Over time, two separate sets of vocabulary evolved: a women’s vocabulary made up of mainly Arawakan words and a men’s vocabulary, which used Carib loanwords for the same concepts. The women spoke Arawak to their children, but their fathers taught the boys their Carib language once they were old enough to help work. But groups of Carib warriors conquered them, killed most of the men, and took the women as wives. The people who originally made their homes there were Arawakan and spoke an Arawakan language. Long before Europeans “discovered” those islands, they had already been the scene of brutal conquest. The Garifuna people currently live in Central America, but they originally come from the Caribbean islands of St. For example, women typically substitute the ts sound for ch and r. So “ramkichhin,” which means “people,” is pronounced as written by men and as “tsamkitstsin” by women.Īt the same time, the differences aren’t quite as simple as just swapping one consonant for another, which is why scholars refer to Chukchi as having two separate, but still mutually intelligible, gender dialects. The differences between the two dialects are mostly phonetic. The Chukchi language is made up of two gender-based dialects, one for men and one for women. Traditionally, the Chukchi herd reindeer and hunt for seals and whales. ChukchiĬhukchi is an endangered language spoken by 5,000 people in East Siberia. well, in English, anyway! In some parts of the world, the words people use can vary dramatically based on nothing more than gender.įor example, in the following cultures, men and women really do speak different languages (at least some of the time). How many times have you heard someone say “men and women don’t speak the same language?” But that’s not true.
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