Thursday, January 03, 2008

Homolexis - A Linguistic History of Same-Sex Love

My friend and fellow blogger, Wayne Dynes, has a blog that he launched in 2006 called "Homolexis" that reports on Wayne's study of the character and historical development of the body of language used for homosexuality—-the homolexis or homolexicon—-in the five major Western European languages, English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish. A sister site provides research tools and findings. As he points out, by and large, the stock of words we have inherited in this area is in no way an "objective" record of phenomena and experience. Instead, the vocabulary is loaded with assumptions, prejudices, historical myths and fabrications--and, of course, as Wayne puts it "evidence of the inexhaustible wit and creativity of gay and lesbian people."
In the process of his discourse, Wayne also reviews the history of same sex love over the course of history and has many footnotes and resources for those interested in such history.
By way of background, Wayne is a retired professor and likes to describe himself as follows: " I like to consider myself a citizen of Cosmopolis, ranging widely across the humanities. I have traveled to 45 countries, and speak five languages. Out of self-interest, I am concerned with current affairs in my own country. Writing is important to me: I have published seventeen books (including edited volumes)."
For those with a historical or linguistic bent, check out Wayne's blogs at http://homolexis.blogspot.com/ and http://www.homolexis.com/wordpress/

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