As in French le/la, in German der/die/das & other languages, thera are genders for words & so articles in some languages. Grammaticaly gender for words are complete redundancy !? Governments have to cancel them offically as soon as possible so that people can learn those languages easily also. One of the reason English almost became universal language is due to being genderless for words !
"It's an inheritance from our distant past. Researchers believe that Proto-Indo-European had two genders: animate and inanimate. It can also, in some cases, make it easier to use pronouns clearly when you're talking about multiple objects."
As Mark Twain once wrote in reference to German:
“A person’s mouth, neck, bosom, elbows, fingers, nails, feet, and body are of the male sex, and his head is male or neuter according to the word selected to signify it, and not according to the sex of the individual who wears it! A person’s nose, lips, shoulders, breast, hands, and toes are of the female sex; and his hair, ears, eyes, chin, legs, knees, heart, and conscience haven’t any sex at all…”
Each language has its own rules and structure. Governments have nothing to do with this. It is language specific. You can not change it in a fortnight.
Regards
Mustapha Boughoulid
Tri-partite gender system(s) and, especially "rules" according to which nominals are distributed amongs these three genders, may appear illogical and problematic in the respects, any "improvements" are, to say the least, ridiculous. First, as Millar (2000) rightly observes that gender "is a means of keeping the nominal system's ". In other words, grammatically-based systems actually seem to make the recognition of structures and, hence, keeping the discurse flow and interpretation easier (Hockett 1958 talked about this long time ago). Besides, any artificial improvement to any linguistic/grammtical system creates even more stir, as the apparently new rules still have to be acquired by L1/L2 learners. Furthermore, some ways of utilising sex-/gender-based distinctions are still necessary, so why even bother to change something that's in a language in the first place? As for English, it's not due its gender-less system that it's made its way into the lingua franca of the world. I guess it's much more due to economical/historical/social issues. By the way, it's alrady been quite widespread and used by all classes in the society in 950-1050s (a situation unprecedental in mainland Europe), when it still had the three-gender system (Old English/Early Middle English).
It all depends on the originals of the languages, which differe one from another.
Unfortunately latin origin languages with useless and illogical word genders have to be always limited and national while English became definitely international in every aspect !
I guess that what has all been mentioned here only shows that on cannot, despite numerous attempts in a number of fields, separate language (or 'a language') from the person/agent using it and, hence, from social/political/cultural background. We may only speculate what would happen if Angles/Jutes/Saxon hadn't settled in England. For some time in the past, French (which still has the gender-marked system, by the way) competed with English as far as international affairs and business/trade/culture go.
I hope Sinan Ibaguner’s remarks are due to be understood as tongue-in-cheek. Asking governments to authoritatively compel their citizens to change the grammar of their mother tongue would be an example of what Geoffrey Pullum calls "linguistic fascism", or an Orwellian dystopia. When you meet a difficulty in learning a foreign language, correct and fruitful attitudes are: humility, respect, open-mindedness, a rational analysis of grammatical otherness, allowing little by little a sound knowledge of how languages are similar or differ. And of course – as does Mark Twain, quoted by Ibaguner, a touch of humor.
“The Only Constant in Life Is Change.”- Heraclitus
Who I am to be able to ask governments to authoritatively compel their citizens to change the grammar of their mother tongue. If governments consider such a change in their linguistic grammer, probably they ask their citizens by official referandums.Thank you, Mr.M.Launey for your comments.
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