I know a lot of languages have some aspects that probably seem a bit strange to non-native speakers…in the case of gendered words is there a point other than “just the way its always been” that explains it a bit better?
I don’t have gendered words in my native language, and from the outside looking in I’m not sure what gendered words actually provide in terms of context? Is there more to it that I’m not quite following?
There is no point!
Languages evolve. They are not invented, designed, engineered by people. Human language evolved just like the human body evolved, just like the genome and the microbiome evolved.
There’s probably more to it but the more isn’t the sort of thing that could be explained in documentation.
What I mean by the more isn’t super clear to me. I’ll just say I didn’t fully grasp the Spanish language, which I had studied and spoken for many years, until I smoked a joint with a Swiss girl in college and we listened to some songs being sung in Spanish. All of a sudden I realized there are things you can express in Spanish that you can’t in English.
That may or may not have to do with it being a gendered language; I don’t know. I don’t even know what it is that I saw. I just realized there was some parallel thread running beside the string of words, that I don’t have in English. That you can’t do in English.
i don’t know if it’s just me, but someone getting told off in Spanish is so much harsher than in English. like, it’s another level. someone can tell me off in English, and it’ll roll right off of my back. but, if some one tells me off in Spanish, it hits my heart.
Residente has a song (La Càtedra) that is BRUTAL in Spanish. when i try to tell my English-speaking friends the translation, it doesn’t hit any where near as hard.