Bullshit people claim about languages, part #94731

[pauamma]

But the fact of the matter is that gender is a linguistic term with a hard meaning.
So is "etymological fallacy"For example, all languages have gender pronouns, [...]
Er, no. Not even most, and even of those who do, a large number don't use sex as a basis for assigning gender.

(Inspired by some statements in idiotolects, pronouns, gender, possessives

Comments

[rinyula]

I'm a little confused at the fact that the map-thing seems to think Chinese doesn't have gender pronouns. Surely 他/她 你/妳 fits that description?

Could anyone clarify? I'm tired and probably not thinking this through properly.

[muckefuck]

These are recent inventions on the model of European languages. They are purely written; in speech, as you know, they are perfect homophones.

BTW, modern Chinese grammarians went two better than their European models and created written variants of 他 to refer specifically to animals (牠) and inanimate bzw. abstract objects (它).

[pne]

There's even one for divine referents (祂), isn't there?

[pauamma]

Also, it gets Tagalog wrong. It claims it has a sex-based 2-gender system, but AFAIK, Tagalog is genderless. (tisoi, can you confirm?)

[nyxelestia]

I have no clue what this website is, but I ♥ its text-box gender field. :D And yes, people from Western cultures are always shocked at a.) how other languages don't have gender pronouns, and b.) how little gender can matter in so many cultures. Gender and gender norms are so ingrained in human culture that many simply cannot imagine a world without them, but I love to see all our little steps in that direction. Gender is never someone's identity, only a part of it.

[ameliorate23]

Oh my.

I couldn't even read the whole thing. That article accomplished something few can - annoy me on three different levels: as a human being, as a person that enjoys languages, and has a science major. The science part comes from a) gender being a matter of social norms and b) even if one talks about sex instead of gender, it's still not a binary system.

[pauamma]

I'm not sure whether Diaspora asks (well, used to ask) for that reason, but some sites (eg, LiveJournal or Dreamwidth) ask even though their UI text is gender-neutral or gender-agnostic.

[biascut]

Oh bless.