who is a linguist a men or a women
Answers
-A-Linguist Message Details
Subject: Differences Between Male and Female Speech
Question: I was wondering what languages in the world best illustrate the differences between male and female forms of speaking? Are there any societies where men and women speak separate, mutually unintelligible languages for all practical purposes? I suspect that the best examples are in non-European languages or at the risk of sounding politically incorrect, tribal languages. However, even in familiar modern European languages some differences exist if one pays close attention. For example, in English and Spanish, girls and women seem to like to use diminuitive forms more often than male speakers such as 1) ''Look! She's whistling like a BirdIE'' or 2) ''Fothergilla gardenii is a bronZY sort of red in the Fall'' whereas male speakers would most likely substitute 'birdie' and 'bronzy (sort of) red' with non-diminuative forms instead such as ''bird,'' ''bronze-red'' or ''reddish-bronze'' if they were saying the same things . A similar scenario exists in Spanish where in spoken Puerto Rican Spanish, for example, a female speaker will say ''Duermo en mi camITA queen'' (I sleep in my queen-sized bed) or ''Lo kelo muchITO'' (I love him a lot) while male speakers in the language are more likely to use just 'cama' in talking about a bed or 'mucho' for ''much,'' ''a lot,'' etc., without the diminuitive endings. Men and women may also phrase idiomatic expressions differently in a language to say the same thing. Thus, in American English, a woman may say ''They go together like peas and carrots'' but a man will say something else instead like ''They go together like a hand in a glove'' or ''They go together like Tonto and the Lone Ranger.'' I remember reading, many years ago, one author who said that French was sharply divided along sexual lines and that there was such a thing as a ''Men's French'' and a ''Women's French.'' He said that French was the only modern European language where this kind of phenomenon exists in the extreme. The differences seem to increase in a non-European languages like Japanese where even the first person personal pronoun, 'I', is different e.g. Atashi (female) and Watakushi (male). Any answers, comments or insights regarding any of this would be appreciated. Thank You.