Re: Shelta, Polari, and my project "Nadsat 2000"

For pretty commonplace reasons (being straight :-) I don't know a whole lot
about gay slang, except what I've picked up in literature of slang, secret
languages and slang dictionaries (which a translator must always own
several of, so I grab all I see.)  But since I do belong to a subculture --
the disabled peoples' -- the subject of subcultural linguistic codes
interests me.  Unfortunately I can only note that at least here in Sweden
there isn't very much of a disabled's slang, perhaps because self-confident
disabled people is a pretty new phenomenon -- except in the deaf community,
who of course have a whole means of communication of their own!  There are
some few special terms, like _fotikappad_ "footy-capped" as a term for
those not handicapped (the corresponding English term is 'abled' -- you can
also get 'enabled', i.e. self-confident, self-determining and
independent.  Conversly the over-dependent are 'unabled'.)  There are also
some words which have got interesting semantic shifts, like _gå_ 'walk': in
disabled parlance you "walk with" a wheelchair, so you can consequently
also "walk with the feet" (with or without further props.)  Paraplegics
form a subculture within the subculture -- or at least separate from the
disabled-born --, and it seems their slang is more richly developed.  One
term of theirs is the only one in disabled slang which AFAIK is secret: its
English equivalent would be (maybe is) 'zoned', and it refers to the fact
that stimulation of the area on the back where a paraplegic's spinal injury
is located (their 'zone') is quite equivalent to genital stimulation in
other people.  You can zone (or get zoned by) someone in places where other
people can't indulge in the equivalent things, such as right on a dance
floor, which adds to the secrecy of the zone and zoning.

It occurs to me that in the slang of Swedish chimney-sweepers and peddlars
-- now largely extinct, except insofar as it has entered general spoken
language or slang -- there is a term _polare_ 'friend' which is strikingly
similar to _Polari_.  Swedish peddlars' slang contained a lot of Romany,
and cross-fertilized with gypsies' and travelers' language also otherwise,
so if there is a connexion, it is probably there.


/BP
--
  B.Philip Jonsson  mailto:melroch@mail.com
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