Guardians of languages

What if we invented a language that only women speak?

A system of signs to transmit what we are silent about, to give sound to so many shared silences?

Although it may not seem credible, we would not be being original at all.

Centuries ago, women from Hunan, a province in southern China, established a writing system used exclusively by women in this region.

The “writing of men”,

nan shu,

was forbidden to them, so they created

nü shu or nüshu

, which means “writing of women”, and which was transmitted secretly for generations.

Through this system, advice, feelings, and concerns circulated among them.

They used characters taken from Chinese and included others of their own creation.

It was taught from mothers to daughters and was later practiced among friends, sisters, family members.

It was a code through which to fraternize, create bonds and survive in a world where they could not express themselves.

When the young women got married, the women close to the bride gave her what is known as

Letters of the Third Day,

which were nothing more than prayers, consolations, and advice, written in

Nüshu

.

In addition, they created songs that are still preserved and wrote her autobiographies, which were burned when the author's death took place.

The secret was so well protected that it was not until the 1980s that it was discovered, and currently a rescue effort is being carried out, since it is not just a writing system, but an entire cultural world that was woven around it.

Nüshu is a unique case

,

so far it is the only writing in the world reserved exclusively for women, but there is a lot to talk about when it comes to women and languages: women creators of languages, women guardians, women innovators of linguistic uses.

Due to the traditional division of labor, women have historically been in charge of raising children and, therefore, preserving languages ​​and cultures.

In the maintenance of indigenous American languages, the female gender has had a transcendental role, not only as transmitters, but as activists in the fight to preserve the legacy of their culture.

A curious case is that of the Chaná language, belonging to the town of the same name, originally from Entre Ríos, a region between Uruguay and Argentina.

This group inhabited the area for more than 2,000 years and it is said that the colonizers cut off the tip of the children's tongues if they discovered them speaking their native language.

To protect themselves, the Chaná people made a pact of silence: their language and worldview would be transmitted only among women.

The daughter who showed the most interest became

adá oyendén,

“keeper of memory.”

This culture was so invisible that it was thought that the language had been lost, but at the beginning of the 21st century, Blas Omar Jaime was recognized as the last living speaker of Chaná.

Even though the language had remained only among women, as a result of the death of his two sisters, her mother decided to teach her 14-year-old son the language and culture of her town.

Thanks to this mother's vision, she was able to create dictionaries and other types of materials, including films about the Chaná language and people.

In addition to its role in the preservation of languages, much has been studied about how women's speech is characterized.

If differences are going to be established in the mode of expression used by men and women, it must be taken into consideration that these are gradual differences; generally in languages ​​there are no exclusive uses for one gender or another.

Gender studies start from ideologies that define which forms of language are “feminine” and, therefore, appropriate for women and which are not.

The reality is more complex, since people do not always fit these patterns.

Through language, what is manifested are traits of group identity, conditioned by circumstances beyond the language.

These traits lead to the construction of stereotypes.

Women are conceived as very talkative, who distort and lie, and that they should prefer to remain silent.

There are many proverbs that recreate these clichés: “Woman's words are not to be believed”;

“the good ones are silent;

and the bad ones, they talk”;

“shut up, you look prettier”;

“quiet woman, rare bird.”

Stereotypes aside, studies have determined that certain traits appear more frequently in women's speech than in men, especially in contexts of communicative interaction, which is where a series of resources closely related to gender roles are activated. .

Firstly, it has been stated that women are more cooperative in communication, they show themselves as attentive listeners, that is, they listen and encourage the person who speaks through discourse markers, short questions, nod, use exclamations that show surprise or interest (

mmm, anjá, yes, right, you know?)

.

At the same time, she tends to resort more to polite strategies.

Courtesy in language matters is understood as a set of resources that are used to avoid conflicts with the interlocutor and adjust to the norms established in each society.

Women usually use more indirect forms, diminutives, attenuators, which are nothing more than mechanisms to attenuate what is said, to reduce its seriousness and give it greater vagueness.

They can be pauses, silences, laughter, vowel lengthenings, words or phrases.

However, recent studies have shown how, although there are some differences between the mitigation strategies used by men and women, hardly any quantitative differences are found.

This has led to talk of a feminization of language.

The conception of new masculinities has caused more and more forms that were considered “feminine” to also be used by men.

Women are conceived as those who have the greatest “fineness” in speech, they are the “geishas of language,” says Pilar García Mouton.

She has been taught not to say obscenities, to remain silent on certain topics, to use euphemisms when it comes to taboo topics such as body parts, biological processes (menstruation, childbirth, menopause).

While in men there is what is known as covert prestige, that is, they can use ways considered vulgar or obscene as a mark of masculinity and this grants them prestige in certain groups.

Related to this is the idea of ​​women as conservative and archaizing in matters of language.

However, it has been demonstrated that she is the one who is, by far, leading the linguistic changes.

In reality, women are more innovative and tend to adjust their usage to what is most prestigious in their speech community, which may or may not coincide with what is the norm.

When it does not coincide, they tend to cause linguistic changes, as has happened, for example, with the phenomenon known as secularism, already used also by men, although it was women who spread and promoted it.

I like to think that, in one way or another, from the shadows, between games of silences, pauses and assents, the woman imposes what ends up being perpetuated and marks the future of languages ​​with acute subtlety.

In a way, she reassures us that, despite so much discrimination, we have the power to perpetuate, protect, change and create languages.

And again: what if we invented a language that only women speak?

Roxana Sobrino Triana

is a doctor in Linguistics and professor at the University of Bergen (Norway).

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