Felo

Polari Translator Online – English to Polari Word Swap

Swap English words for Polari vocabulary and back using a fixed paired glossary, with duplicate entries resolved explicitly and unmapped words kept intact. It tells you which Polari term it chose when several exist and which words had no match. Try it online.

What is the Polari Translator Online?

The Polari Translator Online is a conversational word-swap tool for English and Polari, the coded vocabulary historically associated with British gay subculture. You paste English text and get Polari substitutions, or paste Polari and get English substitutions, drawn from one fixed paired glossary. It is a glossary tool, not a grammar engine: it replaces known words and leaves everything else exactly as you wrote it.

Key Features

Bidirectional word swap. English to Polari and Polari to English use the same paired list, so a round trip is predictable.
Transparent duplicate handling. The glossary has several English words with more than one Polari equivalent, such as money, hair and dick. The agent names the alternatives and states which one it used by default.
Case preservation. Capitalized and all-caps words keep their shape, so a sentence start stays a sentence start.
Coverage report. After the swap you see which words had no Polari match and were left unchanged, instead of silently losing them.
Multi-word entries first. Entries like "hot guy" and "public toilets" are matched before their single-word parts.

How to Use

Type or paste your text and say which direction you want, for example "English to Polari: That nearby man is gay." If you do not state a direction, the agent infers it from the vocabulary and says so.
Read the converted line first, then the short note listing any duplicate choices and any words left unchanged.
Ask for a variant when a duplicate exists, for example "use handbag for money instead," or ask for the glossary pairs used.

Example Use Cases

Checking a Polari phrase you saw in a documentary. Paste "bona omi" and get the English gloss plus a note if the term is ambiguous.
Writing a period-flavored line for a story or drag act. Convert "That nearby man is gay" and see the word-level result with unmapped words flagged.
Learning vocabulary for a Polari history talk. Ask for the English-to-Polari pairs for a short list of words and get a clean table you can read aloud.

Tips for Best Results

Keep requests word-level. Polari grammar and word order are not modeled, so long sentences come back as swapped words in your original order.
Name your preferred Polari variant when a duplicate exists; otherwise the first listed term is used and disclosed.
Treat the output as vocabulary reference, not as a historically verified utterance.

FAQ

What input format works? Plain text, one direction per request. Very long passages are handled in sections, and the agent tells you if it split them.

How accurate is it? Accuracy means faithful glossary substitution, not translation quality. Words outside the glossary stay unchanged and are reported. Polari had regional and era variation, so a single glossary cannot capture every usage.

How does it handle several Polari terms for one English word? When an English key has more than one Polari value, the agent uses the first-listed term by default and names the alternatives in a duplicate note. It preserves case and reports coverage, so you can see exactly what changed. It does not add grammar, audio or images.