This shit again…
Why are you so hung up on “gender”? Just replace it with “group” and you’ll find the exact same situation in almost all languages.
In Swedish words are not gendered. But to specify the singular we use one of two groups. En or ett. It can be a word before what you want to specify. Or a suffix.
En banan, (a banana) Banan-en, (the banana)
Or perhaps.
Ett körsbär, (a cherry) Körsbär-et, (the cherry)
It’s just one if two groups. Has nothing to do with gender. But if you really want to, we can pretend it’s gendered because it doesn’t matter. It’s gonna be one or the other regardless.
Now tell me. How is this different from “gendered” languages? And as a bonus. There is NO rule regarding which to use when. You just have to know.
Are you really asking why every French speaker doesn’t come together to completely overhaul their language?
I thought you were memeing, but now I’m concerned you think it’s actually “that easy” to just rewrite fundamental aspects of a language.
I think it’s the fact that those groups are the gender groups that is causing the frustration. If it’s arbitrary, why did it have to be the same system we use to classify organisms and personal identities?
The question remains, why does there need to be two groups? Why can’t everything just be “en” or “ett”? What does having both get you in Swedish that having only one does not?
Because äpplet means “the apple” while äpplen means “apples”.
Because it’s how the language works. Why do we have many, lots, large ammonts of words that all mean the same thing? Me myself and I don’t really care because they are ways to express ourselves in different ways depending on what we want to convey, and how we choose to do so.
Gender often comes along with cases, which basically show you what role a noun is playing in a sentence. For example, is someone doing something, or is something being done to them. That lets you change the word order and keep the same meaning. You can emphasize different parts of the sentence, or just be more flexible with how you say things.
Here’s an example from German:
- Der Hund (subject) hat den Mann (object) gebissen. / The dog bit the man.
- Den Mann (object) hat der Hund (subject) gebissen. / The dog bit the man. (Implied: That guy, and not someone else.)
In English, the meaning changes when you change the word order.
- The dog bit the man.
- The man bit the dog.
Languages do fine with genders and without. They’re just different systems that happened to evolve over time. And languages can even change. English used to have 3 genders, but they disappeared hundreds of years ago. Instead of having like 12 different ways to say “the,” we just have one, thanks to the Vikings and the Norman invaders.
I think the point is that it’s annoying to memorize regardless of language and it’s not like genders always make sense in other languages either. It is funnier with genders though.
Das Mädchen (the girl) is neutral in German. lol
A washing machine is obviously female because doing laundry is a thing for women.
And now I will sit back and watch how many people get mad at me because they don’t understand sarcasm.
And now I will sit back and watch how many people get mad at me because they don’t understand sarcasm.
Really getting worked up over that imaginary person you created huh? Lol
No. It’s feminine because you put dirty things in it.
EDIT: I’m going to get lynched by the hyper vigilant with you. We’re in this together now.
I mean I’m pretty sure a lot of it comes from things like that, I also notice quite often the positive things are male while the negative opposite is female: le beau temps/le soleil, la pluie ; le plaisir, la douleur ; le jour, la nuit; etc etc.
Edit: not sure why this comment is getting downvoted, do you think I’m saying it’s a good thing the language was built on sexist principles? Here’s an article that talks about how it wasn’t always like that and there was a campaign in the 17th century to masculinize the language, making the masculine the “noble” gender in grammatical rules. It’s not far fetched to think similar principles applied to gendering random things.
Word gender is easy as fuck to learn. Only anglophones seem to have their minds blown BY A FEATURE WHICH DID EXIST IN ENGLISH (and still does in fringe cases)
Actor…actress
Ships are female
Most of the issues English has were inherited from French.
