I know a lot of languages have some aspects that probably seem a bit strange to non-native speakers…in the case of gendered words is there a point other than “just the way its always been” that explains it a bit better?

I don’t have gendered words in my native language, and from the outside looking in I’m not sure what gendered words actually provide in terms of context? Is there more to it that I’m not quite following?

  • Lvxferre@lemmy.ml
    7·
    10 months ago

    you suggesting that gender in these languages was an intentional decision to solve the problems you raise?

    No, I’m not suggesting intention or decision. Most of the time, language works a lot like a biological species: there’s no critter or speaker deciding “we shall have this feature!”, but instead the feature spreads or goes extinct depending on the role that it performs in the language, alongside other features.

    My explanation is all about that role. That is the point of grammatical gender, and it explains:

    • why it appeared independently across different languages? Clearly the gender systems in Dyirbal, in most Indo-European languages, in [most?] Afro-Asiatic languages are unrelated to each other, but why did they develop that same feature?
    • why it survives for so long in a language? For example, the gender system in Russian, Hindi and Spanish backtracks all the way back into Late Proto-Indo-European (6000? years ago).

    A pointless feature wouldn’t do it.

    I do not remotely know Portuguese, but how does this derivation quality help with the word for an apple seed?

    The fruit vs. plant example is from Italian, not Portuguese (see note*).

    It doesn’t need to help with the word for an apple seed (IT: seme di mela, lit. “seed of apple”). It’s just an extension, a “bonus” of the system; the core is like bambino/bambina, words referring to human beings, we humans tend to speak a lot about each other.

    That said, your question reminds me the noun classes of Bantu languages. Gender is just a specific type of noun class; it’s possible that some language out there would actually use a noun class derivation of their word for apple to refer to apple seeds.

    *note, on Portuguese

    Fruit trees in Portuguese get an “origin” suffix, -eira; see e.g. maçã (apple) vs. macieira (apple tree) vs. semente de maçã (apple seed). There are a few nouns where the feminine is a specific type of the masculine, like

    • ovo (egg) vs. ova (fish eggs)
    • casco (shell) vs. casca (bark, peel)
    • jarro (jar) vs. jarra (a type of jar, usually with a pointy lip)
    • barco (boat) vs. barca (barque)

    but that feature was only rarely used, and it is certainly not productive; I think that it backtracks to Latin neuter but I’m not sure. Anyway, derivation in the modern language is mostly restricted to critters and people.