Why do some languages use gendered nouns? It seems to just add more complexity for no benefit.

  • Skua
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    89 months ago

    These bits of grammar don’t always actually communicate any extra information about anything other than the grammar of the language you’re speaking, though. The “gender” of the thing in question can’t reliably be distinguished from grammar since even in the Indo-European languages where the noun classes are typically thought of as masculine or feminine, the word’s grammatical gender can contradict its actual gender. The Old English word for “woman”, back when English had grammatical gender, was masculine.

    • Jeena
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      69 months ago

      So is “das Mädchen” in German, it is a young female but it’s neutrally gendered.