Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 73, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 March 1911 — Language for Each Sex. [ARTICLE]

Language for Each Sex.

If one of the difficulties of learning Samoan is that each noble has a private dialect of his own, the difficulty Is matched by a linguistic complication in certain other parts of Polynesia. In the Gilbert islands the men and the women speak literally a different language. The difficulty of mutual intercourse is overcome by making the women use the masculine tongue when talking to the men. Among themselves it is “tabu.” And the men do not trouble their heads about the other. With some trouble you may find the difference between the men’s and the women’s language in this civilized country. There are words that are understood and used by every woman, and not quite comprehended by a man when he hears them accidentally. For example, “shopping” is a woman’s word. And another —which is not used by men—is “nice.” A man may be clever and rich and handsome, but — not “nice." You have heard the whisper of the epithet in the feminine language. But the word is never used in that sense (which you know) by a man.