{"id":7570,"date":"2020-10-02T09:00:59","date_gmt":"2020-10-02T09:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/?p=7570"},"modified":"2023-11-27T12:23:53","modified_gmt":"2023-11-27T12:23:53","slug":"womens-words","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/womens-words\/","title":{"rendered":"Women’s Words"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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If you\u2019re a native English speaker, then you may not ever\nhave noticed your gender affecting the way you speak \u2013 at least, in terms of\nthe words you use. However, this is not true across all languages. In this blog\npost, uTalk\u2019s Language Guru, Brian, set out to find some languages where women\nin particular have a specific way of speaking and has even found a few reasons\nas to why that might be.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Japanese is unusual among major world languages because men\nand women are expected to speak differently! In Japanese women\u2019s speech is\nknown as onna kotoba (\u5973\u8a00\u8449,\n“women’s words”) or joseigo (\u5973\u6027\u8a9e, “women’s language”). A man who uses feminine\nspeech, even grammatically correct sentences with perfect pronunciation, might\nbe considered effeminate or homosexual. In general, the form of Japanese spoken\nby men, particularly in informal contexts (yes, besides gender-based language,\nJapanese also makes a distinction between formal and informal speech) is often\nperceived as rough, vulgar and abrupt, while feminine speech is considered more\npolite, deferential, or softer. Formal language is the same for both men and\nwomen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some distinctive features of women’s speech in Japanese<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Women speakers use specific pronouns like atashi meaning \u201cI\u201d\nwhile men would use boku or ore to mean the same thing. Anata is the standard\nformal Japanese word for \u201cyou\u201d, but women uniquely use this to address their\nboyfriends or husbands, equivalent to \u201cdear\u201d in English. Women might soften\ntheir sentences by ending them with particles such as wa, wa yo and wa ne. Men\non the other hand, prefer the more abrupt yo, zo and ze which can sound crass\nand rude when used by women. Also, a common ending meaning \u201cI wonder\u2026\u201d is\nkashira when said by women but kanaa when said by men. When speaking with\nfriends and close relatives, a man might end his sentences with da (it is)\nwhile a woman might simply drop it. A man might say that a meal was umai while\na woman might use the more formal-sounding oishii (both umai and oishii mean\n\u201cdelicious\u201d). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Society and culture<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

These differences are completely normal in Japanese society.\nA learner of Japanese will encounter this while watching TV (but not from\nwatching newsreaders or clips of politicians making speeches as formal language\nin Japanese is gender-neutral), in manga, video games and in the speech of\ncharacters in novels. Also, as anyone who has ever taken public transport in\nJapan might have noticed, public announcements made by women tend to be\ndeliberately done at a much higher pitch than the announcers\u2019 normal speaking\nvoices. This is because a higher pitched voice is considered to be more\nfeminine and gentler and thus the more formal the language, the more likely a\nfemale Japanese speaker is expected to raise the pitch of her voice!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other parts of the world<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

This phenomenon is not restricted to Japanese. In Siberia,\nspeakers of the indigenous Chukchi language also have separate men\u2019s and\nwomen\u2019s dialects. Very often, an R sound when used by men becomes a C or TS in\nthe same word when pronounced by women. Hence, \u201cto fight\u201d is pronounced as\nmaraw by Chukchi men and macaw by Chukchi women. \u201cMosquito\u201d is mren for men and\nmcen for women. For \u201cyes\u201d, men say ee while women say ii. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Thailand, it is considered polite to end one\u2019s sentences\nwith khrap (only used by men) or kha (only used by women). In Khmer, \u201cyes\u201d is\ncha when said by women and baat when said by men. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Semitic languages such as Arabic make obligatory\ndistinctions both when talking to men and women and when talking about them. In\nLevantine Arabic, \u201cYou can go\u201d is fiik truuH when said to a man and fiiki\ntruuHi when said to a woman. \u201cI love you\u201d is baHibbak when speaking to a man\nbut baHibbik when speaking to a woman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Casual spoken Basque \u2013 a language isolate spoken in\nNorthern Spain and Southwestern France \u2013 has special verb forms for speaking\nwith men and women (note that these forms are only used in very informal\nsituations and would be considered rude if used with strangers or in situations\nrequiring one to show respect). The formal Basque sentence “Mary is\nyoung” would be “Maria gaztea da” while the same sentence when\nspoken casually with a close female friend would be “Maria gaztea\ndun”. While speaking to a close male friend, it becomes “Maria gaztea\nduk”. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Different language, different culture, different outlook<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Speakers of European languages often struggle with languages\nlike Japanese or Arabic that express gender distinctions in different and often\nmystifying ways. These distinctions are often deeply tied to the cultural norms\nand history of a particular country. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The truth is, just like every other aspect of language\nlearning, these differences are part and parcel of the whole experience and\nlearners who make an effort to use the correct forms of a language are always\nmet with respect and deep appreciation by native speakers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you\u2019re a native English speaker, then you may not ever have noticed your gender affecting the way you speak \u2013 at least, in terms of the words you use. However, this is not true across all languages. In this blog post, uTalk\u2019s Language Guru, Brian, set out to find some languages where women in … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":9583,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1855],"tags":[118,319,1845,124,317],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7570"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7570"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7570\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9584,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7570\/revisions\/9584"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}