Swardspeak (also known as gay speak or "gay lingo") is an

argot A cant is the jargon or language of a group, often employed to exclude or mislead people outside the group.McArthur, T. (ed.) ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (1992) Oxford University Press It may also be called a cryptolect, argot ...

or cant slang derived from

Taglish Taglish or Englog is code-switching and/or code-mixing in the use of Tagalog and English, the most common languages of the Philippines. The words ''Taglish'' and ''Englog'' are portmanteaux of the words ''Tagalog'' and ''English''. The earliest ...

(Tagalog-English

code-switching In linguistics, code-switching or language alternation occurs when a speaker alternates between two or more languages, or language varieties, in the context of a single conversation or situation. Code-switching is different from plurilingual ...

) and used by a number of

LGBT people The LGBT community (also known as the LGBTQ+ community, GLBT community, gay community, or queer community) is a loosely defined grouping of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and other queer individuals united by a common culture and social ...

in the

Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...

Description

Swardspeak uses elements from

Tagalog Tagalog may refer to: Language * Tagalog language, a language spoken in the Philippines ** Old Tagalog, an archaic form of the language ** Batangas Tagalog, a dialect of the language * Tagalog script, the writing system historically used for Tagal ...

, English,

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: ** Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Ca ...

, and some from

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

, as well as celebrities' names and trademark brands, giving them new meanings in different contexts. It is largely localized within gay communities, making use of words derived from the local languages, including Cebuano, Hiligaynon, Kapampangan,

Pangasinan Pangasinan, officially the Province of Pangasinan ( pag, Luyag/Probinsia na Pangasinan, ; ilo, Probinsia ti Pangasinan; tl, Lalawigan ng Pangasinan), is a coastal province in the Philippines located in the Ilocos Region of Luzon. Its c ...

, Waray and Bicolano.

Usage

A defining trait of swardspeak slang is that it more often than not immediately identifies the speaker as homosexual, making it easy for people of that orientation to recognize each other. This creates an exclusive group among its speakers and helps them resist

cultural assimilation Cultural assimilation is the process in which a minority group or culture comes to resemble a society's majority group or assume the values, behaviors, and beliefs of another group whether fully or partially. The different types of cultural as ...

. More recently, even non-members of the gay community have been known to use this way of speaking, e.g.

heterosexual Heterosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction or sexual behavior between people of the opposite sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, heterosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions" t ...

members of industries dominated by gays, such as the fashion and film industries. Swardspeak as a language is constantly changing, with old phrases becoming obsolete and new phrases frequently entering everyday usage, reflecting changes in their culture and also maintaining exclusivity. The dynamic nature of the language refuses to cement itself in a single culture and allows for more freedom of expression among its speakers. Words and phrases can be created to react to popular trends and create alternatives to a strictly defined lifestyle. By these characteristics, swardspeak creates a dissident group without any ties to geographical, linguistic, or cultural restrictions, allowing its speakers to shape the language as they see fit, with relation to current times. In this way, the language is not only "mobile" and part of a larger community, but also open to more specific or local meanings and interpretations.

Origin

The word "swardspeak", according to José Javier Reyes, was coined by columnist and film critic Nestor Torre in the 1970s. Reyes himself wrote a book on the subject entitled ''Swardspeak: A Preliminary Study''. "Sward" is an outdated slang for 'gay male' in the Philippines. The origin of the individual words and phrases, however, has existed longer and come from a variety of sources.

Conventions

Swardspeak is a form of

slang Slang is vocabulary (words, phrases, and usage (language), linguistic usages) of an informal register, common in spoken conversation but avoided in formal writing. It also sometimes refers to the language generally exclusive to the members of p ...

(and therefore highly dynamic, as opposed to

colloquialism Colloquialism (), also called colloquial language, everyday language or general parlance, is the linguistic style used for casual (informal) communication. It is the most common functional style of speech, the idiom normally employed in conversa ...

s) that is built upon preexisting languages. It deliberately transforms or creates words that resemble words from other languages, particularly English,

, Chinese,

, Portuguese, French, and

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...

. It is colorful, witty, and humorous, with vocabularies derived from popular culture and regional variations. It is unintelligible to people not familiar with the Filipino gay culture or who do not know the rules of usage. There is no standardized set of rules, but some of the more common conventions are shown below: *Replacing the first letter/syllable of words with the letter "J"/"Sh" or the syllables "Jo-"/"Sho-" or "Ju-"/"Shu-". *Replacing the first letter/syllable of words with "Ky-" or "Ny-". * Replacing the end syllable of words with "-ash", "-is", "-iz", "-ish", "-itch", "-ech", "-ush", or "-oosh" as a

diminutive A diminutive is a root word that has been modified to convey a slighter degree of its root meaning, either to convey the smallness of the object or quality named, or to convey a sense of intimacy or endearment. A ( abbreviated ) is a word-form ...

augmentative An augmentative ( abbreviated ) is a morphological form of a word which expresses greater intensity, often in size but also in other attributes. It is the opposite of a diminutive. Overaugmenting something often makes it grotesque and so in s ...

suffix. *Replacing "a", "o", or "u" sounds with "or", "er", or "ur", especially directly before or after the consonant "l". * Inverting the letter order of a word, similar to Tagalog syllable switching slang. It is predominantly used in Cebuano swardspeak. *

Word play Word play or wordplay (also: play-on-words) is a literary technique and a form of wit in which words used become the main subject of the work, primarily for the purpose of intended effect or amusement. Examples of word play include puns, pho ...

, puns,

malapropism A malapropism (also called a malaprop, acyrologia, or Dogberryism) is the mistaken use of an incorrect word in place of a word with a similar sound, resulting in a nonsensical, sometimes humorous utterance. An example is the statement attributed to ...

onomatopoeic Onomatopoeia is the process of creating a word that phonetically imitates, resembles, or suggests the sound that it describes. Such a word itself is also called an onomatopoeia. Common onomatopoeias include animal noises such as ''oink'', '' ...

words that resemble preexisting words, and deliberately incorrect

Anglicization Anglicisation is the process by which a place or person becomes influenced by English culture or British culture, or a process of cultural and/or linguistic change in which something non-English becomes English. It can also refer to the influenc ...

of words. * References to popular culture, usually celebrities or TV shows. They can be selected to replace a word in reference to the things they were famous for, simply because parts of the words rhyme, or both. *Borrowed words from other languages, particularly long disused Spanish words in the Philippines (which has feminine forms of words preferred in swardspeak that is absent in most Filipino languages), English, and Japanese.

Examples

*Translation of the traditional Filipino nursery rhyme ''Ako ay May Lobo'' (I have a balloon) into swardspeak. *Translation of the traditional Filipino nursery rhyme ''Bahay Kubò'' (

Nipa hut The ''bahay kubo'', also known as ''payag'' (Nipon) in the Visayan languages and, is a type of stilt house indigenous to the Philippines. It often serves as an icon of Philippine culture. The house is exclusive to the lowland population of ...

) into swardspeak.

References

Bibliography

*DV Hart, H Hart. Visayan Swardspeak: The language of a gay community in the Philippines - Crossroads, 1990 *Manalansan, Martin F. IV. “’Performing’ the Filipino Gay Experiences in America: Linguistic Strategies in a Transnational Context.” Beyond the Lavender Lexicon: Authenticity, Imagination and Appropriation in Lesbian and Gay Language. Ed. William L Leap. New York: Gordon and Breach, 1997. 249–266 *Manalansan, Martin F. IV. “Global Divas: Filipino Gay Men in the Diaspora”, Duke University Press Books, November 19, 2003.

External links

Gay Language
{{LGBT, culture=expanded Cant languages English-based argots LGBT linguistics LGBT in the Philippines Macaronic forms of English Filipino slang