Language and Sex

The gender differentiation is reflected in nearly all languages. There are lexical
differences in some languages such as ‘German’ (freund, freundin). We can see these
differences in terms of kinship, occupations. While some languages have sex-marking
pronouns, some of them such as Hungarian, Finnish don’t have. Sex can also be
understood through the use of articles, verb forms and adjectives, as in French
(intelligent/ intelligente). In particular languages, people have to reveal their gender by
using past participle words, verb forms in the first-person singular and first-person
pronouns.
In Gros Ventre, palatalized dental stop in men’s speech correspond to
palatalized velar stops in the speech of women. Also , there is an example in Yukaghir,
/tj/ and /dj/ in male speech corresponds to /ts/ and /dz/ in the speech of women. Old
and young people use the different variations in their lifetime. So these are conscious
changes.
There is a claim that different speeches of men and women is originated
because of an invasion in Carib Indies. However, we cannot be sure if it is true or not.
Taboo words could be effective in different usages, but its effects are short-lived.
The differences are mostly lexical, though there also are non-lexical changes.
For example, in Koasati language if the female form ends in a nasalized vowel , then
the male form has a non-nasalized vowel plus /s/. It is an example for differences of
phonological shapes of particular verb forms. We can also see some phonological
changes such as /u/-/ʉ/ …… in Darkhat Mongolian. Because male speakers tend to
make some changes , but women are more conservative.