Kiki’s Delivery Service and women’s language 女言葉

I watched Kiki’s Delivery Service on Saturday night. I have watched it once before, in Japan 15 years ago. As a tale of travel and adventure I enjoyed it both then and now.

Kiki’s journey to a strange new town reminded me of my own move to Japan in 2002. Kiki arrives in her new town as a trainee witch on a broom. I arrived in Nagoya as a trainee English teacher without even a dictionary. Kiki’s special skill is flying. Mine is a Devon accent.

The main reason I like it though is it is in Japanese (and on Netflix). The language choices of the characters gave me something to think about,

Flying towards the town for the first time on her broom, Kiki’s cat companion, Jiji says to her 他の魔女がいるかもしれないよ。HOKA NO MAJO GA IRU KAMO SHIRENAI YO. (There might be other witches there). The sentence ending particle よ YO shows that Jiji is sure.

The teenage Kiki responds with いないかもしれないわ (INAI KAMO SHIRENAI WA) (There might not be). In contrast to Jiji, Kiki uses わ WA to express her confidence.

This sentence-ending particle わ　WA is really interesting. I learnt early on in my Japanese study that it was only used by women. But the first time I clearly heard わ in Japan though was by a young man, a fellow cyclist on a trip across. He was from Kansai region where there are significant differences to standard Japanese.

One other well-known sentence ending particle in what’s called ‘women’s language’ is かしら KASHIRA. The posh fashion designer who gives Kiki her first delivery job uses かしら KASHIRA a few times such as これでどうかしら KORE DE DOU KASHIRA (How about this?).

According to Momoko Nakamura in the Asahi newspaper, ‘women’s language’ is a relatively recent phenomenon, emerging in the Meiji-period (late 19th century) amongst school girls. It was promoted nationally in early 20th century and after the war as a distinct feature of the Japanese language.

The belief that 女ならば女言葉を使うはずだ ONNA NARABA ONNA KOTOBA O TSUKAU HAZU DA (Women should use women’s language) became established.　

But now, as I understand it, ‘women’s language’ is more a marker of class or aspiration than gender. The hardworking baker’s wife uses neither わ WA or かしら KASHIRA

One other point is that the posh fashion designer in the film is clearly a westerner. Her use of ‘women’s language’ in the Japanese version might make sense for the Japanese audience, but I wonder if it also gives the erroneous impression that in western countries language is also separated by gender as well.