The Secret Language of Fans

by Sandra Merville Hart

Hand fans have been used for about 4,000 years, beginning with the Egyptians. They were used in ancient Greece to shoo flies and to fan the flames while cooking by the 4th century BC. In ancient China, fans were made of silk, bamboo, wood, paper, or feathers.

Folding fans were heavily imported from China to European countries beginning in the 1600s. Some fifteenth-century fans that still survive contain cut-out designs in a lacy pattern. After a while, the fans were painted with leaves, flowers, and scenes commemorating special occasions. The sticks were made of bone, ivory, horn, mother of pearl, tortoise shell, or wood.

It seems that a language was associated with the fans, though it’s unclear how much it was used. When it began, the communication was done with individual letters. This evolved into making gestures in a secret flirtatious language first published by Fanella, a Spanish man. Then Fran Bartholomew wrote them in German.

In 1827, Jean-Pierre Duvelleroy opened a fan-making house in Paris. His fans sparked a wider use of fans at balls. Jean-Pierre gave his London Duvelleroy house to Jules Duvelleroy, his son. Jules published an English version of “The Language of the Fan”.

Here are a few of the codes:

Carrying the fan in the right hand in front of the face: Follow me

Draw the fan across the face: I love you

Place the fan on the left ear: I wish to get rid of you

Touch the fan’s tip with finger: I wish to speak to you

Let the fan rest on right cheek: Yes

Let the fan rest on left cheek: No

Fan slowly: I am married

Fan quickly: I am engaged

Open wide: Wait for me

With little finger extended: Goodbye

Of course, the young man must understand the meaning or the young woman’s efforts are in vain.

Some sources question how much this coded language was used. The best source would be novels written during that time.

Sources:

“Duvelleroy,” Wikipedia, 2025/04/21 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duvelleroy.

“Hand Fan,” Wikipedia, 2025/04/19 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hand_fan.

Hawkins, Linda J. The Unspoken Language of Fans & Flowers, Heart to Heart Publishing, 2007.

Luckel, Madeleine. “Why It’s Time to Revisit the Handheld Fan—And Its Secret Language,” Vogue, 2025/04/19 https://www.vogue.com/article/secret-language-of-the-fan-eighteenth-century-fans-de-young-museum.

Sayers, Rachel. “Let the Fan Do the Talking: Flirting in the Victorian Era,” The National Trust for Scotland Foundation USA, 2025/04/19 https://ntsusa.org/fan-victorian-flirting/.

Starp, Alexandra. “The Secret Language of Fans,” Sotheby’s, 2025/04/10 https://www.sothebys.com/en/articles/the-secret-language-of-fans.