On language genders

[telophase]

The African language Supyire from Mali has five genders: humans, big things, small things, collectives, and liquids. Bantu languages such as Swahili have up to ten genders, and the Australian language Ngan’gityemerri is said to have fifteen different genders, which include, among others, masculine human, feminine human, canines, non-canine animals, vegetables, drinks, and two different genders for spears (depending on size and material).

Deutscher, Guy (2010-08-31). Through the Language Glass: Why the World Looks Different in Other Languages (Kindle Locations 3231-3234). Henry Holt and Co.. Kindle Edition.

Man, I love how weird languages are. (Also: English is pretty weird, at least as far as the 2600+ languages in the database studied in that link go! Ranks at #33 weirdest language in their data set, where "weirdest" means "most unusual features, comparatively," and gendered languages are not all that weird, really. SO I'M THE WEIRD ONE, NOT THE LANGUAGES IN THE QUOTE.)

Anyway, I'm a bit over halfway through the book quoted above, and enjoying it. I don't think people with a lot of knowledge about linguistics will find anything they didn't know in it; it's aimed a bit more at people with a passing interest in languages, but who aren't familiar with much of the major thought in the field. He spends quite a lot of time explaining now-discredited theories about how language shaped thinking and showing how those theories don't hold up to the evidence before starting into ways that it does shape thought and human experience. For example: languages in which directions are given geographically--as when you're describing two objects on a table in relation to each other, do you say "The pen is next to/to the right of the Post-Its," or do you say "The pen is west of the Post-Its"? People who grow up speaking geographic languages have a sort of perfect pitch for directions that those of us who grew up with other languages don't, and it seems pretty sure that because of the way the language forces you to specify those directions, your behavior and thinking adapt to it.

Anyway, that's as far as I've gotten right now. So far so good, and I loved the genders in the languages above. (And he finally explained to my satisfaction why we use "gender" -- it's an older meaning of the term, referring to categories and types in general. Referring to biological or social sex is a meaning that came later.)

Comments

[lnhammer]

Although usually not described as gender, Japanese nouns have a classness that affects how they are counted, which I think of as gender. In this case, different classes of things use different counters (as in English we say 2 cups of coffee, 3 sheets of paper, 4 head of cattle) -- so there's a counter for people, for small animals, large animals, long thin objects, flat objects, cars, chapters of a book/manga, and so on. It's grammatically incorrect to use the wrong one, though you can get away with using a more general category's counter if you can't remember the more obscure specific counter -- such as using the counter for flat things instead of the postage stamp counter. There are well over a hundred classes/counters, though only a couple dozen are in regular use.

This only affects counting -- there's no other declension is going on, no adjectival agreement, etc.

---L.

[telophase]

Nifty!

As far as genders go, I'm just starting the section of the book where he discusses how linguists think gender develops in languages, and it seems that the categories make sense when they're first used (female animals and humans have female genders, vegetables have vegetable genders, etc.), but languages have feature creep, and over time the categories shift, broaden, tighten, or otherwise change.

[yhlee]

Korean has a similar system of counters. My mom says if you use the generic counters you're not grammatically incorrect, but you sound like a foreigner. Or, in my case, a Korean-American who never learned to speak the language properly. ^_^

[lnhammer]

AFIK, Chinese also uses counters.

---L.

[dsgood]

In the brand of English I grew up with, ships (and spaceships) and tractors are considered female.

[onthehill]

That sounds so interesting! I might even have a look for the book.

[telophase]

Ships are female for me, but it's not a really strong association--I can say "it" or "she" without thinking twice. It would probably be a different matter if I grew up closer to the coast, or with family who sailed.

[telophase]

I'll re-post my one caveat from a comment I made on LJ: "I think my one real criticism so far is that in a book on language shaping thought and vice versa, he doesn't hang a lamp on his Western-centric phrasing--calling non-Western language structures "exotic" at one point, IIRC, and others I can't recall in any detail at the moment. Most of the instances I've noticed it, it's somewhat obvious that there's meant to be an undercurrent of irony, but it would be nice for it to be noted a little more explicitly, even if it was just in a preface explaining that the book was written from a Western viewpoint for a Western audience."

[trobadora]

It does sound like a really cool book!

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I think my one real criticism so far is that in a book on language shaping thought and vice versa, he doesn't hang a lamp on his Western-centric phrasing--calling non-Western language structures "exotic" at one point, IIRC, and others I can't recall in any detail at the moment. Most of the instances I've noticed it, it's somewhat obvious that there's meant to be an undercurrent of irony, but it would be nice for it to be noted a little more explicitly, even if it was just in a preface explaining that the book was written from a Western viewpoint for a Western audience.

[trobadora]

Ah, thank you for that caveat! It's good to know - better to be prepared for that going in. :)

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Yeah--for me the occurrences aren't a turn-off so much as a quirked-eyebrow and a Your book is on language and thought, dude, think about that phrasing!, but others may have more concern.