Language and Gender - Gender-specific Vocabulary

Gender-specific Vocabulary

Some natural languages have intricate systems of gender-specific vocabulary.

• Sumerian women had a special language called Emesal, distinct from the main language, Emegir, which was spoken by both genders. The women's language had a distinct vocabulary, found in the records of religious rituals to be performed by women, also in the speech of goddesses in mythological texts.
• For a significant period of time in the history of the ancient languages of India, after the formal language Sanskrit diverged from the popular Prakrit languages, some Sanskrit plays recorded the speech of women in Prakrit, distinct from the Sanskrit of male speakers. This convention was also used for illiterate and low-caste male speakers.
• Garifuna has a vocabulary split between terms used only by men and terms used only by women. This does not however affect the entire vocabulary but when it does, the terms used by men generally come from Carib and those used by women come from Arawak.
• The indigenous Australian language Yanyuwa has separate dialects for men and women.
• In Ancient Greek there is evidence for some difference between the speech of men and women, as evidenced for example in the comedies of Aristophanes.