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How often had I overlooked women's contributions ? (lemmy.ml)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/memes@lemmy.ml
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One of the comments reads : Actually, we will probably never figure out, was it man or woman. but I thought this comment of the professor was an interesting eye opener. https://mastodonapp.uk/@MarkHoltom/112070436760917344

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[+] -14 points 2 years ago (13 children)

Which is your native language? I keep looking for ways to ungender my english if possible. Removing gender from language feels more honest.

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  • [–] 10 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Swahili. If you want to translate “she/he went to the river”, you say “Alienda mtoni” which collapses she/he into the subject A- (Alienda) to mean “the person”. You always need context to use a gendered word (like mwanamke for woman) otherwise general conversation does not foreground it. There is literally no word for he/she in Swahili, as far as I know.

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  • [–] 10 points 2 years ago (7 children)

    English is not a grammatically gendered language. Otherwise, all languages have gender.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago (4 children)

    False, English is a gendered language that lost most of its gender usage. Some words still retain gender, such as blond/blonde.

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  • [–] -1 points 2 years ago

    🤦‍♂️Yes, in that sense, English could be gendered. But what it actually means is that English used to be gendered and retains some gendered words from that time.

    Another example, Russian has noun cases, but not the vocative case. However, it does have two words that have a vocative case from when the language as a whole did use to have the vocative case - Бог (Боже) and Господь (Господи) - but that doesn't mean that Russian has it now.

    Also, blond/blonde are pronounced the same so the distinction is lost in speech and probably soon in writing as well, and words like fiancé/fiancée (which are also pronounced the same), widow/widower, actor/actress do not signify grammatical gender by itself.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    Why do I have to know the gender of a person in order to talk about them in third person singular? On more days than not, there is conversation about someone I never met where there is an irrelevant sidebar to clarify gender before communication can continue. I find this relic of the language to be inefficient, pointless and annoying. Daily life would be a lot easier with a non-gendered word for referring to a single person in third person. Languages like Spanish, with gendered nouns, is confusing for even native speakers. I am fascinated by how different languages have different ways of being complicated as well as by their phonology and syntax. I asked my question because I was looking into how other languages use gender and came to the conclusion that none were free from that complication. So I agree with you so far. All languages have gender.

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