I have just finished a fascinating novel(Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See) about the life of a woman in 19th century China. It follows her from her foot-binding all the way through her (quite unusual) old age of 80 something. The book talks a lot about a secret language women used called nushu.

Anyone else know of it? Have there been other cultures in which a "women's language" has developed like this?

I've heard of it. First, from the Languagehat blog. There have been examples of woman's language in at least a couple of other cultures: one of them Native American, I think.

Interesting, CW. I will ask my Chinese friend about this.

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There have been examples of woman's language in at least a couple of other cultures

Like the UK, for example. The problem is that UK Womanspeak sounds so similar to UK English that many men do not realise that it is a completely different tongue.

It's taken me many years to learn just a few words and phrases of womanspeak - and even now I often make mistakes when trying to communicate with women.

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even now I often make mistakes when trying to communicate with women

Perhaps it is the difference in brain capacity that is hampering your understanding.

It's great to see Lisa See's research and work online. This novel has been fascinating.

So - Z - can you lead me to more information about this supposed Native American secret women's language? I'll research a bit on my own, but being a linguist I have a feeling you'll be able to find more.

I think there has been some confusion here. Nushu was/is not a women's language, but a system of writing. What was written was in the Chinese language, or at least the version of Chinese spoken in Hunan. Remember that, centuries ago, only men and boys were taught, officially, to read and write, in much the same way as in the West. More recently, since both sexes now have the benefit of education, there has been no real need for such a "secret" script.

There is an interesting article on the subject at http://www2.ttcn.ne.jp/~orie/aas99.htm

There is an interesting parallel here with another current thread, Sequoyah's Syllabary. Presumably a particular woman, or a group of women, frustrated at being denied by men the ability to read or write, invented Nushu.

CW, as I remember, it wasn't a secret language. It's that men and women spoke different dialects of the same language with differences in the lexicon (i.e., different words for different concepts/things). I seem to remember that it was a Caribbean tribe. In this sense, Japanese women traditionally spoke differently from men, using a different set of pronouns and to some extent verbal morphology. Basically, women speak in a more polite form of Japanese than men. Not all the time, but mostly. One of the problems in learning a little bit of Japanese, as I did once when a company I worked for was bought by a Japanese firm, is that you learn to speak politely and end up sounding like a woman.

If you're interested in this linguistic theme in general, you might want to look at some of the books written by Robin Lakoff or Deborah Tannen.

[Addendum.]

Yes, it was the Caribs. Evidently, they'd raided the Arawak for their wives, and the latter kept their distinctive language. Here's some information from Wikipedia.

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Carib or Island Carib people who lived in the Lesser Antilles islands, after whom the Caribbean Sea was named. They are an Amerindian people whose origins lie in the southern West Indies and the northern coast of South America.

Although the men spoke either a Carib language or a pidgin, the Caribs' raids resulted in so many female Arawak captives that it was not uncommon for the women to speak Kalhíphona, a Maipurean language (Arawakan). In the southern Caribbean they co-existed with a related Cariban-speaking group, the Galibi who lived in separate villages in Grenada and Tobago and are believed to have been mainland Caribs. Several words of Carib origin became part of the English language, including hurricane, hammock, barbeque, and iguana.

You may want to look into Jean Rhys, too. She mentions girls in Dominica speaking a patois that she felt was related to the Carib women's language.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: zmježd,

Extracted from "Yanyuwa:"Men speak one way, women another", a paper by John Bradley reprinted in Language and Gender:A Reader ed. Jennifer Coates

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This paper describes briefly the apparently unique system within the Yanyuwa language of having separate dialects for male and female speakers....

...the roles of men and women in Yanyuwa society are not only contrasted by their social roles... but also explicitely by the use of different dialects by male and female speakers...


There are occasions when the Yanyuwa men and women do speak each other's dialects, such as when relating a story where [quotations] will normally be in the dialect which relates to the person who has spoken...

Both men and women will use the dialect of the opposite sex quite freely in joking situations, more especially in situations relating to male and female encounters and sexual encounters...

The article is quite interesting, as are many of the articles in the collection although people who are not interested in accademic research may find most of them rather dry.

Heres a wikipedia article on Yanyuwa.

Yanyuwa

I see Dr Bradley has a Yanyuwa site online.

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Perhaps it is the difference in brain capacity that is hampering your understanding.

I don't think that men's superior intelligence has anything to do with it ;-)

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Nushu was/is not a women's language, but a system of writing.

A very good point, Arnie. The novel I read was very clear what the distinction was and why women were using nushu instead of men's writing.

That information on Yanyuwa was interesting - thanks to Z and Bob for the links.

As for Richard:

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Perhaps it is the difference in brain capacity that is hampering your understanding.

I don't think that men's superior intelligence has anything to do with it ;-)

. . . all I'll say is "yes, dear. Whatever you say dear".

I don't think that men's superior intelligence has anything to do with it

"yes, dear. Whatever you say dear"

I don't think either of you two is having any difficulty communicating ...

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I don't think either of you two is having any difficulty communicating ...

Ha! I think you're right!

My wife and I frequently have differences of opinion.

Mind you, I never tell her.

Let us put man and woman together
And see which one is smarter
Some say man, but I say no
The woman got the man like a puppet show