Visit theallusionist.org/queerarabglossary to listen to this episode and get links to more information
This is the Allusionist, in which I, Helen Zaltzman, regret trying to assemble language without looking at the instructions.
Hello again, hello! So much has happened since we last convened. Sad stuff out of the way first, my father-in-law died, that really sucked. RIP our beloved Santa Dave. Happier news: the Allusionist live tour of the UK starts very very soon, so come and see our joyous new show Souvenirs, stories never heard before on the podcast, keywords include Legally Blonde, frenemies, fonts, the Domesday Book and donkeys. Can you construct the show from those terms? Come along and see: dates and links to tickets are listed at theallusionist.org/events.
Also coming up very soon is the 200th episode of the podcast! Want to be in it? I’d love for you to be. Here’s what I have in mind: a quiz episode, you know, like our annual quizzes, but this time, YOU will pose the questions. They can be multiple choice, they can be a format of your own devising, they just have to be about language. You can send them in voice form or you can write them if you want me to read them, and you have until 6 September 2024 to deliver them; go to the allusionist.org/quiz to do that. I’m excited to see what you come up with and I wonder what I will score.
This episode is all about queer slang in Arabic dialects, so, content note: there are references to sex, and we do discuss some slurs and derogatory language.
On with the show.
MARWAN KAABOUR: The idea for Takweer was simmering for a few years until my friends got really bored with me talking about it all the time and they're like, just do something, just start somewhere, start somewhere. And eventually I set up the Instagram page really as a space to collect my thoughts, and somehow inadvertently ended up making an archive. But it was a desire to collate, collect, explore, research, celebrate, and archive those instances that I share with my friends, queer friends, in passing. It was the things that we would talk about, the references that we make, the jokes that we make, certain stories from cinema or TV or pop culture that we're familiar with and where our queer identity seems to be anchored in. But there was never a space that was accessible that other people could also tap into and feel somehow a sense of belonging to this wider community.
Hello, everybody. My name is Marwan Kabour. I'm a Beirut born, London based designer, artist, founder of Takweer and the editor of the Queer Arab Glossary.
HZ: In 2019, Marwan launched Takweer on Instagram, to document queer Arabic history, pop culture, memes and language.
MARWAN KAABOUR: Potentially it was also a challenge to this kind of internationalized version of queerness, where we are all expected to express our identity in a specific way or have specific idols. I find people here in my country talking about Stonewall or something, and I was like, that's wonderful. But we have our own landmarks. We have our own pivotal moments that define our history as queer people. So I wanted to make that space so that others can easily access it, so that our own interpretation of our queerness becomes verbalized.
HZ: And five years after launching Takweer, Marwan’s linguistic collecting has become a book: The Queer Arab Glossary, which contains more than 300 terms with English translations and some etymology and usage history for the terms. And there are also essays by queer Arab artists, academics, activists and writers, adding personal context to the language use.
MARWAN KAABOUR: The book kind of was born out of a personal curiosity and fascination with queer slang in the Arabic language. Arabic exists in two main iterations: a standard Arabic, it's a formal type of Arabic that we learn in school and it is what is used to write speeches and essays and how news anchors speak, how a political leader might be giving a speech, or your graduation ceremony or something. But none of us actually speak using standard Arabic. We speak using dialect. And dialect is a mix of standard Arabic plus more localized influences. For example, me as a Lebanese person, I speak with the Levantine dialect, which is infused with a lot of Turkish, Aramaic, French - words that people use here that are different than those in different parts of the region. While in Iraq, it's infused by a lot of Kurdish and Farsi. In North Africa, there's a lot of Amazigh and French. So dialect varies massively from one region to another. And it varies so much that sometimes it's difficult for us to understand each other. So what the book is, it's a glossary of 330 terms and words, used in slang to refer to someone who is queer or perceived as queer. And it's divided by the six main Arabic dialects that cover the entirety of the region.
HZ: No biggie then.
MARWAN KAABOUR: Not at all. Piece of cake.
HZ: Had a resource like this ever existed before?
MARWAN KAABOUR: Not that I know of. There are historical books that mention the dirty words or the dirty slang of this region, some of which are connected to queer people. But there has never been a book that looks at this entire lexicon from the queer perspective.
HZ: So how do you go about building a glossary when you have to do that yourself from scratch?
MARWAN KAABOUR: Yes, it's a good question. Like, why would a graphic designer with a steady job decide to open this can of worms? My first idea was to create a visual mapping of this language, to kind of recreate the map of the Arabic speaking region using the words that I'm exploring. So I began by writing down the words I knew personally or came across; and then I resorted to the page's followers themselves, and I asked people: can you tell me of words and terms that you are familiar with, or that you have come across or used, that are used to refer to queer people, or people who are perceived as queer, in your language, in your dialect? And can you tell me who says these words, and to whom are they normally used for?
And then I would make sure that from each country I was speaking to people who are part of different socioeconomic classes, who are part of different regions, who are of different ages, and who belong to the different parts of the queer spectrum. And this is how I built the meanings of the words. The resources were the people, because I don't think there's anyone better to tell you about what a word means in slang than the people who use it.
But my resources range from conversations on Instagram, to like the Arab version of the Urban Dictionary called Mo3jam, to, quite honestly, I ended up on some porn websites quite a few times because a lot of these words are used in like a sexual context and I needed to know what they refer to. And some interesting historical documents that reference some of these words.
HZ: Marwan worked for four years on the glossary, initially translating everything himself, later working with the translator Suneela Mubayi who helped add more linguistic and historical and sociopolitical information to the definitions.
MARWAN KAABOUR: It's not necessarily exclusively a historical research. I call it like a snapshot of the linguistic landscape around queerness today. But by researching the words, by trying to find the roots of some of the words, I realized how far back some of them reach.
One of the most commonly used words to describe an effeminate man or a gay person in a derogatory way is a word that has existed as long as the Arabic has: moukhanath, for example. There's a word in the Gulf dialect section, specifically in Kuwait, if I'm not mistaken, called șaf‘ūn, and it's a word to endearingly describe someone who's a bit soft, who is a bit femme. And out of the process of the book, we found out that the word is a descendant of a word from the Abbasid era, of people whose job was to, for the purposes of entertainment, slap others in the royal courts. They would slap. So that's their job. It was like kind of a BDSM entertainment thing. And the word has survived and moved and transitioned in a way that now it refers to a queer person.
HZ: I also thought it was really illuminating to see how different regions had been colonized and how that then presented itself in the language.
MARWAN KAABOUR: When researching for this book, I discovered so much of the socio political, cultural, linguistic, and historical layers that make up the word. And by doing that, you understand a lot more about the region. So the thing about this book: okay, it's called the Queer Arab Glossary. So you'd think if you're not queer and or Arab, you might not relate to it. The surprise is when you read the glossary and the essays, it really teaches you about the history of the region in a much wider sense, because language holds in it all of the layers, today in the present tense of all of the historical layers that have passed into this region. Meaning we look at a word like butana in Libya, which is basically an Arabized version of puttana, the Italian word.
HZ: The Italian word for a sex worker.
MARWAN KAABOUR: And so on, like a lot of French words in North Africa, a lot of Italian words in Egypt, in Libya, a lot of French words in the Levant region, obviously, and so on. Or we look at țubjī in Lebanese dialect, and it's a Turkish Ottoman word that has become out of use in Turkey, but it's still in use in Lebanon, who was under the Ottoman empire. And we still use this word to refer to a gay man in a derogatory way or to an effeminate person.
And țubjī is made out of two parts, the suffix -jī, and the first part, which is top. In Levantine dialect, the words with ending with -ji are very common. So for example, my mom, if she wants to go to the grocer, she would say, I'm going to the khodarji. Khodar is vegetables, -ji, khodarji means the grocer, the person who works with vegetables. Niswanji: niswan is women, and we add the suffix -ji, it becomes womanizer, the person who, not works with women, but like, is, is dealing with, with women. So țubjī/topji: top, T-O-P, topçi is an old Turkish word that means cannon, the ball and cannon. And at a certain point in Ottoman Turkey, top was also a slang word for gay. So topçi or, in Turkish, topçe became to refer to the person who is doing the gay. So like a gay person.
HZ: Just so weird, this whole cannonballs thing.
MARWAN KAABOUR: I know, I know. I was like, is it about the cannon being a phallus or about the ball going into some kind of tunnel? It was all very interesting.
HZ: That's how etymology gets us, by doing some weird stuff.
MARWAN KAABOUR: I know. Yeah, yeah, totally. It's a mostly derogatory term, but it can be used in an endearing way amongst members of the same community. Of course, it's a great offense if someone says that to me randomly on the street, like screams that to me, but I would absolutely tell my gay friend. So it's all about context in a way. But most of the words in the glossary can operate in two ways. I actually had like a column when I was working on the spreadsheet to differentiate between derogatory and endearing terms, only to find out that there was no way for me to make that distinction without knowing the full context of how a word is said: who is saying the word, to whom it is being said, in what context is it being said, what tone is being used when the word is being said, and at what geography and at what time in history? All of these things make up the meaning of the word.
HZ: Some of the metaphors in the glossary were also familiar from English slang.
MARWAN KAABOUR: This is not surprising: modes of transport, lots of modes of transport to reference someone who is very promiscuous, the town bicycle essentially, but more colloquial variations of it.
HZ: Schoolbus was one pejorative term for a promiscuous bottom. Also quite an old linguistic motif were terms for sex between women being related to rubbing. For instance in English, tribade was a 16th century term for a woman who had sex with women, from the Ancient Greek tribein, to rub. And this trope appears in the Queer Arab Glossary too.
MARWAN KAABOUR: Yeah, a lot of the words pertaining to queer women are like a cliche, kind of the the one that rubs, the one that licks.
Hz: But at least some of the terms in the Queer Arab Glossary take a more creative metaphorical approach to the theme.
MARWAN KAABOUR: Qarshāla or qardāsha from Tunisia and Morocco has to do with specifically with this tool that is used to turn wool into balls of yarn. So yes, it is about rubbing and it is about things are coming in contact and friction with each other.
Other interesting things I noticed were the metaphor of worms was very common. It's one of the main metaphors that is common across all of the sections, so words along the lines of, "He has a worm up his butt," "he has worms," "he's wormy," "the one with the worms." And the meaning, I guess it varies. We weren't able to hone it down into one specific source, but it's either the presence of a phallic thing in a man's behind to imply that he's gay. Or, he has something up his butt that is itching that only sex with a man will rectify. So that's why - or the more difficult meaning, that implies that gay men are riddled with disease which is why they have worms. So it's all very macabre, but it's also what's there. So the analogy of the worms was interesting.
HZ: Yeah, I mean, not just worms, there were a lot of other creatures, like horse, cow, pigeon, crocodile, mouse, mule.
MARWAN KAABOUR: Worms was a constant metaphor, but the other animals refer to different things. So like you have the horse, which could be like a virile man. The crocodile is an older man who's trying to hit on younger men, but it's a bit like cringey - because crocodiles live to a very old age. Other things is the use of very cute animals to refer to twinks, or like a soft effeminate boy, like a butterfly or a puppy or a chick.
HZ: There’s the phrase “has been licked by a cow”...
MARWAN KAABOUR: …to refer to someone who's like been coddled, so that's why he's gay. what else? There's the hyena in Syria, to refer to a very insatiable gay man. There's the falcon in Sudan, which refers to a lesbian woman. I love it because some of them make sense, like the crocodile makes sense because the crocodile is old, but why a falcon? I love that a falcon is a lesbian.
HZ: Not unique to Arabic, but Marwan found far more terminology pertaining to queer men than to queer women.
MARWAN KAABOUR: In the beginning, I thought it might have to do with my own positionality as a gay man, that maybe I don't have access to something beyond what I'm comfortable with, and maybe the people who follow me are similar. So I was like, okay, let's do an extra push to specifically have in the interview section, a portion of the research, where I reached out specifically to queer women, from the different regions to try and address that, only to find out that the words really weren't there. And it was mainly because, you know, like society was like the queer community is a reflection of the wider community, which in the Arabic language or in the Arab world, but also internationally, is yet to give women's sexualities, women's bodies and women's sex lives as much of a wide pool of lexicon as they do for men.
And whenever there were words, they always brought back the queer women to a man. So you're a tomboy, you are like a man, and variations of it that you would spot in the glossary. So that was a common thread, which wasn't surprising. At the end of the day, we still live in highly patriarchal and misogynistic societies.
HZ: One term that is used for women refers to the Hajj pilgrimate to Mecca.
MARWAN KAABOUR: Al-Hājj Dhakar. Al-Hājj dhakar is an honorary title to someone who's done the hajj. But hajj is also a way to say who to refer respectfully to an older man, not necessarily just someone who did the Hajj, but that's where it comes from. Dhakar is like the alpha. Al-Hājj Dhakar means like the Sir Alpha. And it is used, yeah, for a woman who is masculine presenting. Like, she kind of, she supersedes gender and she becomes the alpha straight away.
HZ: I noticed that most of the terms for men were ones for being effeminate or being a bottom, rather than being a top or very masc.
MARWAN KAABOUR: I mean, not surprising. Again, it is a reflection of the fact that, one, women's sexualities aren't seen or perceived with the same degree of seriousness as men. So if a woman chooses not to engage in heteronormative behavior, she is automatically like the man. And in the same misogynistic sentiment, a man who engages in non normative sexual activity, he is deemed like a woman. So these two observations come from the same fault, that is embedded in misogyny.
HZ: Again, definitely not unique to Arabic that there was also a paucity of genderfree and gender-non-specific terms.
MARWAN KAABOUR: The existing tools don't work because even our plurals are gendered, and when you want to describe a group of people who are of mixed genders, you default back to the masculine.
Which I guess is the similar way how French language works as well.
HZ: Yep. Italian...
MARWAN KAABOUR: Italian. Different groups across the region are making different efforts to try and make that happen, or to try to innovate new language, that doesn't seem to be possible with the existing linguistic tools. So, I think they're trying, but it's still in a period of exploration. We haven't reached a solution just yet.
HZ: I mean, nor has English really, cause people love to get pissed off about it.
MARWAN KAABOUR: I just, I know, in all honesty, I think it would help us a lot if we view this period as a period of exploration where we are trying to push the boundaries of language to better accommodate specific things. We aren't there yet, and it's still in flux.
HZ: One recurring motif in the glossary is cultural references. One term used in Libya to mean gay men or emasculated men is "listens to K-pop".
MARWAN KAABOUR: Oh yeah. That's, I would say potentially one of the last to be added. I mean, obviously it's a very current reference. And "listens to K-pop" is connected to a grouping of words that has to do with, with Western culture. So there's Awlād Mīkī in Sudan, which means “the children of Mickey Mouse”. There is Yisma‘ Fī-l Kpop, which means “listens to K-pop”.
And it's out of this idea that, and it doesn't apply exclusively to gay people, but people who present themselves who are into Western culture, and because the implication of it, which is completely wrong, is that queerness somehow is a Western import. So if you're presenting yourself as someone who is into Mickey Mouse, who is like the symbol of Western civilization or American Civilization, or K-pop, which is this international phenomenon, you must be gay, like, because this has nothing to do with us. You've imported this from others.
HZ: With some of the cultural references, Marwan had to provide quite a lot of context and explanations. Like the number 106.
MARWAN KAABOUR: That was a weird one for me because in the beginning, with the submissions page, a lot of Algerians were like, "106, this is what we say." And I was like, what? And then I kept kind of digging to try and understand where it's coming from. And basically there was a TV show in Algeria from the 1970s, like a show based on a detective trying to solve crimes. And apparently in one scene, I think they're in a hospital, the detective, and he has his like assistant and the assistant was dressed as a nurse to try and infiltrate the hospital. And at some point, the detective tells the nurse, who is dressed as a woman, to walk in a more feminine way so that people believe that he's an actual woman.
And he starts walking in a more feminine, supposedly feminine way. And then when they reach the room, he just starts screaming in a very exaggerated way, the room number, which was 106, like, “Miyya w sitta! Miyya w sitta!” which is like the local way of saying 106, and suddenly 106 in Algerian became a way to say gay, because it was that character from that TV show who did it that way.
HZ: There were quite a lot of food ones as well. Llittle grape; half and half coffee -
MARWAN KAABOUR: - nușș nușș.
HZ: - white bean…
MARWAN KAABOUR: Ah, lūbya! Lūbya is very interesting - actually, these are all Moroccan words, the ones that you mentioned, which makes me think there's a connection between food and the way people are being described. So lūbya, which means beans or white beans, is actually a very more contemporary word used amongst queer people to refer to themselves as a word of community.
The source of the meaning is unknown, but it is so commonly used. And it's loved, it's a sweet word. While little grape is more like a cute little boy, little grape. What was the third? Ah, nușș nușș, which is the way in the Moroccan region, they refer to like half cream, half coffee kind of thing. And it refers to someone who is neither this nor that. So maybe someone who is gender ambiguous.
HZ: There’s also ‘grill rack’, for a versatile gay man who likes to flip over during sex. More food terms include can, meaning someone who opens up, like a can. That one’s derogatory, as is ‘candy’ for a man considered soft and sweet, ie effeminate.
HZ: I thought "he's fried" was very evocative.
MARWAN KAABOUR: That one was very weird for me, and it took many conversations for me to try and really, like, fully understand. Because, like, I was like, what do you mean, “he's fried”?
Yaqlī, okay: this is Tunisian, a lot of Tunisian cuisine has to do with fried food. The idea of frying is very much part of people's consciousness. So, yaqlī means he fries or he is being fried. And here, the idea is that a gay man is getting fried in oil, which is a metaphor for penises.
So, him frying is because he's swimming in a sea of cock. There's different versions, so there's yaqlī like, which means he is getting fried with dick, like, so there's the version yaqlī which is just means he's getting fried, and then there's the full version yaqlī —--- which means he is getting fried in penis, which kind of refers to like more of someone who's the bottom. But then there's also a variation that claims that because you have to flip him around while he's frying, that it might refer to a versatile gay man who flips over during sex. So there's the multiplicity of very complex meanings around frying gay men.
HZ: As a designer, what got you into gathering language?
MARWAN KAABOUR: My father, who is an artist himself and a former Arabic language teacher, whenever I would inquire about word when I was younger, he would reply with a full etymological background of every word. So that was my experience of language. He was like, "Oh, this word came from this root and then you conjugate it in a way that becomes this." so it was a game that we play. And text, language, and typography became very central to my design practice.
HZ: It's kind of lucky that your dad's enthusiasm for etymology didn't just make you go, “Oh, dad, shut up!” and make you run far, far away.
MARWAN KAABOUR: I never thought about it before this book. I thought it was something that had died out, but then it was my friends. They're like, “no, it hasn't.” They're like, “you always do this to us.” So I just internalized that.
HZ: That’s very cute. Of all the things you could inherit, that seems very wholesome.
MARWAN KAABOUR: I know! Like what we call dad jokes: I'm deemed the king of dad jokes because I always like, whenever someone says something, I take the words and I play with them around like Play Doh, and then come back with a wordplay that I think is very witty. And they just give me this slightly disappointed look on their face, like, “Here he goes again.”
HZ: Aaah! I'm sure they appreciate it afterwards.
MARWAN KAABOUR: Oh, for sure. My conscience is clear. They could handle it.
HZ: Is your dad still around?
MARWAN KAABOUR: Yeah, yeah, he's next door actually.
HZ: Is he excited to have so much more language that you've gathered for him to you know, add to his repertoire?
MARWAN KAABOUR: Yeah, you know, in all honesty, this project is the moment where he finally has an entry point into my practice and is able to understand what I do. Because for the, I mean, he's always been very supportive, but like many dads or many parents, they're like, “I'm not entirely sure what my child does. But I’m happy for him.”
HZ: Uh huh. Try being a podcaster.
MARWAN KAABOUR: Exactly. I'm currently in Beirut and I came mainly to do my book launch here, and I had my parents in the auditorium where we were having a panel discussion. And I looked over and he was smiling and looking very proud. And I feel like it was really the moment where he's like, “Okay, now I know what you're doing! And this is very interesting.” So I think this book has definitely played a part in bridging the kind of the generational and cultural gap between us.
HZ: Marwan Kaabour is a designer of books including the Rihanna book. He runs the online community Takweer, and he’s the editor of the Queer Arab Dictionary, out now in many territories and the US edition will be released this September, all beautifully illustrated by Haitham Haddad.
News from the Alumsionists, who do a lot of cool stuff: Rose Eveleth who appeared on the Future is Now episode and made the podcast Flash Forward has a new podcast series out, Tested, about the history of sex testing in sports. There are all too many media organisations that I would not trust on this subject, but Rose is someone who we know will do a diligent, smart job, and they’ve spent more than ten years researching this and getting the show made. I went into the Allusionist patrons’ Discord to recommend it only to discover that several people already were listening to it and talking about it and getting a lot out of it. You can find Tested in the podplaces and at tested-podcast.com, and I’d recommend a visit to that website because there are a lot more resources posted there, including language ones, and the newsletter is great too. So check all of that out at tested-podcast.com.
Your randomly selected word from the dictionary today is…
detritivore, noun, zoology: an animal which feeds on dead organic material, especially plant detritus.
Try using ‘detritivore’ in an email today.
This episode was produced by me, Helen Zaltzman. The music is by Martin Austwick of PaleBirdMusic.com. Our ad partner is Multitude. If you want to advertise on this show, and hear me come up with an original ad for your product every time, contact Multitude at multitude.productions/ads.
And don’t forget about all those things I mentioned at the start of the episode! Get tickets for the upcoming UK tour of the new live show Souvenirs, and submit your quiz questions for episode 200, and as ever you can hear or read every episode, get links to the guests and their work and more information about the topics they’re talking about, and see the full dictionary entries for the randomly selected words, and donate to become a member of the Allusioverse, all at the show’s forever home theallusionist.org.
