By Kamesh Shekar
Language is the medium through which the human beings tend to share their point of view with other human beings. The history and representation within the language are, therefore the history and representation of fellow human beings. The history of language depicts a very male-centric story, starting from early migration of Celts to Scandinavian invasions to French conquest of England.?Clearly, the facts tend to prove that standardization of language English within the paradigm of science; poetry and etc tend to ignore the work done by women or their valuable contribution towards the language.
As the English language adopted many familiar words from other languages like Spanish, German and French, learning other languages other than the mother tongue was difficult for women since their access was restricted. Further, the Spanish language was considered to be the language of men which gave them an upper hand in the language development process.
The history
With the emergence of various schools, thoughts, ideologies and branches, the language English evolved from old-school English to modern English that made a significant difference within the etymology of the language. Within the old school, English nouns were differentiated according to the gender which excluded the consideration of sex, numbers, and moods as a factor. As there was a limitation on the understanding of the human being during the period of the late 1500s that gender is socially constructed made them consider gender as a differentiating factor than sex. This brings us to the emergences of the terms (nouns) masculine (male) and feminine (female) in the late 1500s. This has an association with the structure of gender socialization. As we follow the etymology of the terms like stone and moon, a stone was considered to be masculine as it was hard and strong, while moon to be feminine as it was considered to be slender and pretty.
Within the old school English, most of the nouns like wifemann (?Women? in modern English) were considered to be masculine as the suffix was ‘man‘. This is an accurate description of the heights of male dominance within the standardization of language. Further, feminine terms like wife, girl, and daughter were considered to be neuter than feminine which disqualifies the importance of femininity within the language by considering it to be a common noun. ?In other words, the masculine pronoun is the representative of either female or male reference. So it seems like a linguistic edition of the social inequality?. The gradual changes within the understanding of the gender and socialisation overthrew grammatical gender with the emergences of new gender inequality in the name of modern English which pegged social stigmas with the nouns which totally changed the usage of the certain terms within language English.
The contribution of women
Significant contribution within the paradigm of the English language came from the strings of poets who wrote magnificent poems starting from Geoffrey Chaucer, Coverdale, Shakespeare, Milton, John Keats etc who are mostly male. ?Although the total number of women exceeds 50 percent, the proportion of ?he and she? existing in literature is 4:1?. Further, women were restricted from studying language more than spoken which made it difficult for them to excel within the language sector. Further, ?Women are in a double bind: if they talk the way they are supposed to, that is, like “ladies,” they are not taken seriously; if they talk more assertively, that is, like men, they are not accepted either?.
Within Britain, legislative and judicial power was?vested in the hands of men who were the ruler (king), George VI and all the members of parliament was also men. Thus, men were occupying everything which made first-person English as well as third-person English to be male-centric.? This turned into standard codification of English language. ?The major change that has occurred since that time, due in large part to the political activism of the Women?s Movement, is that women have achieved the legal right to be treated as the equals of men (both the Equal Pay Act and the Sex Discrimination Act came into effect in Britain in 1975). This has led to changes both in the workplace and in the home ? changes in practice and also changes in attitudes?.
Women and men tend to operate always in condition of inequality where female tend to be subordinate one, further it is been noticed that many grammarian and academicians tend to live in the bubble of academics which ignored the comments given by the lay man which makes their work prejudiced. Thus, scholarly comments on the gender a difference within the paradigm of language English is considered to be contradicting over period of time as they reflect the ideas of time.? These contradictions together can be assumed by one rule called Andocentric rule, ?Men will be seen to behave linguistically in a way that ?ts the writer?s view of what is desirable or admirable; women on the other hand will be blamed for any linguistic state or development which is regarded by the writer as negative or reprehensible? (Coates, 2013).
Vocabulary
As the time was moving towards the competitive paradigm, the language English went through a process of standardisation. Once a language gets into standard format there tends to be a process of codification of the rules which involves both grammar and dictionary.? Further, in eighteenth century, England saw an increase in production of dictionaries and grammar to reduce the language into set of codified rules which legislates the correctness of it. However, this shows that vocabulary exerts control over the language within the linguistics which was ideally controlled by men. As the controlling power was vested within the hands of men, they exerted control on formation of rules and also considered the contribution of women toward the language to be ephemeral, where on other side the men?s contribution to the language was appreciated as creativity.
?Johnson?s Dictionary is well known for its individualistic and biased de?nitions (Patron is de?ned as ?Commonly a wretch who supports with insolence, and is paid with ?attery?). Johnson stigmatises the words ?irtation and frightful as female cant? (Coates, 2013). Further looking through the etymology of the term ?Stud? and ?Slut? tend to make the same demeaning synonyms, while the former is used for men it is considered to be heroic whereas latter is used for women who is literally considered to be a whore. Thus, this is a vicious trap that the language as got into, where the men exerted cancerous effect over the vocabulary in sense over language itself which made men way of thing to be norm and women to be deviant one. The depth of issue conditioned to manufacture a myth that men tend have more capacity in creating words than women, through experiment conducted by Jastrow, where the task of creating variety of words was given to students and men were able to make more variety of words than women, which shows inequality in education and lack of resources irrespective of gender.
Derivation
Within English lexical, derivation of the words and terms tend to give women a back seat by deriving the words from the male centric words. Historically, the nouns such actor, prince, poet which are considered to describe men were kept common for both men and women as there were less contribution by women within language derivation and also there very less women who were ambassadors and poets in those days. With the emergences deficit approach, the women were trying to be like men within linguistics by adding affix ?ess to the terms which previously use to describe men like actress, ambassadress etc. Further over a period of time, social constructionism over threw idea by starting that ?in English lexicon, one of the most obvious evidences of the sexism is the affixes which lead to a view of women as a derivation from a male term. The feminine one is always derivative of the masculine one by adding a feminine suffix such as -ess and ?ette. Actor, for instance, with the meaning of a person who plays the part of a character in a movie or play , when attached to a feminine suffix ?ess, becomes actress with the meaning of ? woman with profession similar to those of actor? (Sheldon, 1989)
Comparing etymology of the similar sounding words with feminine suffix of ?ess , the term governor and governess tend to hold an distinct meaning pertaining to the social context. The term governor tend to hold a meaning of men who is powerful and a ruler, whereas the same term to hold a distinct meaning with feminine suffix (governess) as, women who are engaged in teaching children. Thus, feminine suffix gives a lower social order to women compared to high social order which men tend to paradise.
Conclusion
Major contribution of sexism within the language is socialisation of the stigmas which are inevitably present within the society. Starting from the childhood the patriarchy is sown within us through the process of learning English which is discriminative towards women is every form. Thus, this makes a major difference within social cognition with which we think and process our day to day life. ?For example, some children?s books may suggest children that science is the field created for male. They educate male to be manly, decisive, and brave while girls are required to be polite, conservation, obedient, and gentle. Teachers, as well as parents, who are also important agents of socialization, tend to regard boys as more creative than girls, thereby creating much personality and behavioural patterns?.
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