Using translation to chart the early spread of gay terminology

Translation analysis represents a useful tool for historical comparative lexicology, making it possible to establish concrete chronologies and geographies of contact in the process of lexical transfer between languages. This paper applies a lexicological analytical approach to a telling case study. Newly uncovered evidence from the 1950s helps map out the early trajectory of gay as awareness of the word spread from U.S. English to some Spanish-, French-, and German-language communities. Extensive details are provided from monographic translations of Donald Webster Cory/Edward Sagarin’s groundbreaking 1951 The Homosexual in America, as well as from a pioneering multilingual early queer magazine (Der Kreis/Le Cercle/The Circle in Switzerland) and from generalist publications, all of the latter linked intertextually to the Cory work. These now represent the earliest known attestations of gay ‘homosexual’ outside of English, interesting in a sociopragmatic perspective as they reflect both in-group and out-group ideological stances. Two appendices systemize the relevant data from the Cory monograph and translations in the form of multilingual concordances and glossary.