan. Quite a number of British sailorslearnt the linguafranca. Onreturning home and retiring from the sea it is supposed that many ofthem became vagabonds or travellers, because they had no other meansof livelihood; this threw them into contact with roving groups ofentertainers and fairground people, who picked up some of the pidginterms and incorporated them into their own canting privatevocabularies.
However,other linguists point to the substantial number of native Italianswho came to Britain as entertainers in the early part of thenineteenth century, especially the Punch and Judy showmen, organgrinders and peddlars of the 1840s. Much of parlarey,the travelling showmen's language, appears to be derived from thelingua francaor the vocabulary of travelling actors and showmen during theEighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. Specifically theatricalparlyaree included phrases such as joggeringomee (streetmusician), slanga dolly to the edge(to show and work a marionette on a small platform outside theperformance booth in order to attract an audience) and climbthe slanging-tree(perform onstage). Nantydinarly(having nomoney) also had a peculiarly theatrical translation in the phrase"There's no treasury today, the ghost doesn't walk."
Thedisappearance of large numbers of traveling costermongers andcheapjacks by the early twentieth century effectively denied thelanguage its breathing space. As many of the travelling entertainersmoved sideways into traveling circus, so the language moved withthem, kept alive as a living and changing language within circusculture.
By the mid-twentieth century, there had also been across-over to a recognisably gay form of slang, with polariused by the gaycommunity to communicate in code in elaborate forms. Words such astradeand ecaf(backslang forface,shortened to eek)became part of gay subculture. Blaggingtrade(picking up sexual partners),zhoosingyour riah(doing your hair), trollingto a bijou bar(stepping into a gay club) and dishingthe dirt(recountinggossip) all became popular coded phrases to describe and encode anemerging homosexual lifestyle. By the 1950's, with secret homosexualclubs emerging in swinging London and the Wolfenden Committeediscussing the possibility of law reform around (homo) sexuality, itseems appropriate that polari should raise its irreverenthead.
Polari became an appropriate tool with which to confuse andconfound the naffomees(straight men). It traveled the world via the sea queens, whoincorporated navy slang into a new version of the language and alsoaccommodated local dialects and phrases.
But Polari is a linguistic mongrel. Words from Romany(originally an Indian dialect), Shelta (the cant of the Irishtinkers), Yiddish, back slang, rhyming slang and other non-standardEnglish are interspersed with words of Italian origin.
So itwould not be surprising to find that both the Italian showman and thelingua francatheories are right, each contributing words at different stages inPolari's development. This might indeed explain the substantialnumber of synonyms noted at various times. However, the vocabulary isnot well recorded, and now may never be, because it was normal untilquite recently for linguists to ignore such low-life forms, whichrarely turned up in print (and then only in partial glossaries). Butwe do know that a few of Polari's terms have made it across thelanguage barrier into semi-standard English, much of it seeming tocome to us via Cockney: karsey,a lavatory; mankey,poor, bad or tasteless; ponce,a pimp; savvyto know,understand; and scarperto run away.
The rest havestayed within the theatrical and circus worlds, and have also beenincorporated particularly into the private languages of somehomosexual groups, as Julian and Sandy make very clear. Some writershave sought to claim Polari exclusively for the gay community,renaming it Gayspeak.In the 1990s it certainly seems to be heavily used by some city-basedBritish gays (but only male gays, not lesbians), who have inventednew terms like nante'andbag for"no money" (handbag here being a self-mocking example ofmetonymy). However, it can scarcely have always been so, unless everyfairground showman, circus performer, strolling player, cheapjack andPunch and Judy man in history was gay, which seems somewhat unlikely.
The final1styear paper by Valeria Grinevitch
An American Polari
Ms.Martha Brummett of Denver, Colorado, has collected certain words inthe United States which appear to have a connection with Polari. Thetable following these remarks represents her own collection alongwith her glosses. She collected these in Memphis, Tennessee, which ison the Mississippi river. Not all the words are to be regarded asPolari, but I have preferred to cite this vocabulary as she conveyedit, as it is of interest in any case. Here are her comments as to howshe came to collect these items. They would appear to belong to thewords conveyed by circus folk:
My older friends had traveled extensively, at least whenyoung, to New York, San Francisco, at least. They went to New Orleansfrequently. Some of them had been in the Navy, Merchant Marine, orCoast Guard. The older ones had served in WWI or WWII, and had beento the UK or Europe.
The vocabulary I remember was not asextensive as I've seen reported, and was mostly sexual. I can recall(using the wordlist) hearing: Aunt Nell, barkey, bene, bevvy, bod,bold, bona, camp, chicken, cottage, deek (never vada), drag, facha(never heard "eek" or "ecaf", by the way), gam,grope, multy, nada, nix (never nanti), palaver, pogy, ponce, punk,rent, trade.
Youcan see that the Lingua Franca-derived terms, particularly the onesnot very sexual, give the impression of being Italian...
"Facha"was always used, as I pointed out. I recall other instances of what Iassumed was Italian picked up from the Sicilian immigrants to thearea, both to the Memphis metropolitan area and the rural counties ofnorthern Mississippi. I think there might be a great deal ofdifficulty in actually distinguishing these possible origins…
I worked lights for Lillie Cass' drag show, this higher educationgained from that and listening to guys talk at bars, after PoetrySociety meetings, backstage at bars & community theatres, mygrandmother's male antique-dealer colleagues, carnies[=circus-workers] privately and at second-hand bookstores andcoffeehouses...
The final 1styearpaper by Valeria Grinevitch
Bona Contention - Gay Times
January 2001
Polari,the gay slang used by Julian and Sandy in Round The Horne, is to gaymen what Latin is to Catholics - a dead language. So why did it dieout? asks Paul Baker. And is there any point in remembering it now?
RoundThe Horne was tremendously popular, attracting about 9 millionlisteners a week. And every week, thanks to Polari, Julian and Sandmade a mockery of the BBC's censors. For example, in one episode,they are domestic helps and have been shown into a kitchen where theyare expected to get to work. "I can't work in 'ere,"complains Julian. "All the dishes are dirty!" "Oohspeak for yourself, ducky!" retorts Sandy.
Thisis a clever triple innuendo. The audience would probably get the useof the word dish as an attractive young man, as in "Isn't hedishy?", but hardened Polari speakers also know that dish meansanus, which would afford them an extra special laugh.
Julianand Sandy were subversive in other ways too. At a time when most ofthe other fictional gay men and lesbians in the media usually endedup killing themselves in the final reel, this cheerfully unapologeticpair of queens made for a refreshing change.
Theiruse of Polari followed a long tradition - it had been known by gaymen in the U.K. for decades. But fast forward a few years and Polarihas almost vanished from gay circles. Mention it now and you'll morelikely than not to get a blank look, especially from anyone under 30.And those who do profess to have heard of it are likely to only knowa handful of words.
It'simpossible to pinpoint an exact date when Polari came into existence.It most likely arose from a type of 19th century slang calledParlyaree which was used by fairground and circus people as well asprostitutes, beggars and buskers. Many of these travelling peopleworked all over Europe, and as a result a fair number of the oldParlyaree words resembled Italian. The music halls of the 19thCentury eventually replaced these wandering entertainers, and out ofmusic halls developed the theatre. Parlyaree gradually morphed intoPolari (or Palare as it was earlier known), being picked up by gayactors and dancers - who introduced it onto London's gay scene.
Butthere were lots of other influences - The East End of London was fullof vibrant communities, and so we find bits of Yiddish (schwartzer:black man, schnozzle: nose) coming into Polari. The docks werepopular cruising grounds, and gay men would go there to pick upsailors - who had their own slang called Lingua Franca. As a result,bits of Lingua Franca appear in Polari. Then throw in some CockneyRhyming Slang and the less well-known backslang - the practice ofsaying a word as if it's spelt backwards (hair = riah, face=ecaf).Finally, in World War II add some American terms (butch, cruise) asgay men befriended and entertained homesick American G.I.s, and thenthrow in a few words stolen from 1960s drug culture (doobs: drugs,randy comedown: a desire for sex after taking drugs) for goodmeasure. The result is a complex, constantly changing form oflanguage which appears slightly different to whoever uses it.
Polariflourished in the repressive 1950s, where the control of post-warsexual morality was viewed as a priority and prosecutions against gaymen reached record levels. Under these unpleasant conditions, gay menwere subjected to a variety of horrors. Electroshock treatment,imprisonment, blackmail, hormones that made men grow breasts - themedical and legal professions got their knickers in such a twisttrying to find newer and more evil ways to torture gay men throughoutthe 50s. As being openly gay was dangerous, the need for a languagethat protected gay men, and at the same time acted as a kind of"gaydar" by allowing them to recognise others, wasextremely useful.
Bythe 1960s, the political situation had begun to change. Polari wasused less to cautiously "out" yourself, and more forchatting with friends. Its vocabulary - full of words to do withclothing (lally-drags: trousers, ogle-fakes: spectacles) and parts ofthe body (thews: arms, luppers: fingers) and evaluative adjectives(bona: good, cod: bad), reflects what it was most often used for -gossiping about potential sexual partners with your mates, while yourtarget was in earshot. "Vada that bona omee ajax - the one withnanti riah!" translates to "Look at that nice man overthere - the one with no hair!" Use it in the club, or on thetube - you could spill all of the details about what you got up tolast night, without anyone being the wiser.
However,in the 1970s, Polari started to fade from people's memories. Julianand Sandy had represented a swan-song of sorts in any case. In 1967(the same year that Round the Horne was at its peak, winning theaward for best comedy radio programme), the legal situation for theaverage gay man was improved with the implementation of the WolfendenReport’s recommendations of ten years earlier. Homosexualitywas partially decriminalised (although there were still a variety ofways that men could be prosecuted for having gay sex), and as aresult, there was less of a need for a secret language. In additionto that, Julian and Sandy gave Polari a kind of doomed respectability- they had inadvertently blurted out the secret via the radio, into 9million homes a week. What was the point of using Polari when AuntBeryl listened to Round The Horne and was able to get the gist ofwhat you were saying?
Andultimately, there were political reasons for ditching Polari - it wasassociated with oppression, and the early Gay Liberationists wantedto put all of that behind them. It was rather easy to criticisePolari as being sexist, racist and brimming over with internalisedhomophobia. Gay magazines of the early 70s are quick to cast Polarias keeping gay men in a ghetto. One writer warns that gay culture isgoing to become consumed by a "language of body parts ".And Polari, with its camp bitchy overtones was so last decade, don'tyou know? This was the era when harmless, much-loved John Inman waspicketed outside Brighton's Dome Hall by gay men for "contributingto the television distortion of the image of homosexuals".
Bythe beginning of the 1980s, Polari had all but vanished from the gayscene, and in place of the fey Polari speakers, were Americaninfluences - butch was in, and the Malboro Man look - muscles,leather, denim, facial hair, uniforms, big boots etc. becamefashionable. The clone was born, and with minor modifications stillexists today. Suddenly going to the gym became a popular pastime andthe gay scene was in danger of becoming populated with butch Maryswho took their masculinity and muscle tone ever-so seriously. Butchgay men aren't supposed to speak Polari - instead they grunt and showyou a coloured handkerchief so you know what they're into.
However,in the 1990s, the situation changes again. With more people becomingrelaxed about sexuality, Polari is undergoing a revival of interest.It's now possible to view it as part of gay heritage - a weapon thatwas used to fight oppression, and something that gay men can be proudof again. Camp is no longer viewed as apolitical - for example, theLondon branch of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence use "HighPolari" in their blessings, sermons and canonisations - adding abit of religious mystique while also acknowledging gay history withintheir ceremonies. And anyone who wants to add some authentic mid-20thcentury atmosphere in their film, book or play or pop song about gaymen can drop a few words of Polari into their script for instantcredibility (see Love Is The Devil, The Velvet Goldmine orMorrissey's Piccadilly Palare for examples). Polari has become ashort-hand to represent being gay in the '50s or '60s in the same waythat a hula hoop or a space-hopper represents the 1970s.
However,Polari still occupies a controversial position in the hearts ofcontemporary gay men. Last year a phone debate in a gay free-sheetunearthed a number of conflicting, and at times strange attitudestowards it. Some callers were quick to dismiss Polari as campnonsense, only spoken by unfashionable people who lived "in thesticks" (i.e. outside London). Such words are "neitheruseful, relevant or reflect the queer society we live in today,"complained one caller. Others argued that it was harmless fun, and toignore Polari is to do an injustice to the men and women who livedthrough more oppressive times. The free-sheet joined in, labelingPolari as "evil".
It'sunlikely that Polari will ever be revived to the extent that it wasused in the 50s - but that's no shame. Without realising it, many ofthe words that people consider to be "gay slang" were oncepart of Polari's lexicon - chicken, trade, butch, camp, cottage etc.These words, which are more useful in describing gay experiencesbecause they don't have straight equivalents, have survived whileother words like lally: legs, poll: wig, order: go etc. have falleninto disuse. That's not to say that it can't be fun to use themoccasionally. Speaking a few words of Polari is hardly going to causea pair of Larry Grayson glasses on a chain to magically appear aroundyour neck. And in any case, little bits of Polari have even beenincorporated into mainstream slang. For example - the word naff wasoriginally used as a Polari acronym meaning "Not Available ForF..". Now it simply refers to something that's tasteless.Clearly, those poor confused straights must have heard it - "ohdon't bother with him, he's naff!", inferred it meant somethingbad, and started using it themselves - not realising that the wordwas originally an insult hurled at them.
Sowhile it's important that a situation never arises where gay men needto use a secret language again, we do ourselves no favours bydistancing ourselves completely from Polari. From the initial 1960smedia representations of effeminate, camp gay man, through to thehyper-masculine alternatives created by the gay subculture in the1970s, the recent years have seen a resurgence and a reappraisal ofboth identities. Distinctions between the two, however, are now moreblurred than ever. And while gay still means something different fromstraight, there continues to be a place for Polari.
____________________
PaulBaker,2001
The final 1styear paper by ValeriaGrinevitch
Contents:
1.NoteUKstatistics
2.Myown researching Polarimyway of researching
3.Thehistory of Polari
4.AnAmerican PolariMs. MarthaBrummettresearching
5.ResearchingPolari an articlePaul Baker wrotefor Lancaster University's student magazine "Scan" dated15th November 1996.
6.BonaContention anarticle Paul Baker wrote for“GayTimes”datedJanuary2001
7.Vocabulary
The final1styear paper by Valeria Grinevitch
Myown researchingPolari
Sincewriting the above, I am horrified to find so much that is misleading.For one thing, apparently it is impossible to talk of "gaylanguage" anymore. It's just "not allowed" in society.There are as many ways to be gay as there are gay people. We can'tjust all be lumped together and then told that we have a "language".And just what is meant by "gay" anyway? Oh, it's soconfusing to a simple boy from a council estate in the northeast.
Then,and apparently this is even more scary - simply describing Polari initself isn't going to get us anywhere. We have to consider it interms of "gay identities" (note the plural here), orrather, how do Polari speakers use Polari in order to construct orperform an identity based upon an alternative gender (to the one thatmen are usually assigned)? And this is where it gets difficultbecause it's really hard to find any examples of Polari, other thanthe Julian and Sandy tapes (which were made up), a number of(different) lexicons, and some interviews of gay and lesbians talkingabout Polari (but not talking inPolari unless they're giving examples). It's a bit like trying totell someone what water is like, when you've never tasted ityourself, but other people have told you about it.
SoI'll be having to "make do" with secondary sources of datafor the most part. Hopefully, each kind of data has its own kind ofvalidity, and taken together, each part will be able to show upsomething exciting about Polari
Butis Polari dead anyway? Well, no, not thatdead. The London Order of the Sisters ofPerpetual Indulgence (a group of gay men who dress as nuns in orderto combine the political with the comedic) have started using Polariin their ceremonies - in order to lend spiritual weight to suchoccasions. For the Sisters, Polari is to gay men what Latins is toCatholics. However, from what I know of these events, the Polari thatis used is as scripted as the Polari employed by Julian and Sandy -and even more bizarre - it's in the form of a monologue: a long wayfrom its original bitchy, gossipy, cruisy usage in the bars, clubsand buses of 1950s/60s London. Then again, Polari has never remainedthe same thing for very long, as the lexica can testify. Perhaps theappropriation of it by the Sisters is simply a postmodern revival?
The final1styear paper by Valeria Grinevitch
Note:
United Kingdom
58,210,000(1995). United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
Literacy rate 97% to 99%. Also includes AssyrianNeo-Aramaic 5,000, Bengali, Hakka Chinese, Mandarin Chinese, YueChinese, Western Farsi 12,000, Greek 200,000, Gujarati 140,000,Hindi, Italian 200,000, Japanese 12,000, Kurmanji 6,000, Malayalam,Panjabi, Pashto, Saraiki, Shelta 30,000, Somali, Sylhetti 100,000,Tamil, Turkish 60,000, Urdu, Vietnamese 22,000, 74,000 from thePhilippines, 150,000 Arabic (Iraqi, Moroccan, Yemeni), others fromGhana, Nigeria, Guyana, West Indies.
Dataaccuracy estimate: B. Christian, secular, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu.
Blindpopulation 116,414.
Deafpopulation 909,000 (1977 Deuchar). Deaf institutions: 468 in England,2 in Northern Ireland, 14 in Scotland, 34 in Wales.
Thenumber of languages listed for United Kingdom is 15. Of those, 12 areliving languages, 1 is a second language without mother tonguespeakers, and 2 are extinct.
POLARI Unclassified. An in-group language amongtheatrical and circus people. Survey needed.
The final1styear paper by Valeria Grinevitch
Researching Polari
Asunny morning in September finds me sitting in the below stairskitchen of Rowland House, Brighton waiting to interview David Raven(also known as Maisie Trollette) about Polari. Forget The LostLanguage of the Cranes (whatever thatwas), The Lost Language of Polari is far more interesting, and it'spart of the topic of my PhD - The Language of Gay Men in the UK,1750-1996.
It'snot the easiest thing in the world doing a PhD which immediatelymakes you "out". Whenever people ask me what subject I'mstudying I still say it with an apologetic shrug. There's no need tosay afterwards "So that's my topic sweet-heart, and if you don'tlike it then that's your problem, and you're gonna have to live withthat, OK?, in-yer-face-queer-rights-NOW!" The message isimplicitly stated anyway.
ReactionsI've received have ranged from an incredulous "You gotta bekidding me" from a very loud American to the PC-interest of"That is soooo interesting". Is it interesting? Is ituseful? Well I think so. The exact origins and mechanics of Polariare still a linguistic mystery, and language is an area where gaypeople are given free rein to flex their creative muscles and createsocial exchanges that although might not be very friendly (tooutsiders or to each other) it at least allows them to communicate ontheir own terms. Such was the motivation behind Polari, although itcould also be to do with the fact that in the 1950s if you so much aswore white socks in those days the police would have you clapped inirons for being "deviant".
Polari,as the language came to be known was a collection of words, whichwhen strung together by those most proficient at it, wereincomprehensible to those who didn't understand it. It was mainlyused for conversations that were high in gay "content", soif you wanted to point out to your friend that the man on the tubetrain next to you seemed to be particularly well-developed in the"menswear" department, you could say "vada the bonacartes on the ommee ajax" and your friend would know what youmeant. If the man with the big "cartes" was also gay, he'dknow what you were talking about too, and Polari would serve as an"introduction" which could lead to "other things".
BecausePolari died out in the 1960s when the Wolfenden Report legalisedhomosexuality (to an extent) in England, the only people who rememberit tend to be distinguished older gentlemen, just like David Raven,who has agreed to tell me all he can remember about it. I am armedwith a tape-recorder, a pen, some bits of paper and a posh northernvoice (although I can flatten my vowels if necessary).
Davidstill frequently performs as Maisie Trollette in Brighton, and issomething of a "doyenne" on the gay scene there. He greetsme with "Who’s the chicken?" and then starts arguingwith three of his employees who are dubbed "evil witches."When things have calmed down I am taken into the dining room where wecan conduct the interview in peace. However, his friends don't seemto want to leave us alone, and are constantly passing through tooffer their opinions and questions ("Who is he? Is he anactor?") .
Polariis never what it first appears. Before Kenneth Williams was ahousehold name with Carry-on Whatever, he was a household name in theradio series "Round the Horne" which every week featuredthe antics of Julian and Sandy and their latest attempts at trying toearn a bit of trade with Bona Homes and Gardens, or Keep BritainBona. In one episode, J + S are domestic helps and have been showninto a kitchen where they are expected to get to work. "I can'twork in 'ere," complains Julian. "All the dishes aredirty!" "Speak for yourself ducky," remarks Sandy, toaudience mirth. However, this is a very clever (and smutty) tripleinnuendo. The audience would probably "get" the use of theword dish as an attractive young man, as in "Isn't he dishy",but hardened Polari speakers also know that dish means anus, whichwould afford them an extra laugh.
It'sa shame that Polari did go out of fashion, even though its demisecoincided with the beginnings of gay liberation in England. Still,it's nice to hear the odd Polari word occasionally: Julian Clary onhis BBC2 show sometimes says "Let's have a vada" and a cropof new gay businesses are opening up around the country, withfondly-devised names like Bona Videos. As Julian and Sandy would say"Fantabulosa!"
_____________________
This is a copy of an articlePaul Baker wrotefor Lancaster University's student magazine "Scan" dated15th November 1996.
The final1styear paper by Valeria Grinevitch
Vocabulary
A
Word | Meaning | AlternateSpellings | Partof Speech | OriginalLanguage | OrigForm |
acqua | water | acqua | n | It ,LF | Acqua,akwa |
B
Word | Meaning | AlternateSpellings | Speech | OriginalLanguage | OriginalForm |
barkey | sailor | - | - | It | barca"boat" |
barnet | hair(perh. esp. highly coiffured and styled) | - | n | rhymingslang | Barnetfair = hair |
bene | good | bene | - | It | bene"well" |
bevvy | drink | bevvy | n | It | bev- "todrink" |
bijou | small | - | a | Fr | - |
bona | good | bona | a | It | buono |
bonernochy | goodnight | - | - | - | - |
C
Word | Meaning | AlternateSpellings | Partof Speech | OriginalLanguage | OriginalForm | |
capela | hat, cap | capela | - | n | It | capella |
carnish | meat,food | carnish | ka:niS | n | It | carne"meat" |
catever | bad | catever | - | - | It | cattivo |
chavie | child | - | - | - | Sp | chava"girl" |
chicken | young boy | - | - | - | - | - |
D
Word | Meaning | Source | AlternateSpellings | Partof Speech | OriginalLanguage | OriginalForm |
dinarly | money | l | dinarli | n | Sp | dinero |
dish | attractivemale | dl | - | - | - | - |
dolly | pleasant | g | - | a | It dolce,"sweet" | - |
| - | smart andattractive young woman | h | dolly | n | It dolce,"sweet" | - |
| - | - | h | doll | - | - | - |
dona | lady,landlady, woman | h | dona | - | It | donna |
E
Word | Meaning | Partof Speech | OriginalLanguage |
ecaf | face | n | E(backwards sp) |
eek | face | n | E(contraction of the above) or |
esong | nose | n | E (basedon backward sp) |
F
Word | Meaning | AlternateSpellings | Partof Speech | OriginalLanguage | OriginalForm |
fake | make, do | fake | n | It | faccio "Imake" |
fakement | thing,doing, action | fakement | n | It | faccio"+ Eng '-ment' |
fatcha | face | fatcha | - | It | faccia |
feely | young | feely | a | It.figlie, children | - |
| - | child | feele | n | - | - |
flowery | lodgings,accomodation, house entertainment | - | - | E. prisonrhyming slang? | flowerydell" = cell ? |
G
Word | Meaning | Source | AlternateSpellings | Partof Speech | OriginalLanguage | OriginalForm |
gam | leg | h | gam | - | LF | gamba |
gelt | money | dl | gelt | n | Ger. viaYiddish? | gelt"gold" |
gent | money | h | gent | - | It | argento"silver" |
L
Word | Meaning | AlternateSpellings | Partof Speech | OriginalLanguage | OriginalForm |
lally | leg | lally | n usu pl | - Anglo-Chinese | - lai-lo,"come here" |
M
Word | Meaning | AlternateSpellings | OriginalLanguage | OriginalForm |
manky | bad,poor, tasteless | manky | It | mancare,"lack, want for" |
meshigner | crazy | meshigner | Heb. viaYiddish | meshuga,crazy; meshuggener, crazy man |
muck | stagemakeup | muck | It | macchia"stain" / Eng. muck |
N
Word | Meaning | AlternateSpellings | OriginalLanguage | OriginalForm |
nada | nothing | - | Sp. | - |
naff | bad | naff | E. acro: | |
nanyarie | eat, food | nanyarie | - | - |
nanti | no,nothing, not, don't | nanti | It | niente |
nix | no, not,do not | nix | Ger | nichts |
nochy | night | nochy | Sp | noche (Itnotte, LF note) |
P
Word | Meaning | AlternateSpellings | OriginalLanguage | OriginalForm |
paloni | girl,young woman | paloni | It | pollone"chick" |
ponte | poundsterling | ponte | It | pondo"weight" |
Polari | speak | Polari | It. | Parlare(pagliare "to speak" - ph) |
punk | virginmale, male homosexual | - | E punk Sppunto, puto | - |
R
Word | Meaning | AlternateSpellings | Partof Speech | OriginalLanguage | OriginalForm | |
riah | hair | riah | rai@ [ri@?] | n | E backspelling | - |
| - | - | - | - | - | Sp | raya"parting in the hair" |
S
Word | Meaning | AlternateSpellings | OriginalLanguage | OriginalForm | Comment |
savvy | know,understand | savvy | LF, Port. | sabir | prob fromPidjin through Eng. |
screeve | write | - | It | scrivere | - |
sharper | policeman | - | It | cercare +Eng. "sharp" | - |
shyckle | wig | shykle | cf.Yiddish shaytl, sheitel, from Ger. "crown of the head,parting" | - | - |
slang | performon stage | - | - | - | climb theslang-tree, perform on stage |
slap | makeup | - | - | - | - |
T
Word | Meaning | AlternateSpellings | Partof Speech | OriginalLanguage | OriginalForm | Comment |
tober | road | tober | n | Irish(back- formed) | bother | totailors and tramps |
V
Word | Meaning | AlternateSpellings | Partof Speech | OriginalLanguage | OriginalForm |
varda | see, look | varda | v | cf.Venetian | vardia "alook" |
voche | voice | voche | - | It | voce |
vogue | cigarette | - | - | - | - |
NUMBERS
Word | Meaning | AlternateSpellings | OriginalLanguage | OriginalForm | |
1 | una | one | una | It | una |
2 | dewey | two | dewey | It | due |
3 | tray | three | tray | It | tre |
4 | quattro | four | quattro | It | quattro |
5 | chinker | five | chinker | It | cinque |
6 | say | six | say | It | sei |
7 | setter | seven | setter | It | sette |
8 | otter | eight | otter | It | - |
9 | nobber | nine | nobber | It | 35370 |
10 | daiture | ten | daiture | It | dieci |
Polari - ACinderella Among Languages
Thefinal 1st year paper
byValeria Grinevitch
gr.9
TheKaliningrad State University
2001