The Russian Gay

[wolfie-18.livejournal.com]

I was wondering (etymologically?) whether or not the Russian slang for gay comes from голубой the color or голубь the pigeon. I happened to find голубь from a 1960 edition of an Akhmanova dictionary my French teacher gave me. Would it be possible? In other languages, gays are also referred to as birds. Just a thought.

Comments

[apollotiger.livejournal.com]

They are? I always associated голубой with the whole slang "blue" thing ... maybe I'm associating in the wrong order, though, and "blue" being gay came from Russian.

What's an example of the other languages using birds for gay men? I've heard that there's a French word (unsure of its PCness) that means something like "bent."

[wolfie-18.livejournal.com]

Well, I believe in Spanish one refers to a gay man as a "pajaro" in mild slang.

And in English, one could refer to a gay man (although it can apply and mostly is to women as well) as the very very vulgar term "chickenhead."

[friendlic.livejournal.com]

"голубой" etymology (http://sexolog-ru.narod.ru/text.files/ethimology.htm) (in Russian)

No one can give the only true answer now, I think. The both versions are quite possible.

[apollotiger.livejournal.com]

I've never heard "chickenhead" before ... I've heard "chicken" as a term for a young gay man, but that's mostly in-community queer slang.

[gorgeous-yulia.livejournal.com]

hehe a funny version.
And the word голубь exists not only in 1960 edition of a dictionary :)

[24karrot.livejournal.com]

pato = spanish for duck/gay...and ducks are birds...heh

I hope you x-posted this someplace else

[socialsodomy.livejournal.com]

I always understood the word "blue" to mean homosexual in English too. Like the really popular collection of gay/lesbian stories, "Am I blue?":

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0064405877/104-7314017-8798339

[wolfie-18.livejournal.com]

Where to, exactly?

[wolfie-18.livejournal.com]

I, as a homosexual, have NEVER heard of the word blue as a synonym for gay, but I suppose that link provides irrefutable evidence. I'd have to read into that...

[wolfie-18.livejournal.com]

Thanks a lot! I'll read this, although I daresay it'll take me a while...

[wolfie-18.livejournal.com]

I'm starting to feel as if I'm outside this "community" slang. Chicken... hm...

[apollotiger.livejournal.com]

*laughs* I heard it once. I've got a good memory, though.

(A side note: outside of the community slang? That implying you're some sort of LGBTQQIPAA [I just wanted to use the acronym, really])

[apollotiger.livejournal.com]

Only time I ever heard it was from that Bruce Coville story, but yeah.

[skeptikos.livejournal.com]

I'm blue, da-bu-di da-bu-da. :) Just kidding. There was a song with these words some years ago. "Eiffel 65" sang it.

Well, "голубой" ("blue") is used in russian to designate a person from "queers"... you know, one of these these gays, who makes manicure, pedicure, shaves legs, puts make-up on eyelashes and lips, and does some other things, that woman ordinarily does. A man like this is a "голубой". In present-day russian "голубь" ("pigeon" or "dove") means nothing but bird, but you can say "голубок" (diminutive for "голубь") - and this completely equal to "голубой". This kind of gays you can also call jokingly "противный" ("nasty" or "repugnant"), because they describes queers like this, in jokes about queers, when they want to imitate some queer.

Also, in russian prison slang the word "пидор" (very rude), or "петух" ("rooster" or "cock", not too rude) is used to designate a man, who is sodomized occasionally by other prisoners; that man is despised by everyone, he is situated in the lowest level of prison hierarchy. If someone says "пидор" or "петух" to a man, who is not a "петух" really, even as mistake, he runs risks to be murdered by aggrieved person - so, it is very serious oath, in prison and criminal groups.

(My english isn't too good, I believe it's awful, but...)

[skeptikos.livejournal.com]

Бляха-Муха, а чё я тут распинаюсь, когда товарищ wolfie_18 по-русски говорит, как по-английски? Или даже лучше. Интересно только, зачем было по-английски в learn_russian постить. Вот, в pishu_pravilno тоже не одну орфографию изучают...

Привет, кстати, жителю одноимённого города!

[http://users.livejournal.com/__marginal/]

А это потому что working language of this community is English.

[friendlic.livejournal.com]

товарищ Вулфи русский только учит, как я понял, поэтому распинался ты не зря ))
by the way, a very rude "пидор" is widely used among gay community in Russia itself, as a quite tender word :) just like "нигер" is used among афро-американцы in US as I heard it in holywood movies, while it's interpreted as a curse, if it's said by someone else

[friendlic.livejournal.com]

do you really have to? :)
it was the first link yandex.ru showed me to "этимология слова голубой" query string. i just scanned through it. it's a compilation of different contradictory versions about the word origin, while the author tending to have "pigeon" version.

[friendlic.livejournal.com]

can you tell me what are the else translations of the "gay" to spanish? and what words are used most often?

[halina.livejournal.com]

The most interesting (& it can be true) version was told by penguinny. He said that it can be from very popular in 1980s film Policy Academy & the bar Blue Oister(? голубая устрица). Soviet people looked on gays in that bar, so that gays became "blue".

[skeptikos.livejournal.com]

>"a very rude "пидор" is widely used among gay community in Russia itself"

Our answer to Чемберлен! Заценяй. Даблдилер хорошо по теме "пидоров" прошёлся. (http://www.livejournal.com/users/mor77/208741.html?thread=903013#t903013)

[friendlic.livejournal.com]

прямо научное исследование ))
а вот как among russian gay community обращаются со словом пидор (http://www.livejournal.com/users/gay_facker/98802.html) и пидорас (http://www.livejournal.com/users/gay_facker/101028.html). типичные примеры ;)

[friendlic.livejournal.com]

какой неожиданный и интересный подход к этой проблеме ))

[surok75.livejournal.com]

Chickenhawk - for underage male prostitutes.

or maybe this is exclusively British?

Вот как это называется

[skeptikos.livejournal.com]

(http://rulezman.multik.org/)

[schwarzer-tod.livejournal.com]

I know they're called pato (adj.) but I don't know if it's related to duck.

[schwarzer-tod.livejournal.com]

maricon (adj.) is used often, and I guess how common it is depends where in the world you're calling someone gay. http://www.notam02.no/~hcholm/altlang/ht/Spanish.html is a good reference site; it gives regional information for each word.

Re: Вот как это называется

[friendlic.livejournal.com]

где-то я уже это видел ))

[wolfie-18.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm Colombian raised with "maricon" flying around whenever my father would describe, well, queers. I never like the word though, it seems extremely vulgar to me.

[wolfie-18.livejournal.com]

>I'm blue, da-bu-di da-bu-da

I too remember this song. I wonder if it says something about Eiffel 65... :P

[nataxxa.livejournal.com]

I heard that голубой came not from голубь exactly but from голубчик(and голубушка, голуба) pronounced with the same mannered intonation as противный nowadays.

[battersby.livejournal.com]

really? I have tons of times. But it's more with my father's generation (40's-60s)

[skeptikos.livejournal.com]

By the way, there is a singer in Russia, Борис Моисеев, somewhat popular, in some circles. He produced himself an image of a gay, although i'm not sure if he's a gay in fact. But on the stage he makes himself out to be a natural gay very believable - and his repertoire corresponds to this appearance. So, his keynote song is called "Голубая луна" ("Blue moon"), and it's well-known in Russia. There is no any allusions to a gay subjects in lyrics to this song, except just the words "голубая луна", but the style of perfomance is demonstratively homoerotic, as always. Борис Моисеев sing this song in duet with other singer by name Николай Трубач, even less popular, than Моисеев. Трубач hadn't given cause to regardering him as a gay up to that time, but many people considered this song as indubitable proof of Трубач's homosexual orientation. And now when not-gays talk about gays, these not-gays usually remember song "Голубая луна", as a typical hint at gays theme, and they call "Голубая луна" Моисеев himself, through informal speech. Actually, Борис Моисеев is a living picture of a typical gay, as some dull-witted not-gays pictures a tipycal gay to themselves; and "Голубая луна" is a name to this living picture.

About "Eiffel 65" - i believe guys from "Eiffel 65" mean something else than gay, when they sang "i'm blue", probably "gloomy". But truly, in my English-Russian dictionary, there is a "голубой, имеющий гомосексуальную ориентацию" as a meaning to "blue", one of many other meanings. So I think, "голубой" was the first, and "голубь" borrows a sense from "голубой" because of a consonance.

[yms.livejournal.com]

The word голубой meaning gay appears in two songs recorded in 1983, by Юрий Лоза ("Мой приятель - голубой") and Вилли Токарев ("Над Гудзоном"). The second example is interesting because it was composed by an emigrant in N.Y. So this word was already known among emigrants (at least, those of them who ходили по кабакам :)

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

I would love to remind that the working language of this community is English, so, however good you expect somebody's Russian to be, you are expected to write in English anyway - because the majority of those who learn Russian here is in a very early stage of their study anyway.
pishu_pravilno is not (by no means) a role model for this community.