ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with gender-sensitive language use in selected Ethiopian languages of Cushitic, Omotic, and Semitic stalk. It focuses on expressions that relate to a set of themes comprising empathy, valor, denigration, blessing, and endearment. The language communities have social organizations which are patriarchal, patrilineal, and patrilocal where power resides in the hands of males who own property, produce supplies, and control the management and use. Females have the domestic roles of nursing babies and catering to the family. The language use reflects this broad division of labor between the sexes, in that, males’ speech excludes terms associated with females’ roles, and females exclude those of males’ roles. Females’ expressions of empathy reflect motherly compassion towards others, which is atypical of males’ speech, where expressions of valor would be infelicitous for females. Such dichotomy in the use of terms also reflects the child-raising practice of the communities in question where a male child raised by only a mother becomes subject to denigrating remarks of inadequacy and, likewise, a girl raised by a woman is subject to negative remarks of being or becoming domineering and tomboyish, which is considered unwomanly, and, thus, leading to a situation where both the effeminate man and the tomboyish lady remain unwed - a threat to the continuity of family as an institution.
