Ken Cage offers a dictionary of Gayle - the language of Kinks and Queens.

Like most gay communities around the word, gay men in South Africa have, over the past 50 years, developed their own "language", in which special words have been spawned to facilitate spoken language within the sub-culture.

Because of the historically fractured nature of South African society, polarised along racial and linguistic lines, two distinct gay "languages" have developed in parallel.

Black gay men in the township have their own language, based on Sotho/Nguni, and the white/coloured/Indian gay men have developed an Indo-European version, based on English/Afrikaans. Very little research has been conducted in the township variety, known as "Isigqumo", but the other version, known as "Gayle", is a field in which a lot of study is currently being conducted.

"Gayle" appears to have originated among the coloured "moffie-culture" of the Western Cape from the 1950s onwards, and enjoyed widespread usage in the white gay communities of Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban in the 1970s and 1980s, being spread by the SAA "koffie-moffies". Curiously it seems to be the preserve of male homosexuals, and did not find widespread acceptance among the lesbian communities.

"Gayle" has adopted many words from the British Gay Language of Polari (eg. cottage, lallies, varda) and American Gayspeak (eg. rim, cruise, clone), but also boasts an impressive list of indigenous words which are based on women's names. This aspect of the "language" is uniquely South African. A dictionary of "Gayle", currently being compiled, contains well over 1200 words. Below is a sample of some of the words from the "language".

Abigail - "abortion"
Ada - "backside"
Agatha - "a gossip"
Aida - "AIDS"
Amanda - "amazing"
Annie - "anus"
Barbara - "straight man"
Belinda - "blind"
Bella - "beat up"
Betty - "black person"
Carol - "cry"
Chlora - "coloured person"
Connie - "condom"
Cora - "common"
Dora - "a drink; drunk"
Elsie Geselsie - "chatterbox"
Erica - "erection"
Esterjie - "ecstacy"
Frieda - "sexually frustrated"
Fuella - "furious"
Gail - "chat"
Gonda - "a vagina"
Harriet - "hairy man"
Hilda - "ugly"
Jenny - "masturbate"
Jessica - "jealous"
Julia - "jewellery"
Laura - "lover"
Lettie - "lesbian"
Lisa - "male model"
Lulu - "laugh"
Marie - "mad"
Marjorie - "margerine"
Mary - "obvious homosexual"
Mathilda - "migraine"
Maureen - "murder"
Mavis - "effeminate queen"
Mildred - "mentally deranged"
Mitzi - "small"
Monica - "money"
Nelly - "neurotic"
Nora - "stupid"
Olga - "old and ugly"
Pandora - "inquisitive queen"
Polly - "Portuguese homosexual"
Priscilla - "policeman"
Rita - "rent boy"
Stella - "steal"
Vera - "vomit"

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