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Cultures Where Men and

Women Don't Speak the
Same Language
Richard Brooks
5-6 minutes

How many times have you heard someone

say “men and women don’t speak the same
language?” But that’s not true . . . well, in
English, anyway! In some parts of the world,
the words people use can vary dramatically
based on nothing more than gender.
For example,  in the following cultures, men
and women really do speak
different languages (at least some of the
time).

Chukchi
Chukchi is an endangered language spoken
by 5,000 people in East Siberia.  Traditionally,
the Chukchi herd reindeer and hunt for seals
and whales.
The Chukchi language is made up of two
gender-based dialects, one for men and one
for women. The differences between the two
dialects are mostly phonetic. For example,
women typically substitute the ts sound
for ch and r. So “ramkichhin,” which means
“people,” is pronounced as written by men
and as “tsamkitstsin” by women.
At the same time, the differences aren’t quite
as simple as just swapping one consonant for
another, which is why scholars refer to
Chukchi as having two separate, but still
mutually intelligible, gender dialects [PDF].

Garifuna

The Garifuna people currently live in Central

America, but they originally come from the
Caribbean islands of St. Vincent and
Dominica.
Long before Europeans “discovered” those
islands, they had already been the scene of
brutal conquest. The people who originally
made their homes there were Arawakan and
spoke an Arawakan language. But groups of
Carib warriors conquered them, killed most of
the men, and took the women as wives.
The women spoke Arawak to their children,
but their fathers taught the boys their Carib
language once they were old enough to help
work.
Over time, two separate sets of vocabulary
evolved: a women’s vocabulary made up of
mainly Arawakan words; and a men’s
vocabulary, which used Carib loanwords for
the same concepts.

Ngatikese Pidgin

Half a world away, a similar story of conquest

underlies the birth of the “men’s language” of
Ngatikese Pidgin.
In 1837, a British ship called the Lambton
landed on the Micronesian island of Ngatik.
The crew was led by the aptly named Captain
Charles “Bloody” Hart. As soon as the ship
touched land, he ordered his crew to kill all
the men on the island. His motivation?
Tortoiseshell, and revenge for a previous
attack on his vessel.
With the men gone, Captain Hart named a
tattooed Irishman-gone-native called Paddy
Gorman “chief” of the island and sailed away.
 But many of his crew stayed behind to make
wives of the remaining women.
Women and children continued to speak
Ponapan, the original language of the island.
But amongst the men, a pidgin language
called Ngatikese Pidgin or Ngatikese Creole
developed. The language was passed on
from father to son. Today, around 700
islanders still speak it, usually during manly
pursuits like fishing and building boats.

Yanyuwa

Yanyuwa is a critically endangered indigenous

language spoken on a small island off the
coast of Australia. It has separate dialects for
men and women.
For example, here’s how the sentence “The
little boy went down to the river and saw his
brother” would sound if a man was saying it
(courtesy of Wikipedia):

nya-buyi nya-ardu kiwa-wingka waykaliya

wulangindu kanyilu-kala nyikunya-baba.
And here’s how it would sound if a woman
was talking:

buyi ardu ka–wingka waykaliya wulangindu

kila–kala nyiku-baba.
Quite a difference, isn’t there?

Nüshu
The Nüshu script is an ancient Chinese script.
During the Qing Dynasty (and possibly
earlier), generations of women in Jiangyong
County, Hunan Province, passed along
“secret” messages to each other in Nushu.
For the most part, these women didn’t have
the opportunity to go to school and couldn’t
read standard Chinese.
But for centuries, they taught the script, which
contained more than 1,000 characters, to
each other.  Women used it to share secrets,
thoughts, and feelings in books, poems,
songs, and embroidery meant for female
family members or for their best friends. They
often took their favorite writings to the grave,
literally.
The writings in Nüshu that did survive provide
a rare glimpse into the way women learned to
cope with a restrictive, male-dominated
culture.
Anthropology research fellow Fei-wen Liu of
Academia Sinica in Taiwan explained to
Ozy.com:
“The core of Nüshu are feelings of misery and
bitter experiences . . .Nüshu was about
sisterhood,” and they called themselves
“sworn sisters,” using Nüshu as “a way to
bind them together.”
The next time you have trouble
communicating with someone of the opposite
gender, remember: at least you’re speaking
the same language!
Most of these languages are obscure, but
there are differences in how each gender
speaks and communicates in well-known
languages, as well. For example, in
Japanese, men are expected to speak one
way, and women are expected to speak
another.
If you’re trying to communicate with a foreign
audience, gender differences in language are
one of many obstacles that our team of
experienced, professional translators can help
you navigate.
To learn more about our translation services,
contact us today!