Gender (linguistics)

“ It seems therefore to be a mis-stated compliment which is usually paid to the English, when it is said that "this is the only language which has adapted the gender of its nouns to the constitution of Nature." The fact is, that it has adapted the Form of some of the most common names of living creatures, and of a few of its pronouns, to the obvious distinction of male, and female, and inanimate, while it has left its nouns without any mark characteristic of gender. The same thing must necessarily happen to any language by abolishing the distinction of masculine and feminine in its attributives. ”

“ Knowing the sex of the thing or its lack of sex, you know the gender of the noun in English that names it; for in our language gender follows the sex. But in such modern languages as the French and the German, and in Latin and Greek, the gender of nouns naming things without reference to sex is determined by the likeness of their endings in sound to the endings of words denoting things with sex. ”

“ But how enormously preponderant is the eternal feminine! Even our language is a language of gender,—in which I think the feminine predominates. But in our thought the masculine at once suggests the feminine, and creates a new idea. All precious things, too, remind us of what is not masculine, because “far and from the uttermost coasts is the price of her.”
Now the Oriental sees Nature in no such way. His language has no gender. He does not think of a young girl when he sees a palm, nor of the lines of a beautiful body when he sees the undulations of the hills. ”

“ Thus it is not the word ‘poetess’ which is feminine, but the person indicated who is female. So too ‘daughter’, ‘queen’, are in English not feminine nouns, but nouns designating female persons. Take on the contrary ‘filia’ or ‘regina’, ‘fille’ or ‘reine’; there you have feminine nouns as well as female persons. I need hardly say to you that we did not inherit this simplicity from others, but, like the Danes, in so far as they have done the like, have made it for ourselves. Whether we turn to the Latin, or, which is for us more important, to the old Gothic, we find gender ”

“ The gender is partly natural, partly {8}grammatical. By the natural gender names of male beings, such as se mann (the man) , are masculine; of female beings, such as sēo dohtor (the daughter) , are feminine; and of young creatures, such as þæt ċild (the child) , neuter. Note, however, that þæt wīf (woman) is neuter.
Grammatical gender is known only by the gender of the article and other words connected with the noun, and, to some extent, by its form. Thus all nouns ending in -a, such as se mōna (moon) , are masculine, sēo sunne (sun) being feminine. ”

“ It seems pretty clear that in the early forms of our Indo-European speech there were two genders only, masculine and feminine. The assignment of certain things conceived of as sexless to neither gender, neutrius generis, is of later origin. Some of the languages derived from Latin, and, to name one of a different family, the Hebrew, have no neuter gender, whilst others, as the ancient Turkish and Finnish, have no grammatical gender. ”

“ All other languages are infested with gender; in English there is no such distinction in words as that of gender. English, it should be needless to say, has words to express difference of sex; that no language can fail to do, for failing in that, it would not communicate the facts and thoughts of every-day life. But grammatical gender has no relation to sex, no relation to the essential characteristics of things. Gender, grammatical gender, is an attribute of words. ”

“ Besides case distinctions the older Aryan languages have a rather complicated system of gender distinctions, which in many instances agrees with, but in many others is totally independent of, and even may be completely at war with, the natural distinction between male beings, female beings and things without sex. This grammatical gender is sometimes looked upon as something valuable for a language to possess ”

“ Others, under a like mistake, resort occasionally, (as in the foregoing instance,) to an androgynal, and also to a doubtful gender: both of which are more objectionable than the common gender of the old grammarians; though this common "distinction with regard to sex," is, in our language, confessedly, no distinction at all. I assume, that there are in English the three genders, masculine, feminine, and neuter, and no more; and that every noun and every pronoun must needs be of some gender; consequently, of some one of these three. A gender is, literally, a sort, a kind, a sex. ”

“ I flatter myself that all my readers, who are acquainted with any of the ancient or the modern languages which have a distinction of gender in their attributives, will readily perceive that the import of the term Gender, in the grammar of those languages, is precisely what I have stated above. ”

“ Once more, why has not the French Academy systematized the genders? No one who considers language as an instrument of thought, which is good in proportion as its special parts are definitely adjusted to special functions, can doubt that a meaningless use of genders is a defect. It is undeniable that to employ marks of gender in ways always suggesting attributes that are possessed, instead of usually suggesting attributes that are not possessed, is an improvement. ”

“ In its conjugations, the pronouns are incorporated with the verb, either as prefixes or suffixes. Its substantives are provided with adjective inflections, denoting size and quality. Its verbs, on the other hand, receive substantive inflections. Gender is, as a rule, lost sight of, in the uniform attempt, to preserve, by inflections, a distinction between animate and inanimate, and personal or impersonal objects. ”

“ But it is in the genders of these article pronouns that the greatest difficulty may be found. The student must entirely free his mind of the idea that gender is simply a distinction of sex. In Indian tongues, genders are usually methods of classification primarily into animate and inanimate. ”

“ No doubt the gender-system of the classic languages is the remains of an older and more consistent plan. There are languages outside our classical education which show that gender (that is genus, kind, class,) is by no means necessarily according to sex. Thus in the Algonquin languages of North America, and the Dravidian languages of South India, things are divided not as male or female, but as alive or dead, rational or irrational, and put accordingly in the animate or major gender, or in the inanimate or minor gender. ”

“ According to this, we must have five genders, exclusive of that which is called common; namely, the masculine, the feminine, the neuter, the androgynal, and the doubtful.
OBS. 4.—It is plain that many writers on grammar have had but a confused notion of what a gender really is. Some of them, confounding gender with sex, deny that there are more than two genders, because there are only two sexes. ”

“ To us it sounds very odd that the Germans give feminine gender to the sun and masculine to the moon, whilst the French do vice versa, or that both the French and German give masculine gender to 'regiment' or 'battalion,' but feminine gender to 'company.' In this respect the English method of dividing into masculine, feminine, and neutral, allowing only on rare occasions, for poetical purpose, personification of inanimate objects, sounds more rational and comprehensible to our ears. ”

“ But gender in language extends much farther than sex, and even if by some subtle analogy all the masculine and feminine nouns in a language could be attached to something suggesting sex in the objects they designate, yet it can hardly be maintained that the elaborate concordance incident upon that distinction is representative of any felt quality in the things. So remote an analogy to sex could not assert itself pervasively. ”

“ In various aboriginal languages of America there are two genders, the animate and the inanimate—with a vital instead of a sexual polarity; and while German can and does associate gender and sex, its departure from this system is marked by objects conspicuously sexual, which may be of the neuter gender, and by sexless objects of the three genders. ”

“ In a language which separates all matter, the whole creation, in fact, into two classes of nouns--deemed animates and inanimates--the distinctions of gender are lost, so far as the laws of syntax are involved. It is necessary only to speak of objects as possessing and wanting vitality, to communicate to them the property named, whether it in reality possesses it in nature or not. ”

“ What could be more absurd than the preposterous gender-system which the Sanskrit, the Greek, and the German have inherited from this Aryan mother-tongue, and from whose ridiculous trammels the speakers of all the later derived idioms in Asia and Europe have been for centuries striving to shake themselves free? ”

“ It cannot be said to be an advantage to the languages which possess it, while languages which, like English, have dropped it except for an occasional metaphor, suffer no loss. Nor is the problem confined to the history of gender in the substantive. Even more perplexing is the introduction of gender into the adjective. The pronouns of the first and second persons, which are certainly very old, show no trace of gender; the pronouns of the third person, which are more of the nature of deictic adjectives, generally possess it. ”

“ The gender of the verb is adapted to the form of the word נשׁים, an incorrectness which must be attributed to the increasing tendency of the language to use the masculine instead of the feminine, or to renounce a distinction of form between the genders. ”

“ Many a German and Frenchman wishes he could follow the example of our English forefathers who, long ago, threw overboard the whole worthless cargo of grammatical gender. But, looking at gender in the ancient grammars, it must be remembered that human custom is hardly ever willfully absurd, its unreasonableness usually arising from loss or confusion of old sense. ”

“ Such a language, amongst others, is the Latin.
How far is there such a thing as gender in the English language? This depends upon the meaning that we attach to the word gender.
In the Latin language, where there are confessedly genders, we have the words taurus, meaning a bull, and vacca, meaning a cow. Here the natural distinction of sex is expressed by wholly different words. With this we have corresponding modes of expression in English: e.g.,
The mode, however, of expressing different sexes by wholly different words is not a matter of gender. ”

“ While studying language, I observed that most of my mistakes in grammar occurred in the feminine gender, and thinking over the cause of it, it dawned upon me that, belonging to the masculine sex, I was in the habit of thinking in that gender, and that my teachers were men, and that my text-books and grammars had been written by men, and that the masculine gender predominated so strongly in the exercises, that it was but natural for me to make the greatest number of mistakes in the gender to which the least attention had been given. ”

“ In order to secure agreement in gender it is necessary to know the gender of the noun, expressed or understood, to which the pronoun refers. Gender of nouns is important only so far as it concerns the use of pronouns. Study carefully the Page 14 following rules in regard to gender. These rules apply to the singular number only, since all plurals of whatever gender are referred to by they, their, theirs, etc. ”

“ A lexic comparison is between vocal elements; a grammatic comparison is between grammatic methods, such, for example, as gender systems. The classes into which things are relegated by distinction of gender may be animate and inanimate, and the animate may subsequently be divided into male and female, and these two classes may ultimately absorb, in part at least, inanimate things. The growth of a system of genders may take another course. ”

“ Every noun has a gender, and there is no sense or system in the distribution; so the gender of each must be learned separately and by heart. There is no other way. To do this one has to have a memory like a memorandum-book. In German, a young lady has no sex, while a turnip has. ”

“ It were far better to use no gender in such cases. But if people will continue the practice of making distinctions where there are none, they must do it from habit and whim, and not from any reason or propriety.
There are three ways in which we usually distinguish the forms of words in reference to gender. 1st. By words which are different; as boy, girl; uncle, aunt; father, mother. ”

“ It is easy to see why das kind (the child) is neuter, but under the ordinary view of the rise of grammatic gender, it is not easy to see why, in modern German, der leib (body) should be masculine, and das weib (woman, wife) of the same gender as the child—why die liebe (love) should be feminine, and der friede (peace) masculine. ”

“ There is, in truth, but two genders, and those confined to animals. When we break these rules, and follow the undirected wanderings of fancy, we can form no rules to regulate our words. We may have as many fanciful ones as we please, but they will not apply in common practice. For example: poets and artists have usually attached female loveliness to angels, and placed them in the feminine gender. But they are invariably used in the masculine thro out the scriptures. ”

“ The following paradigm of mūð, the mouth, illustrates the several cases (the article being, for the present, gratuitously added in the Modern English equivalents) :
11 Gender. 13.
The gender of Old English nouns, unlike that of Modern English, depends partly on meaning and partly on form, or ending. Thus mūð, mouth, is masculine; tunge, tongue, feminine; ēage, eye, neuter.
No very comprehensive rules, therefore, can be given; but the gender of every noun should be learned with its meaning. ”