Swardspeak (also known as salitang bakla (lit. '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, argo ...

cant CANT may refer to: *CANT, a solo project from Grizzly Bear bass guitarist and producer, Chris Taylor. *Cantieri Aeronautici e Navali Triestini CANT (''Cantieri Aeronautici e Navali Triestini'', the Trieste Shipbuilding and Naval Aeronautics; also ...

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 portmanteaus of the words ''Tagalog'' and ''English''. The ear ...

(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. These alternations are generally intended to ...

) and used by a number of LGBT people in the

Philippines The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 islands, with a tot ...

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 English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Culture, language and peoples * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England * ''English'', an Amish ter ...

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 countries in the Americas **Spanish cuisine **Spanish history **Spanish culture ...

, 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 Kapampangan, Capampañgan or Pampangan may refer to: *Kapampangan people, of the Philippines *Kapampangan language Kapampangan, Capampáñgan, or Pampangan, is an Austronesian language, and one of the eight major languages of the Philippines. ...

Pangasinan Pangasinan, officially the Province of Pangasinan (, ; ; ), is a coastal Provinces of the Philippines, province in the Philippines located in the Ilocos Region of Luzon. Its capital is Lingayen, Pangasinan, Lingayen while San Carlos, Pangasi ...

, 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 Dominant culture, majority group or fully adopts the values, behaviors, and beliefs of another group. The melting pot model is based on this ...

. 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 ...

members of industries with a significant amount of gay workers 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 A slang is a vocabulary (words, phrases, and linguistic usages) of an informal register, common in everyday conversation but avoided in formal writing and speech. It also often refers to the language exclusively used by the members of pa ...

(and therefore highly dynamic, as opposed to

colloquialism Colloquialism (also called ''colloquial language'', ''colloquial speech'', ''everyday language'', or ''general parlance'') is the linguistic style used for casual and informal communication. It is the most common form of speech in conversation amo ...

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

Chinese Chinese may refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people identified with China, through nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **Han Chinese, East Asian ethnic group native to China. **'' Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic ...

, Portuguese,

French French may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France ** French people, a nation and ethnic group ** French cuisine, cooking traditions and practices Arts and media * The French (band), ...

, and

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

. 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 word obtained by modifying a root word 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, and sometimes to belittle s ...

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 so ...

suffix In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns and adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can ca ...

. *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, ph ...

pun A pun, also known as a paronomasia in the context of linguistics, is a form of word play that exploits multiple meanings of a term, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect. These ambiguities can arise from t ...

malapropism A malapropism (; also called a malaprop, acyrologia or Dogberryism) is the incorrect use of a word in place of a word with a similar sound, either unintentionally or for comedic effect, resulting in a nonsensical, often humorous utterance. An exam ...

onomatopoeic Onomatopoeia (or rarely echoism) is a type of word, or the process of creating a word, that phonetically imitates, resembles, or suggests the sound that it describes. Common onomatopoeias in English include animal noises such as ''oink'', '' ...

words that resemble preexisting words, and deliberately incorrect

Anglicization Anglicisation or anglicization is a form of cultural assimilation whereby something non-English becomes assimilated into or influenced by the culture of England. It can be sociocultural, in which a non-English place adopts the English languag ...

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 ''báhay kúbo'', ''kubo'', or ''payág'' (in the Visayan languages), is a type of stilt house indigenous to the Philippines. It is the traditional basic design of houses among almost all lowlander and coastal cultures throughout the Ph ...

) 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
{{LGBTQ, culture=expanded Cant languages English-based argots LGBTQ argots LGBTQ culture in the Philippines Macaronic forms of English Filipino slang