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What's the point of gendered words in certain languages? (lemmy.world)

submitted 2 years ago by TheDarkKnight@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

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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?

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[-] cerement@slrpnk.net 9 points 2 years ago

        up until the printing press, spelling was more a matter of convention (“we always wrote it this way”) since it was relegated to clergy and scholars
the advent of the printing press saw a lot of creativity with spelling – adjusting the spelling was an easy way to justify lines of text on a page (much easier than trying to make micro-adjustments of word- and letter-spacing)
it was the introduction of dictionaries that started to “stabilize” spelling – and that was only because people (especially Johnson and Webster) started to get sick and tired of the lack of standards

this post was submitted on 23 Aug 2023

110 points (87.2% liked)

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