Excerpt from Babel by Gaston Dorren, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Some assorted items of more straightforward vocabulary are strongly associated with women (iyān meaning 'no') or with men (meshi for 'meal', dekai for 'big'). Synonyms for these words (iya, gohan and ōkii for 'no', 'meal' and 'big') can be used by either gender. Finally, pronunciation too may occasionally differ: men may reduce the vowel sequence /ai/ (which rhymes more or less with English lie) to /ē/ (rhyming with lay), whereas it would be unladylike for a woman to do so.

Speakers do not exactly break a hard-and-fast grammar rule when using elements normally used by the opposite gender, but they certainly break a social convention: they bend both a rule and their gender. Imagine if a female school principal insisted on being referred to as 'headmaster': she'd raise eyebrows, even though the difference is arguably insignificant – headmistress and headmaster both mean 'person with the greatest responsibility for the management of a school'. Or more remarkable still: imagine a male principal insisting on being called 'headmistress' – the tabloids would have a field day. But perhaps this is not the best comparison, because at its heart the difference between women's and men's Japanese is about refinement, about coming across as either polished and graceful or a devil-may-care force to be reckoned with.

Over twenty years ago, my English teacher told me that I'd better not emulate her habit of saying 'Oh my gosh', as it somewhat undermined my gender credibility. While that seems to have changed now, it's still the case that 'foul' language is something that men get away with more easily than women – it's hard to envisage a woman winning a presidential election after saying 'grab 'em by the dick'. In other words, English too has certain variations depending on gender. But in Japanese, these differences are rather more marked: they comprise more aspects of speech and are more strictly codified.

Excerpted from Babel by Gaston Dorren. Copyright © 2018 by Gaston Dorren. Excerpted by permission of Atlantic Monthly Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.