The last article I was going to look at was Anna T.‘s The Opacity of Queer Languages. There are some good points there, although it’s in the domain of queer theory that I’m not as conversant in: Kaliarda and other queer cants are neither visible nor invisible, but opaque—straight onlookers know that you’re speaking in […]
Trying to wrap up this series, I’ve come across two more Kaliarda texts online. The first is a chapter from a 2010 novel by Thomas Korovinis, Ο γύρος του Θανάτου [The tour of death], with nine protagonists in Salonica of the 50s. One of them is a trans sex worker, and her narrative has a […]
I’ve left till late a comparison of Kaliarda with Dortika, the earliest researched of the Greek para-Romani cants; and the points to be made here have already been substantively made elsewhere, including in comparison with the Turkish Gay cant (which is also clearly para-Romani), and in Sechidou’s article on Greek para-Romanis. Kaliarda is different from […]
Domenica Minniti-Gonias’ study on “Italian and Heptanesian words in Greek slang” (specifically in Kaliarda) is significant because the Italian component of Kaliarda is one of the two core differentiators of Kaliarda from other Greek cants. (The other being its schematic approach to Romani vocabulary.) Montoliu already identified that Italian is a large and old component […]
The discussion on Sarantakos’ blog had derailed from Kaliarda to Lupine beans, because of how Faltaits had rendered Lubinistika as Lupinarika (possibly conflating it with the Roman lupinaria). In bringing the discussion back, Spatholouro popped yet another rabbit out of his archival research. To come back, as we should, from lupines to lubines, I had […]
Sarantakos commenter BLOG_OTI_NANAI has found more two pieces from the Police Chronicles (Αστυνομικά Χρονικά) magazine, which also confirm the association of Lubinistika with both cis female prostitutes and “catamites”. The first comes from 1953, by K. Tsipis: A language of similar type and intent is also widely used in brothels, the circles of catamites, ande […]
Commenter Kostas on Sarantakos’ blog offered the following recollection of Kaliarda from the 1970s: I’ve already written this on another past. This is what a passive homosexual used to say, as I recollect it: —dziˈnavis ta javerˈda? —ˈama ðen ˈpesi o berˈdes ðen ˈexi kuraˈverta —θa su kuraverˈtaro ke tin ˈpulia He went around the […]
Irini Sechidou’s recent paper compares Kaliarda with three para-Romani languages of Greek—that is, mixed languages with some core Romani vocabulary, but which use the grammar of the gadjo language. (She does not use the term para-Romani in this paper, but she does elsewhere). The three languages are Dortika, the builders’ cant of Eurytania; the less […]
We saw that police reporter Spiros Leotsakos reported in 1963 that police officers Paxinos and Bourganis had recorded the underworld slangs of their time, and compiled glossaries. And one of those slangs, which Leotsakos says Bourganis recorded, was Lubinistika—as the language of female prostitutes rather than gay bottoms. The Lubinistika he recorded may not have […]
Spatholouro’s finds continue. This time, he has reproduced material on Kaliarda from police reporter Spiros Leotsakos, writing in 1963 in Αστυνομικά Χρονικά [Police Chronicles]. The first excerpt, from Vol. 233, 1963–02-01, confirms the use of Kaliarda by female prostitutes—or at least of a Romani-based cant, which by then may have been quite distinct from Kaliarda. […]