The Polari Person

a mad man's mumblings about the secret langauge of gay people

[the-polari-person]

Boyno! I’m Perry, I use any pronouns, and i have a huge passion for all things queer. One of those things that I’m hoping to share and teach is Polari. 

For anyone who doesn’t know, Polari is the “secret language of gay people”, it is/was a dialect used by queer folk in London, in the early to mid 1900s. 

Polari was used mostly by gay men to identify each other, communicate, evade the police (because being gay was illegal at the time), but it also became a big part of gay culture. 

Polari is made up of a large variety of languages of slangs, ranging from Yiddish, to back-slang, to Cant, and many more. 

Unfortunately it began to die out mid to late 1900s, the primary reason for this being that being queer was becoming more socially acceptable and there was no use to hide anymore.

I myself know quite a bit of Polari and I want to share my knowledge on it. I’ve been studying it for while and I’m continuing to learn about it. I want to make learning Polari not only easy and accessible, but fun and engaging. So i figure what better way to start than with a tumblr? 

Some other things about me are that i’m an artist, i also like learning about lgbt history, and im 16 (so please dont be creepy). I’m super excited to start this blog so feel free to ask me anything in my asks (can be Polari-related or not). 

[dualvoidanima]

‘light body’

[the-polari-person]

So I just wanted to share this fabulousa song called Bona Eke, its written in Polari!! 

I’ll be reblogging this later today or tomorrow with a translation that explains the Polari words in it for those who are curious :)

[the-polari-person]

(Polari explained here)

Here are the lyrics and some emojis to guide you:

Bona👍Eke🙂,

You got the campest💅little bona👍 eke🙂

When you vada👀 me it leaves me weak

You’ve got a bona👍 eke🙂

bona👍 bona, You’ve got a tatty👎 gaft🏠

Bona👍 Bona👍And all your drag👕👗 is naff🤢

But I love you so and

 My heart starts a racket

Everytime I see your packet🍆

But I love your bona👍 eke🙂!

Bona👍 Eke🙂, You’ve got the campest💅 little bona👍 eke🙂

Your bon Polari💬 makes me spring a leak

You’ve got, a bona👍 eke🙂!

Bona👍 Bona👍, whats more your riah’s💇‍♀️ cod💩

Bona 👍Bona👍, and all your pots🦷 are odd,

But I love you so, I’d grant your every wish,

I’d even grease my dish🍑🕳

Just to see your bona👍 eke🙂!

Bona👍 Eke🙂, 

You’ve got the boldest🏳️‍🌈 little bona👍 eke🙂

And when you charver🥵💦 me it leaves me weak,

You’ve got a bona👍 eke🙂

Bona👍 Bona👍, heard it from lilly law👮‍♂️

Bona👍 Bona👍, You’re in the life🏳️‍🌈 once more,

But I love you so

And you can clean my kitchen🍆🍑

Get your carts🍆 a pitchin’!

Yes I love your bona👍 eke🙂!

Bona👍 Eke🙂 x3

Your lallies🦵 look like darts,

And you’ve got nanti🙅 carts🍆,

But I love your, Bona👍Eke🙂!

Bona👍 Eke🙂! Bona👍 Eke🙂!

E’re, Give us a vada👀 of that dolly💅 old eke🙂! 

Some words I have already explained and if you click them it will take you to a post with an explanation. There are over 20 polari words in this song to talk about so I’ll be putting definition in another reblog later tonight.

[the-polari-person]

I would suggest reading the Lyrics with Emojis first and seeing how much can understand then coming to the definitions to see if you got it right :)

(heads up there are a lot of references to sex and genitalia in here)

👍 “Bona”, adjective; good, well, sometimes synonymous with pretty (more here)

🙂 “Eke”, noun, face. Short for ecaf (more here)

💅 “Campest”, adjective; the most “camp”.

💅 “Camp” is an adjective meaning funny, exaggerated, flamboyant or heavily stylized

👀 “Vada”, verb; to see or to look 

👎 “tatty”, from “tat”, and adjective meaning “rubbish” or “trash”

🏠 “gaff”, noun; an apartment or house

👕👗 “Drag”; noun, clothing, usually “women’s” clothing

🤢 “Naff”, adjective; plain, tasteless, heterosexual, ugly, comes from the acronym “Not Available For Fucking”

🍆 “Packet”, noun, someone’s crotch

💬 “Bon Polari” this one is hard for me ill cover it at the end of the post

💇‍♀️ “Riah”, noun, hair.

💩 “Cod”, adjective, bad, synonymous with “shit”

🦷 “Pots”, noun; teeth

🍑“Dish”, noun; the 1st meaning is ass or anus, the 2nd is an attractive man

🏳️‍🌈“Bold”, adjective, the 1st meaning is very gay, the 2nd is unpleasant (more here)

🥵 💦”Charver”, verb; to f*ck

👮‍♂️ “Lilly Law”, noun; the police

🏳️‍🌈 “In the life”, adjective; gay or queer. (more here)

🍆🍑 “Clean the kitchen”, noun, gay sex, usually butt stuff between men

🍆 “Carts”, noun, a penis. a popular variation of this word is “Cartzo”

🦵 “Lallies”, noun; legs. (plural of Lally, “leg”)

🙅 “Nanti”, a general negator term. (more here)

💅 “Dolly”, adjective; pretty or smart (more here) 

So i have done a bit more research on the origins of this song and discovered its a  version of one of Lee Sutton’s songs! I don’t know much about Lee yet, just that he wrote songs in Polari then translated them for the audience. However he often purposefully translated things wrong as an extra joke for the Polari speakers in the room.

In this recording of him performing and translating Bona Eke he says “your bon polari almost makes me spring a leak” means “When you speak your mind I almost lose control of myself”.

I know Polari is the name for the language and is also a verb meaning “to talk”, but im not quite sure what the “bon” means specifically. In French, “bon” means “well” or “good”, se perhaps the literal translations is “good talk” but i cant be sure. 

Let me know if you guys would be interested in more about Lee Sutton!

For this post i primarily got my information for Paul Bakers book “Fabulosla!, the story of Polari”, the Polari app, and a bit from this recording. 

[the-polari-person]

So I just wanted to share this fabulousa song called Bona Eke, its written in Polari!! 

I’ll be reblogging this later today or tomorrow with a translation that explains the Polari words in it for those who are curious :)

[the-polari-person]

(Polari explained here)

Here are the lyrics and some emojis to guide you:

Bona👍Eke🙂,

You got the campest💅little bona👍 eke🙂

When you vada👀 me it leaves me weak

You’ve got a bona👍 eke🙂

bona👍 bona, You’ve got a tatty👎 gaft🏠

Bona👍 Bona👍And all your drag👕👗 is naff🤢

But I love you so and

 My heart starts a racket

Everytime I see your packet🍆

But I love your bona👍 eke🙂!

Bona👍 Eke🙂, You’ve got the campest💅 little bona👍 eke🙂

Your bon Polari💬 makes me spring a leak

You’ve got, a bona👍 eke🙂!

Bona👍 Bona👍, whats more your riah’s💇‍♀️ cod💩

Bona 👍Bona👍, and all your pots🦷 are odd,

But I love you so, I’d grant your every wish,

I’d even grease my dish🍑🕳

Just to see your bona👍 eke🙂!

Bona👍 Eke🙂, 

You’ve got the boldest🏳️‍🌈 little bona👍 eke🙂

And when you charver🥵💦 me it leaves me weak,

You’ve got a bona👍 eke🙂

Bona👍 Bona👍, heard it from lilly law👮‍♂️

Bona👍 Bona👍, You’re in the life🏳️‍🌈 once more,

But I love you so

And you can clean my kitchen🍆🍑

Get your carts🍆 a pitchin’!

Yes I love your bona👍 eke🙂!

Bona👍 Eke🙂 x3

Your lallies🦵 look like darts,

And you’ve got nanti🙅 carts🍆,

But I love your, Bona👍Eke🙂!

Bona👍 Eke🙂! Bona👍 Eke🙂!

E’re, Give us a vada👀 of that dolly💅 old eke🙂! 

Some words I have already explained and if you click them it will take you to a post with an explanation. There are over 20 polari words in this song to talk about so I’ll be putting definition in another reblog later tonight.

[the-polari-person]

So I just wanted to share this fabulousa song called Bona Eke, its written in Polari!! 

I’ll be reblogging this later today or tomorrow with a translation that explains the Polari words in it for those who are curious :)

[the-polari-person]

British twinks in London in the 1900s:

[the-polari-person]

If you are looking for a summary on Polari with more information than what is provided in this post, i highly recommend this video. They do a good job summing up the points of Polari and I found it entertaining to watch. 

If you want to here some examples of Polari being used in conversation, the short film, “Putting on the Dish”, is good example of how Polari would have been used at the peak of its popularity in London. 

[the-polari-person]

For people who want to learn Polari here are a few dictionaries you can start looking at. 

this free online dictionary

this 2 dollar mobile app

Fabulosa by Paul Baker

Personally I’ve found Paul Baker’s research the most helpful but you can definitively still learn Polari without reading his books.

[the-polari-person]

For people who want to learn Polari here are a few dictionaries you can start looking at. 

this free online dictionary

this 2 dollar mobile app

Fabulosa by Paul Baker

Personally I've found Paul Baker's research the most helpful but you can definitively still learn Polari without reading his books.

[the-polari-person]

Boyno! I’m Perry, I use any pronouns, and i have a huge passion for all things queer. One of those things that I’m hoping to share and teach is Polari. 

For anyone who doesn’t know, Polari is the “secret language of gay people”, it is/was a dialect used by queer folk in London, in the early to mid 1900s. 

Polari was used mostly by gay men to identify each other, communicate, evade the police (because being gay was illegal at the time), but it also became a big part of gay culture. 

Polari is made up of a large variety of languages of slangs, ranging from Yiddish, to back-slang, to Cant, and many more. 

Unfortunately it began to die out mid to late 1900s, the primary reason for this being that being queer was becoming more socially acceptable and there was no use to hide anymore.

I myself know quite a bit of Polari and I want to share my knowledge on it. I’ve been studying it for while and I’m continuing to learn about it. I want to make learning Polari not only easy and accessible, but fun and engaging. So i figure what better way to start than with a tumblr? 

Some other things about me are that i’m an artist, i also like learning about lgbt history, and im 16 (so please dont be creepy). I’m super excited to start this blog so feel free to ask me anything in my asks (can be Polari-related or not). 

[the-polari-person]

Are you in the life?

What better way to start learning the secret language of gay people than learning the Polari words for “I’m gay”?

Personally my favorite way to say gay is “In the life”.

Maybe its just a matter of personal preference but i just think “Are you in the life?” is such a cool way to ask someone if they are lgbt.

Other ways to say gay are “on the team”, “blue”, “so”, and “bold”*.

*According to Paul Baker’s research on Polari, bold means “audaciously gay” or “unpleasant”, so I would stick to the other three for defining sexuality.

to get a bit more specific, some words meaning bisexual are “bibi”, “ac/dc” (can also mean a couple), and finally “versatile” 

If you are a lesbian you can call your self a “palone-omi” (the literal translation being woman-man), 

and if you are a gay man you can call your self a “omi-palone” ( the literal translation being man-woman).

Personally palone-omi and omi-palone are not my favorite terms, but the only other Polari word used to describe lesbians is d*ke, which im sure most of us already know as a slur. 

However there are other words for gay men, such as “fruit” and “fairy”, I think many of us have heard these are well.

(you can read this post for a quick summary of what Polari is)

[the-polari-person]

For you gender identity you can call your self an “omi”(man), or a “palone”(woman).

Unfortunately because Polari was created before many labels such as nonbinary, pansexual, etc. where created there aren’t Polari words for every queer identity.

The closest thing to ‘trans’ would be “remould”, the Polari word for ‘sex change’.

There is no Polari word for nonbinary but if someone asked you you could say you are “nanti-binary” or have “nanti-gender.

“Nanti” is a general polari negator term, so you can use it in place of words like “not”, “no”, “dont”, etc.

[the-polari-person]

If you are looking for a summary on Polari with more information than what is provided in this post, i highly recommend this video. They do a good job summing up the points of Polari and I found it entertaining to watch. 

If you want to here some examples of Polari being used in conversation, the short film, “Putting on the Dish”, is good example of how Polari would have been used at the peak of its popularity in London. 

[the-polari-person]

Are you in the life?

What better way to start learning the secret language of gay people than learning the Polari words for “I’m gay”?

Personally my favorite way to say gay is “In the life”.

Maybe its just a matter of personal preference but i just think "Are you in the life?" is such a cool way to ask someone if they are lgbt.

Other ways to say gay are "on the team", "blue", "so", and "bold"*.

*According to Paul Baker’s research on Polari, bold means “audaciously gay” or “unpleasant”, so I would stick to the other three for defining sexuality.

to get a bit more specific, some words meaning bisexual are “bibi”, “ac/dc” (can also mean a couple), and finally “versatile” 

If you are a lesbian you can call your self a “palone-omi” (the literal translation being woman-man), 

and if you are a gay man you can call your self a “omi-palone” ( the literal translation being man-woman).

Personally palone-omi and omi-palone are not my favorite terms, but the only other Polari word used to describe lesbians is d*ke, which im sure most of us already know as a slur. 

However there are other words for gay men, such as “fruit” and “fairy”, I think many of us have heard these are well.

(you can read this post for a quick summary of what Polari is)

[the-polari-person]

Bona to Vada your Dolly Old Eke!

Bona to Vada your Dolly old Eke! this is easily the most famous phrase in Polari, meaning ‘Good to See Your Pretty old Face'.

'Bona'(adjective) means good, or well. I've also seen it used in place of "pretty" but its primary meaning is "good".

'Vada' (verb) to see, to look, etc.

'Dolly'(adjective) smart or attractive. I believe this is also common British slang today, but im not sure.

Eke (noun) eke is short for ecaf, meaning "face". This one is easy for me to remember because ecaf comes from backslang (when you spell/say a word backwards).

Anyways, now you know how to tell someone how bona it is to vada their dolly eke!

(if you dont know what Polari is,this post will give you a short summary)