Bahasa Binan
# Bahasa Binan

Bahasa Binan (or bahasa Béncong) is a distinctive Indonesian speech variety originating from the gay community. It has several regular patterns of word formation and is documented in both writing and speech. One pattern of word formation modifies standard Indonesian roots (normally composed of two syllables) to have e as the first vowel and ong closing the second syllable—hence providing regular assonance with the standard Indonesian word bencong, a male homosexual, trans woman, or male crossdresser. Another word formation pattern adds -in- infixes to other Indonesian roots. The best example is the word binan itself, formed with the word banci, "male transvestite", to which the -in- infix has been added and from which the second syllable -ci has been dropped. Bahasa Binan also uses a range of standard Indonesian words with altered meaning. The standard word for "cat", kucing, is used in Bahasa Binan to denote a male prostitute. Another word with wide currency in Bahasa Binan, but actually typical of standard Indonesian informal word formation, is waria from wanita (woman) + pria (man), meaning "transvestite".

