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Women speak with certain word differences when compared with men and I want to
verify if this term is used to describe them. Thank you.
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-03-18T15:57:51.237
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2017-07-07T00:48:38.793
2017-07-06T19:05:54.847
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question
terminology gender feminine-speech
Does the term 女性語 identify words only used by women?
It seems to be 女言葉{おんなことば}. e.g. さようなら is used by both men and women, but
ごめんあそばせ is not used by men usually.
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-03-18T22:21:44.763
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answer
ウィキペディア has an article called 女性語（じょせいご） in
[Japanese](https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%A5%B3%E6%80%A7%E8%AA%9E). Quoting
the first sentence and providing a translation:

> 女性語（じょせいご）とは、女性特有の言い回しや言葉。対になるものは男性語。
>
> 'jyoseigo' are those expression or word that are marked by feminine use. The
> opposite term is 'danseigo'.

The article also links to [this article in
English](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_differences_in_spoken_Japanese)
on Wikipedia, which mentions 女言葉 as another term. But that seems to be unused
in the article in Japanese.

> [...] In Japanese, speech patterns associated with women are referred to as
> _onna kotoba_ (女言葉?, "women's words") or _joseigo_ (女性語?, "women's
> language").

Both terms `女性語` and `女言葉` are easily found in online dictionaries. However, I
can't seem to find either one in the physical Japanese dictionaries that I
have.
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-03-20T17:45:27.620
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answer
Historically, there is also the term [女房言葉 ( _nyōbō kotoba_
)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ny%C5%8Db%C5%8D_kotoba). Note that this term
is not used to refer to the modern phenomenon of female-specific speech
patterns.
CC BY-SA 3.0
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answer