Habibchi: Language and Identity in Gay Egyptian Men
Aous Mansouri
Abstract for paper presented at
The 12th Annual American University Conference on Lavender Languages and Linguistics
Washington, DC
February 11-13, 2005This presentation is work in progress and stems from personal observations I had over the summer while visiting Saudi Arabia. I was fortunate enough to meet a group of homosexual Arab men who identified as gay. The expatriates visiting from Egypt showed signs of a burgeoning phenomenon where linguistic communication was becoming a way in which this community marks itself. This phenomenon is not restricted to Egypt; personal observations have been noted in other areas of the Arab Middle East.
Egypt is an Arab country with a predominantly Muslim population. Traditionally, these cultures have had a tendency to mildly tolerate homosexual practices as long as one adheres to the social norms and does not admit to anything perceived as deviant (Murray 1997). Egypt also values the family unit, and there is pressure on these men to marry and raise a family. And recently, according to the Human Rights Watch report (March 2004), there have been numerous - and highly public - arrests of homosexual men as well as clamp downs on establishments that had mainly catered to that group.
Halliday (1976) talks about the use of 'anti-language' in societal pockets that mark themselves as alternatives to mainstream society, i.e. 'anti-society'. In this instance, a novel way of communication is created in part due to the reality that surrounds these men. Some of the changes observed were phonemic (the voiceless dental stop /t/ becomes aspirated and then affricated) and productive, while others included the creation of new lexical items to suit their own needs (e.g. neologisms for 'police' and such).
Aous Mansouri is an MA student in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Colorado. He can be reached at Aous.Mansouri@Colorado.EDU.
Colorado Research in Linguistics - Volume 18, Issue 1 - June 2005
