Abstract
M.A.
At about the same time as Gayspeak was developing across the Atlantic, 'coloured' and
white South African gay men were also starting to use their own in-group form of
communication. It became known as Gayle, a name which derives from the lexical item
Gail, which means 'chat' in the language. This study will endeavour to classify the type of language variety of Gayle, as it clearly is
not a separate language on its own. It will also examine why South African gay men have
used, and continue to use Gayle in their everyday lives. Given what we said earlier about
legitimising Gayle as an incontestable reality within serious linguistic study, and the dearth
of serious research in this area, it is important that this topic take its rightful place in the
field of sociolinguistics.
As language is an integral part of culture, it is also important that a comprehensive lexicon
of Gayle be compiled, in line with Joustra's Homo-erotisch Woordenboek, Courouve's
Vocabu/aire de l'Homosexualite Masculine and Rodgers' Gay Talk: A (sometimes
Outrageous) Dictionary of Gay Slang, as Gayle is an undeniable component in the history
of South African culture. In the course of the empirical research component of this study,
approximately 90% of respondents indicated an interest in, and need for, such a dictionary.