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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. 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.

Many nyōbō kotoba words were formed by adding the prefix o- (御), which indicates politeness, 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.

Examples

See also

• Gender differences in spoken Japanese
• Japanese honorifics

References

1. Nicolae, Raluca (2014). "An Historical Perspective on Women's Speech in Japanese". Journal of Research in Gender Studies. 4 (2): 236–250.
2. Ide, Sachiko (1982). "Japanese sociolinguistics politeness and women's language". Lingua. 57: 357–385. doi:10.1016/0024-3841(82)90009-2.

• 日本語解釈活用事典, ぎょうせい, 1993, ISBN 978-4324037072
• 古典文学レトリック事典. 学燈社. 1993. ISBN 978-4312100382.

• Japanese vocabulary
• Cant languages
• Muromachi period
• Gender in language
• Women in Japan