Womansword – What Japanese Words Say About Women pdf

Womansword – What Japanese Words Say About Women

WOMANSWORD – WHAT JAPANESE WORDS SAY ABOUT WOMEN

Like many Japanese terms explained in Womansword, the title of this book has a double meaning. It can be pronounced “‘woman’s word” to mean a woman’s way of looking at words.

Words are often used with the same nuances by and about both genders, but Womansword focuses on those that are not. This type of analysis can cut incisively to the heart of cultural assumptions, hence the alternate pronunciation, “woman sword.”

 Its application to Japanese language is particularly appropriate, since women there have been parrying and slashing with actual swords since the seventeenth century.

The daughters of samurai warriors were expected to master the use of a Halberd called a naginata by age eighteen, both for exercise and so they could defend their home and their honor, fighting to the death Wf necessary.

 Today naginata swordplay continues to be the only martial art in Japan where women predominate.

All of this I wanted to convey in the title, but no existing English word would do it. As 1 worked on the book, struggling to make one language explain another, | came to feel I deserved to create a word of my own. 

My efforts to make sense of the contrast between Japanese and Piylish words began shortly after I stepped off the plane at Narita “Airport in 1982, a young American woman eager to conquer the panese language and Japanese sexism, not necessarily in that order.

 yemember finding a word in my bilingual dictionary that I thought would be a good way to introduce myself: “‘a spirited woman.” But