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Nyōbō kotoba
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Nyōbō kotoba (Japanese: 女房言葉 or 女房詞; lit. 'woman's words') was a cant that was originally used by Japanese court ladies during the Muromachi period, and subsequently spread and came to be thought of as a women's language. It consisted primarily of a special vocabulary of words for food, clothing, and other household items.[1] Many of the created words were descriptions of the thing they were naming, whether that was a description of a characteristic, shape, color, or usage.
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Many nyōbō kotoba words were formed by adding the prefix o- (御), which indicates politeness,[2] or by dropping part of a word and adding -moji (文字; lit. 'character, letter').
Some nyōbō kotoba passed into general usage and are today part of the standard Japanese language.
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Examples
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See also
- Gender differences in spoken Japanese
- Japanese honorifics
- Begamati language - a sociolect of Urdu spoken by court ladies in purdah in Delhi
References
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