Some questions to get ideas

[Qwynegold]

AFAICT, the Japanese masculine and feminine first person pronouns do not exist for disambiguation purposes, but for "enforcing" the difference between men and women. It's common in different languages for men and women to speak slightly differently, but in Japanese the difference is so huge that even the lexicon is affected by it.

(I hope you can understand what I'm saying. It's late and I'm tired...)

[finlay]

As far as Japanese goes, there are two informal, male first person pronouns that are very commonly used among speakers of all ages (informally or in a position of clear superiority only). Women very often use the most basic first person pronoun, which is completely gender-neutral and neither highly formal nor particularly informal. There is a female-only version that is an abbreviation of the regular one, but it is somewhat young-sounding and becomes progressively less common as the speaker's age increases.

and yet i've heard 90 year olds saying it.

[Ser]

AFAICT, the Japanese masculine and feminine first person pronouns do not exist for disambiguation purposes, but for "enforcing" the difference between men and women. It's common in different languages for men and women to speak slightly differently, but in Japanese the difference is so huge that even the lexicon is affected by it.

(I hope you can understand what I'm saying. It's late and I'm tired...)

What are other words where the male-female thing shows up? I haven't studied Japanese but so far I've only seen people mentioning the thing about boku.

[Lyra]

Thai has gender distinction in the first person.
(excuse the horrible transcribing)
phǒm pai supə̂ə
I (male) am going to the supermarket.
chan hǐw maak
I (female) am very hungry.

~Lyra

[Ser]

Yeah, I also misread it. Strange though to have two possibilities on that table related to gender pronouns, but it's not the case.

How else would you indicate two interchangable forms?

Putting them vertically. Here, I've fixed it for all of you:



Nobody shall ever have their brain add a dividing line for gender in the first person pronouns again.

[Drydic]

*eyebangrolls*

[Qwynegold]

AFAICT, the Japanese masculine and feminine first person pronouns do not exist for disambiguation purposes, but for "enforcing" the difference between men and women. It's common in different languages for men and women to speak slightly differently, but in Japanese the difference is so huge that even the lexicon is affected by it.

(I hope you can understand what I'm saying. It's late and I'm tired...)

What are other words where the male-female thing shows up? I haven't studied Japanese but so far I've only seen people mentioning the thing about boku.

Well, besides what Clawgrip already said (watashi I-neutral, boku I-male, atashi I-female, ore I-boastful-(male)), there is:

-san neutral name suffix
-kun name suffix often used about guys
-chan cute name suffix, often used about girls and babies, but can also be used about your boyfriend I think

yo sentence final authorative particle that can be used by anyone
ze, zo sentence final particles used by guys. I don't know what the difference between these two are. They are supposed to be threatful and can challenge people into a fight.
wa sentence final particle that makes utterances more feminine. I've also heard that some women replace yo with this, because it's not feminine to sound authorative.

chō- intensifying prefix. Can only be used by girls.

Then there's a pronoun kimi, but I don't remember its use so someone else will have to explain.

And then yakuza may pronunce /ɺ/ as [r]. Other guys may emulate this to sound tough.

And girls(?) may pronunce the polite copula desu as [desu] rather than [desu̥] or [desː], which sounds refined, or like an annoying person trying to sound refined.

[finlay]

i thought cho can be used by anyone...

chan isn't so clear cut only-for-girls as you make out, either.

kun definitely implies some sort of hierarchy – you could never use it for someone "above" you, although you can use it for people on the "same level".

haven't heard wa like that.

[Qwynegold]

i thought cho can be used by anyone...

Haha! I read about some Swede (who was a guy) who liked using chō- because it corresponds so well which Swedish jätte- which we use all the time. And he did this even though he knew that it's for girls, so the Japanese would think he was weird.

haven't heard wa like that.

What have you heard?