feminish

This is an excerpt from Anne C. Klein Meeting the Great Bliss Queen: Buddhists, Feminists and the Art of Self (1995), p.51

Tibetan language itself is hierarchical, particularly as spoken in centres of power like Lhasa. Most nouns and verbs have honorific forms, usually entirely different in sound and spelling from the non-honorific forms, and these must be used whenever one addresses someone socially, economically or spiritually superior to oneself.

The most widely used word for woman (skyes dman) literally means “low born” and is also the non-honorific word for “wife”. A man might use this term to refer to his own wife, or he might call her chung ma, literally, “little woman”. But he would always use an honorific for the wife of someone of rank greater than his. Other terms are less explicitly offensive. Women are known as those not to be put out (bud med) because a woman is not to be left outside the house at night. Another less common phrase is lus phra ma, “female of slight body”. Other synonyms, also relatively rare in ordinary speech, are gnas byed, “maker of a dwelling” or “maker of stability”; mi mo, “a female person”; and mtshams ldan ma, perhaps a pun, which can be understood either as “one who has a boundary” or “one who has an intermediate space”. Other epithets include ‘dzin ma, “female grasper”, and lan bu can bcas, “one who has long plaits [of hair]”. These terms fall into two main groups, those associated with a womans more ‘essential’ physical characteristics, and others with her community or family position.

This is an excerpt from Anne C. Klein Meeting the Great Bliss Queen: Buddhists, Feminists and the Art of Self (1995), p.51

Tibetan language itself is hierarchical, particularly as spoken in centres of power like Lhasa. Most nouns and verbs have honorific forms, usually entirely different in sound and spelling from the non-honorific forms, and these must be used whenever one addresses someone socially, economically or spiritually superior to oneself.

The most widely used word for woman (skyes dman) literally means “low born” and is also the non-honorific word for “wife”. A man might use this term to refer to his own wife, or he might call her chung ma, literally, “little woman”. But he would always use an honorific for the wife of someone of rank greater than his. Other terms are less explicitly offensive. Women are known as those not to be put out (bud med) because a woman is not to be left outside the house at night. Another less common phrase is lus phra ma, “female of slight body”. Other synonyms, also relatively rare in ordinary speech, are gnas byed, “maker of a dwelling” or “maker of stability”; mi mo, “a female person”; and mtshams ldan ma, perhaps a pun, which can be understood either as “one who has a boundary” or “one who has an intermediate space”. Other epithets include ‘dzin ma, “female grasper”, and lan bu can bcas, “one who has long plaits [of hair]”. These terms fall into two main groups, those associated with a womans more ‘essential’ physical characteristics, and others with her community or family position.