Loose Lips	Loose Lips Archive

Many Guide readers may have seen the news that three people from the Greek island of Lesbos are suing the Homosexual and Lesbian Community of Greece, trying to force them to stop using the word lesbian to refer to gay women. Their argument is that lesbian in its usual sense "insults the identity" of people who live on Lesbos, who are also called Lesbians.

Dmitri Lambrou, one of the litigious islanders, said that lesbian has only been linked with gay women in the past few decades. "But we have been Lesbians for thousands of years."

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The word lesbian in its homosexual sense is widespread in languages around the world, and comes from a reference to the poet Sappho, who lived from the late 7th to early 6th century B.C.E. Sappho lived on Lesbos and wrote many passionate poems about young women, so the terms sapphist, sapphism, or lesbian have been applied to gay women for quite a long time.

The first cited use of lesbianism in English to talk about homosexuality between women dates from 1870 and the first use of sapphism is from 1890. But the English words are probably borrowed from or influenced by French usage. In French saphisme and saphique date to 1838, and lesbienne in the homosexual sense dates a surprisingly early date of 1666. (The French is also interesting in that it shows an early masculine form of the word, lesbin, said to mean "bardache" -- a catamite or boy kept for the sexual pleasure of men.) Other European languages also use some word like lesbian to talk about gay women -- Spanish (lesbiana), Italian (lesbica), German (Lesbe or Lesbierin).

However, the word is also ambiguous in most of these languages as well, and can also be used to describe people who come from Lesbos.

Is there some sort of compromise that might make the islanders happy? Various comments on English-language forums suggest that people from the island be called Lesbosians. But the problem with this solution is that the lawsuit seems to be concerned with the Greek word that is used to describe gay women. As in English or in most other European languages, the Greek word seems to be ambiguous. So Blanche's Greek dictionary gives λεσβιακός/λέσβια (pronounced lesviakos/lesvia) as the definition for both senses of English lesbian.

If Blanche understands the news correctly, the residents of the island of Lesbos are unhappy about the name Ομοφυλοφιλική Λεσβιακή Κοινότητα Ελλάδος (Olke.org), which translates into English as Homosexual and Lesbian Community of Greece, and the particular word that they object to is Λεσβιακή (lesviaki), which is the adjective form of the word.

In English, it might make sense to suggest that residents of the island be called Lesbosians, but that doesn't solve the problem of what they would be called in Greek. If Greek speakers would like to find separate words for describing islanders and gay women, that is essentially a problem for them to solve.

But Blanche does have an idea which might be worth considering. The name of the island in Ancient Greek is Lesbos, but in Modern Greek, it is pronounced "Lesvos." In languages like French and English, the pronunciation is based on the Ancient Greek form, so we speak of lesbians or lesbiennes, with a b. In Modern Greek, the word for inhabitants of the island is lesviakos (with a v). Maybe the word for lesbian women could be lesbia, using the ancient pronunciation. That would have the advantage of connecting to the classical history as well as being more similar to the word in other European languages. If any Guide readers are native speakers of Greek, she would love to hear whether λεσμπια (lesbia) sounds like it might work as an alternative word for lesbian in the homosexual sense.

The simple truth is that whether the Greek courts rule in favor of the islanders or not, there is little chance that a lawsuit could stop people from using whatever term they prefer to talk about gay women. Ordinary language usage doesn't respond to lawsuits. An organization might be forced to change its name, but people cannot so easily be forced to change their usual way of talking.