<div style="text-align: center; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">=========================================================================<br>L O W L A N D S - L  -  08 February 2008 - Volume 04<br style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">
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=========================================================================<br></div><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">From: </span><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="HcCDpe"><span class="EP8xU" style="color: rgb(121, 6, 25);">Sandy Fleming</span> <span class="lDACoc"><<a href="mailto:sandy@scotstext.org">sandy@scotstext.org</a>></span></span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Subject: </span><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="HcCDpe">LL-L "Sociolinguistics" 2008.02.08 (03) [E]<br><br></span><div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="Ih2E3d">
> From: Marsha Wilson <<a href="mailto:marshatrue@mtangel.net">marshatrue@mtangel.net</a>><br>> Subject: LL-L "Resources" 2008.02.08 (01) [E]<br>><br></div><div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="Ih2E3d">
> My 72-year-old husband uses an inhaled elongated "oh" when expressing<br>> something like astonishment.  It sounds rather like a gasp.  He is<br>> from Wyoming/Montana but worked for some time in Finland.  He has no<br>
> idea when/where he started doing this.  I, too, find it weird,<br>> annoying, and in public, embarrassing, as it seems a purely feminine<br>> habit and an overly exaggerated response.  Why I think that it is<br>
> feminine was lost to me, but perhaps you've explained it for me - a<br>> inborn "race memory."<br><br></div><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">I do this in Scots a lot, somewhat less in English. It definitely seems</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">a feminine thing to me, which I picked up from my mother and her sisters</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">and friends.</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">The fact that I learned it from women wouldn't stop me from using it,</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">though!</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><font style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" color="#888888"><br>Sandy Fleming<br><a href="http://scotstext.org/" target="_blank">http://scotstext.org/</a><br>
<br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">----------</span><br></font><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">From: </span><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="HcCDpe"><span class="EP8xU" style="color: rgb(121, 6, 25);">Sandy Fleming</span> <span class="lDACoc"><<a href="mailto:sandy@scotstext.org">sandy@scotstext.org</a>></span></span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
Subject: </span><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="HcCDpe">LL-L "Sociolinguistics" 2008.02.07 (06) [E]<br><br></span><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">> From: R. F. Hahn <</span><a style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" href="mailto:sassisch@yahoo.com">sassisch@yahoo.com</a><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">></span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">> Subject: Sociolinguistics</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">></span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">> There are or at least used to be extremes, such as societies</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">> (especially in Oceania), in which men and women speak different</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">> languages among themselves and have a lingua franca between them. What</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">> this means in most cases is that boys start being raised with the</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">> neutral language but having rudimentary exposure to women's language</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">> before they move into the men's huts and acquire the men's language.</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Something similar happens in Irish Sign Language due to there being two</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Dublin schools for the Deaf, St Joseph's for boys and St Mary's for</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">girls. It's been noted by researchers that although the two sign</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">languages used by the schools can seem mutually unintelligible (though</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">this is never such a problem in sign languages as in spoken languages),</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">in adult life the women tend to adopt the men's language for the sake of</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">communication.</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">In British Sign Language (and I guess most other sign languages) gender</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">differences aren't particularly marked, although I've noticed one or two</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">things. For example many women seem to have a tendency to keep the</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">fingers together when signing number signs, possibly to avoid looking</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">like they're making a rude gesture when signing the number "2". Male</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">signers never seem to bother with this at all.</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">It also seems to me that in BSL women will adopt a wider range of</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">classifiers, using their hands to sign such things as facial expressions</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">and emotions, whereas men tend to leave that sort of thing to the</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">imagination or just let their faces show the emotion.</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">On the other hand it seems to me that in both Scots and BSL (I'm not</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">really familiar with living, spoken English), women tend to be more</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">conservative about language use while men are more likely to mix in</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">words from other dialects or indulge in word play. When I was a boy, for</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">example, the men and boys in our village had a habit of spoonerising in</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Scots, while women didn't seem to consider this to be "talking sense".</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Likewise, men using BSL tend to do things like saying "good morning" for</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">"good evening" and vice versa, fingerspell backwards and suchlike, while</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">the women mostly seem to ignore such behaviour.</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><font style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" color="#888888"><br>
Sandy Fleming<br><a href="http://scotstext.org/" target="_blank">http://scotstext.org/</a></font><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="HcCDpe"><br>
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</span>
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">From: </span><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="HcCDpe"><span class="EP8xU" style="color: rgb(204, 0, 96);">Howard Scott</span> <span class="lDACoc"><<a href="mailto:listes@alterego.montreal.qc.ca">listes@alterego.montreal.qc.ca</a>></span><span class="lDACoc"></span></span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">

Subject: </span><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="HcCDpe">LL-L "Sociolinguistics" 2008.02.07 (06) [E]<br><br></span><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">>From: Jacqueline Bungenberg de Jong</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">><<mailto:</span><a style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" href="mailto:Dutchmatters@comcast.net">Dutchmatters@comcast.net</a><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">></span><a style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" href="mailto:Dutchmatters@comcast.net">Dutchmatters@comcast.net</a><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">></span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">>Subject: LL-L "History" 2008.02.07 (01) [E]</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">></span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">>It seemed to me that that would have been more</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">>prevalent when the tasks of men and women in</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">>their society were far more different than they</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">>are today. It could also be a subject for a Science Fiction novel.</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">"Native Tongue is the first novel in</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><</span><a style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suzette_Haden_Elgin" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suzette_Haden_Elgin</a><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">>Suzette</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Haden Elgin's</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><</span><a style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminist_science_fiction" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminist_science_fiction</a><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">>feminist</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">science fiction series of the same name. The</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">trilogy is centered in a future</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><</span><a style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dystopian" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dystopian</a><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">>dystopian</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><</span><a style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States</a><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">>American</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">society where the</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><</span><a style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution</a><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">>19th</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Amendment has been repealed and</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><</span><a style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women</a><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">>women have</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">been stripped of</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><</span><a style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_rights" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_rights</a><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">>civil</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">rights. A group of women, part of a world-wide</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">group of</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><</span><a style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistics" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistics</a><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">>linguists</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">who facilitate human communication with alien</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">races, create a new language for women as an act</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">of resistance. The language,</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><</span><a style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laadan" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laadan</a><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">>Làadan, was</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">actually created by Elgin and instructional materials are available."</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><a style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_Tongue_%28novel%29" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_Tongue_%28novel%29</a><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">parts available in Google Books:</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><a style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" href="http://books.google.ca/books?id=T3XOjNnLBEsC&pg=PP1&dq=Native+Tongue&ei=YLmsR_nxKIyyiQHU98WnBg&sig=5N_ZMdBRoSeD2a8abXNsemJrkHI" target="_blank">http://books.google.ca/books?id=T3XOjNnLBEsC&pg=PP1&dq=Native+Tongue&ei=YLmsR_nxKIyyiQHU98WnBg&sig=5N_ZMdBRoSeD2a8abXNsemJrkHI</a><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">In the real world, there is supposed to be a</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">secret women's language in a region of Chinese</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">called Nushu. (Plenty of hits on the Web if you search for "nushu.")</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">More on topic, in situations of diglossia, one</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">language can "belong" more to one sex than the</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">other. Yiddish is, in fact, called the "mama</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">loshen" since it is seen as belonging more to the</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">women's sphere of the home, whereas as in</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">conservative Jewish communities, Hebrew is</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">definitely much more the province of the men. I'm</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">sure there are similar divisions of linguistic</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">labour for many of the other languages discussed on this list.</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><font style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" color="#888888"><br>
Howard</font><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">