# Gay



## AndrasBP

Hello, 

The English word '*gay*' used to mean '*happy*' and 'cheerful'.

The Hungarian PC term for 'gay' is '*meleg*', a word whose primary meaning is '*warm/hot*'.

One of the Russian terms for 'gay' is '*goluboy*', which means '*light blue*'.

What did your word for 'gay' originally mean?


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## Yendred

In French: _*gai* _[ɡɛ]
According to the Wiktionary, English _gay_ comes from French _gai_, itself coming from Old High German _gahi_ (sudden, fast, impetuous).


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## AndrasBP

Yendred said:


> In French: _*gai* _[ɡɛ]


Do you mean that the French word 'gai' is now also used meaning 'homosexual'? Or do you use the anglicism 'gay'?
There's another thread about whether French speakers pronounce the two words differently. Do you?


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## Yendred

AndrasBP said:


> Do you mean that the French word 'gai' is now also used meaning 'homosexual'?



No, we use the English word _gay_ in the context you mention.
Sorry, I thought your thread was only about _gay _in the sense of _cheerful_, and the way to say it in other languages.



AndrasBP said:


> There's another thread about whether French speakers pronounce the two words differently. Do you?



As for me, I pronounce _gai_ (cheerful) and _gay_ (homosexual) the same, and this is what the Wiktionary indicates.

_gay_ is an example of a word which went back and forth between French and English, with deformation.
Due to the geographical proximity and turbulent history of England and France, there are a number of words in the same case.
For example, the French _tenez _(_hold, _in the imperative tense) gave the English _tennis_, which is of course also used in French to speak about the sport.


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## TheCrociato91

In Italian the more neutral terms are gay and omosessuale, which are self-explanatory. Then we have a selection of non-PC/offensive terms.


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## Awwal12

AndrasBP said:


> One of the Russian terms for 'gay' is '*goluboy*', which means '*light blue*'.


Note that it's not politically correct, though (colloquial, neutral to mildly derogatory, occasionally can be used by gays themselves).

Most Russian words for "gay person" are loanwords, starting from Church Slavonic "мужеложец" (muzhelózhets, i.e. ~"man-lay-er"). The most widespread derogatory words (also frequently used simply as swear words), "пидор" (pídor) and "пидорас" (pidorás), are distorted "педераст" ("pederást", from Greek, likely through French). "Гей" (géy), favoured by the Russian-speaking gay community, is an obvious recent loan from English. Some more occasional euphemisms and descriptive definitions are widely used, in particular thanks to the prison culture (which has a pronounced tendency to avoid the words that can get you into trouble in prison). Mildly derogatory "гомик" (gómik) is a diminutive derived from formal "гомосексуалист" (gomoseksualíst).

P.S.: I'd also note a curious PC attributive: "нетрадиционной сексуальной ориентации" (netraditsiónnoy seksuál'noy oriyentátsii - "of a non-traditional sexual orientation"; obviously it consists of loanwords anyway). Needless to say, it doesn't impress the gay community.


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## Red Arrow

*Dutch*: homo, flikker (rude), janette (rude, Flemish)

In Flanders, flikker means penis. It's a false friend. Janette (with a French J and silent E at the end) is also a women's name.

Opflikkeren is a verb.
Flikker op! = Go away! / Get lost!


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## Penyafort

Yendred said:


> In French: _*gai* _[ɡɛ]
> According to the Wiktionary, English _gay_ comes from French _gai_, itself coming from Old High German _gahi_ (sudden, fast, impetuous).



French must have taken it from either Picard or Occitan/Catalan, in which it also means/used to mean 'joyful'. Otherwise it'd have been *_jai_.


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## Yendred

Penyafort said:


> French must have taken it from either Picard or Occitan/Catalan



Yes indeed, it went through Occitan.


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## merquiades

*Gay* can also mean "merry, cheerful, giddy" in English too.  This was the original meaning, and is still around.  It is now the secondary meaning though.  Think of the use in the Flintstone's cartoon.  "We'll have a gay old time together".  The 1890's were referred to as the "gay nineties".  etc.

Now another meaning is slowly emerging among the young, which is kind of the opposite of the original:  "undesirable, not cool, weird, disgusting".  "Those shoes you bought look totally gay!"



Yendred said:


> As for me, I pronounce _gai_ (cheerful) and _gay_ (homosexual) the same, and this is what the Wiktionary indicates.


 I think they are pronounced the same here too. I also believe people write increasingly "gai" for both. The active LGBT association here is called "couleurs gaies".


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## apmoy70

In Greek it's *«γκέι»* [ˈɟei̯] for males (indeclinable), or *«λεσβία»* [lezˈvi.a] for females (declinable).
The ancient/Koine/Byzantine names for homosexuals, are non-pc in MoGr.


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## ewie

AndrasBP said:


> One of the Russian terms for 'gay' is '*goluboy*', which means '*light blue*'.


I wonder why that particular colour ...


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## S.V.

In Korean, it used to be 이반인 _iban-in_, a play on 일반인 _ilban-in_, 'normal person.'


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## Stoggler

merquiades said:


> Now another meaning is slowly emerging among the young, which is kind of the opposite of the original:  "undesirable, not cool, weird, disgusting".  "Those shoes you bought look totally gay!"



That usage was around in the 1980s (around where I grew up) when I was a kid.


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## Yendred

merquiades said:


> I also believe people write increasingly "gai" for both



If that's the case, it is still a mistake. One has to write _ga*y* _for homosexual (only), and _ga*i* _for cheerful (only).



merquiades said:


> The active LGBT association here is called "couleurs gaies".



It's a play on words. "_couleurs gaies_" only means "_cheerful colors_", and it's the sound which obviously refers to the gay community. But "_ga*i*(e)(s)_" written like this cannot mean homosexual.

The fact is _gai _in the sense of _cheerful _is still a quite common word in French. This is why it's important to distinguish the two spellings.


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## Yendred

AndrasBP said:


> What did your word for 'gay' originally mean?



I stll don't really understand what is your original question. In French, there are a huge number of words used to refer to an homosexual.
Almost all of them are argotic, pejorative and have become politically incorrect except _gay _and _homo(sexuel)._
Here are those I can remember (there must be many others), trying as best I can to sort them from most common to less common:

_pédé _(and _pédale_): (_pédé, _masc.) abbreviation of _pédéraste_, originally meaning someone who loves young boys (nowadays we would say _pédophile_), and by extension _homosexual. _(_pédale_, fem.) deformation of _pédé._
_enculé _(and _enfoiré_): (masc.) "bottom" homosexual, the receptive partner during anal sex penetration. _enfoiré _comes from the verb _enfoirer_ which formerly meant "_to cover with excrement_" (in this sense it was synonymous with current _emmerder_).
_tapette: _(fem.) literally meaning _"petite tape" _(little slap) because homosexuals were said to give little slaps with their hands.
_tante _(and _tantouze,_ _tata_): (fém.) effeminate homosexual, refering to the family word for _aunt. tantouze = tante + _pejorative suffix_ -ouze. tata, _colloquial abbreviation for _tante _(also in family context)_._
_tarlouze: _(fem.) coming for Quebecois _tarla _(meaning _silly/stupid_) _+ _pejorative suffix _-ouze_
_folle_: (fem.) literally _mad/crazy _in the feminine, meaning an effeminate and parodic homosexual.
_de la jaquette: _(fem.) formerly, _jaquette _was a dress worn by little boys.
_fiotte: _(fem.) deformation of _fillette _(little girl).
_lope _and _lopette: _(fem.) abbreviation of _lopaille_, itself deformation of _copaille, _slang for _pal/friend._
_bougre: _(masc.) formerly (XIIIth century) meant _sodomite_, but not used anymore in this meaning. Nowadays, affectionately and colloquially means _fellow/chap_, or used in pejorative expressions like "_bougre d'imbécile_" (bloody idiot).


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## AndrasBP

Yendred said:


> I stll don't really understand what is your original question.


I didn't expect French to have so many words...   
I thought there would be a term which is more common than others (like _gay _in English) and I assumed that it would have an older meaning, before acquiring the meaning "homosexual". For instance, I've just found out that _schwul_, the German word for 'gay' comes from a Low German form of 'schwül', a word meaning 'sultry, hot and humid'.


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## ewie

Yendred said:


> "_couleurs gaies_" only means "_cheerful colors_", and it's the sound which obviously refers to the gay community.


Might there be a bit of a pun _couleurs > culeurs_ going on?


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## Yendred

ewie said:


> Might there be a bit of a pun _couleurs > culeurs_ going on?



No I don't think so. It would be vulgar and distasteful.
No it's just that cheerful colors are naturally associated with the gay community,  because of the rainbow flag.



AndrasBP said:


> I didn't expect French to have so many words...



Well I think it must be the case in the majority of languages


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## ewie

Yendred said:


> No I don't think so. It would be vulgar and distasteful.


Colour me vulgar


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## Yendred

I didn't mean it for you ewie


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## ewie

Oh it's perfectly okay: I _am_ vulgar


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## Dymn

In Spanish the colloquial neutral term is _gay_ which comes from English obviously. Out of the colloquial pejorative terms, the most common are _marica _and _maricón_, which come from _María_. There is a growing tendency for gay people to reappropriate them, but I'd still rather not used them as a heterosexual person.


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## H-406

Dymn said:


> There is a growing tendency for gay people to reappropriate them, but I'd still rather not used them as a heterosexual person.


It's very much the same with the French term _pédé_--on the one hand, it's severely offensive if used by a straight person but on the other you'll hear gay men referring to each other with it.
I seem to recall hearing something similar about the Italian _finocchio_.


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## Penyafort

Spanish _*mariquita *_and Catalan _*marieta*_, mildly offensive and a bit dated, also mean _ladybug_, so there might be some associations at a given time. All of them in origin are but affectionate forms of the name Mary (_María _in Spanish, _Maria _in Catalan).


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## Welsh_Sion

Cymraeg/Welsh.

*gay* (adj.) = '*hoyw*' (Earliest citation: 13th century)
alert, agile, nimble, sprightly, lively, vivacious, brisk, jaunty, gay, cheerful, rejoicing; beautiful, fine, elegant, neat, tidy, well-dressed, flourishing

*gay* (n.) = '*person hoyw*' (for either sex) or '*dyn hoyw*' (male gay person), '*merch hoyw*' (female gay person).

I'm avoiding less PC terms.


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## Awwal12

Awwal12 said:


> Mildly derogatory "гомик" (gómik) is a diminutive derived from formal "гомосексуалист" (gomoseksualíst).


P.S.: And yes, I forgot "гомосек" (gomosék), which sounds considerably more derogatory.


ewie said:


> I wonder why that particular colour ...


No one knows for sure. May be potentially related to the fictional Blue Oyster bar from the Police Academy (which was a bit mistranslated as "light blue oyster"). The slangish usage certainly came to use only after WW2, most likely in the 1980s, so it's fundamentally possible. On the other hand, it could have been the other way around, so the already existent usage might have influenced the translation of the name.
It also may come from the similarly sounding and remotely related affective words "голубок" (golubók, lit. "little pigeon", usually used in plural for "a lovely couple") and "голубчик" (golúbchik, "my dear"), or from the expression "blue blood".
Rus. "голубой" basically means bright, bluish shades of cyan (it's considered a rainbow color), but many light shades of blue will be also percieved as this color, which is a prototypical color of the sky in Russian.


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## ewie




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## jazyk

Using the Italian template: 



TheCrociato91 said:


> In Portuguese the more neutral terms are gay and homossexual, which are self-explanatory. Then we have a selection of non-PC/offensive terms.


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## nimak

*Macedonian*:

The modern term is *геј *(gej) ['gɛj]. For females is also used *лезбејка* (lezbejka) ['lɛzbɛjka] and *лезбијка* (lezbijka) ['lɛzbijka]. The terms *хомосексуалец *(homoseksualec) [xɔmɔsɛksu'alɛt͡s] for a male, and *хомосексуалка *(homoseksualka) [xɔmɔsɛksu'aɫka] for a female, are used too. Colloquially, the term *хомо *(homo) ['xɔmɔ] is used too, for both males and females.

Another term used for a male is *топол брат* (topol brat) ['tɔpɔɫ 'brat] _lit_. "warm brother". The term, that is most widespread, *педер *(peder) ['pɛdɛr] is considered derogatory.

The most offensive terms for a male are: *давајгаз *(davajgaz) ['davajgaz] _lit_. "giving-ass", *двоцевка *(dvocevka) ['dvɔt͡sɛfka] _lit_. "dual-tube", "shotgun". The offensive term for a female is *машкуданка *(maškudanka) [maʃ'kudaŋka] _lit_. "male wannabe", "tomboy".


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## Oddmania

Yendred said:


> Almost all of them are argotic, pejorative and have become politically incorrect except _gay _and _homo(sexuel)._


Frankly, I don't think any of them ever _were _politically correct. They're all insults, like "fairy", "fag", "sissy", etc.


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