Talk:Genderless language

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Spapa003. Peer reviewers: Mvale086.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 22:09, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

more information necessary
I'd like to know a bit more aobut what we are talking about. What grammar rules / word formation rules, etc qualify a language as genderless? Do any languages like this actually exist? Can you show the difference between genderless and gendered language with any examples? Which is older between genderless and gendered languages? Does gendered language/ genderless language come from anywhere? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.79.53.198 (talk) 13:12, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

What can I add?
This article is very interesting and I am planning to add Corbett's survey about how many languages are genderless compared to gender languages around the world. In this article, I am planning to add the term of sexist language and present examples about this term. Also, because we are facing related issues in our societies today regarding of transgender and gender equality; this topic will help us understand other cultures. Moreover, I will add some examples about disadvantages in genderless languages from the morphological perspective. Finally, I will add facts about how colonization, Western culture, and religion influenced in some of the genderless languages by adopting the binary system.

1. Hellinger, Marlis, and Heiko Motschenbacher, eds. Gender across languages. Vol. 4. John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2015.[edit | edit source]

2. Prewitt-freilino, J., Caswell, T. A., & Laakso, E. K. (2012). The gendering of language: A comparison of gender equality in countries with gendered, natural gender, and genderless languages. Sex Roles, 66(3-4), 268-281. doi:http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.fiu.edu/10.1007/s11199-011-0083-5[edit | edit source]

3. Buck, Jane L. "Nonsexist language: Successes, neologisms, and barbarisms." Teaching of Psychology 17, no. 3 (1990): 198-199.[edit | edit source]

4. Fiedler, Klaus. "Representation of the Sexes in Languages." Social Communication. New York: Psychology, 2007. 163-67. Print.[edit | edit source]

5. Hellinger, Marlis, and Heiko Motschenbacher. Gender across Languages: The Linguistic Representation of Women and Men. Vol. 4. Amsterdam: J. Benjamins, 2001. Print.[edit | edit source]

6. Thomas, Ursula, and Jill Drake. Critical Research on Sexism and Racism in STEM Fields. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print.[edit | edit source]

7. Urdze, Aina, Martine Vanhove, and Thomas Stolz. Morphologies in Contact. N.p.: Akademie Verlag, 2012. I would like to know if these references will help me to explain better the terminology of genderless languages. --Spapa003 (talk) 02:27, 3 October 2016 (UTC)

This article is pretty good so far it explains the topic quite well. One thing I think would be a good addition to the page is the origins of genderless language or the term. Just to give more insight about the beginnings and roots of the term. Aside from that everything is good, I get a pretty firm understanding of the term by reading the information provided here. Any further information you add will just add more icing to the cake. Dcauley5 (talk) 03:43, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

Table
I saw a table was added to the article, but it's purpose was not explained and there is no text to describe what it is:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Genderless_language&type=revision&diff=751794233&oldid=750620463

I would presume it would be a list of genderless languages, but prominent languages often considered genderless such as Japanese, Korean, and English are absent from the list, so it is unclear what the criteria are for a language to appear on it.

I see it was User:Spapa003 who added the table, and I left a message on December 4 asking them to explain the addition, but they have not responded, and have not made any clarifications as to the purpose of the table or why a language would or would not appear.

Because of this, I have commented the table out until clarification can be provided.--Beneficii (talk) 08:00, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

English not genderless?
The unsourced section Genderless language says
 * While English is virtually gender-free grammatically as compared with German or French, it is not a genderless language. The elaborate grammatical gender of Old English has mostly disappeared in Modern English but it still remains in pronouns and possessive adjectives: he, him, his; she, her, hers. 

This seems wrong. He/she etc. are distinctions that play no role in English grammar—there is no grammatical agreement of anything with he or she. Actress ... she has mandatory agreement, but that’s agreement of natural gender, not grammatical gender. Any objections to deleting this section? Or better yet, can someone find a source to cite one way or the other on this? Loraof (talk) 21:44, 13 February 2019 (UTC)


 * Last call—unless I see an objection I’m going to delete this apparently incorrect passage. Loraof (talk) 22:37, 15 February 2019 (UTC)


 * Done. Loraof (talk) 20:22, 17 February 2019 (UTC)
 * I think your conclusion is not correct. I see nothing incorrect in deleted text. There are languages that even the natural gender doesn't play even a minor role, so they could be considered a genderless language. If someday English evolved to remove these remnants of gender it would become a genderless language, but at present form it is not one apparently.
 * Therefor suggest to put it back in place. Ehadavi (talk) 11:54, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Language table
Hi Ehrenkater are there any languages in that table which are not genderless? Shabidoo | Talk 01:14, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

Tamil is not genderless
In the fourth paragraph of the page listing all the genderless languages is Tamil, a south indian language. However, this is wrong info. 81.170.33.234 (talk) 19:04, 4 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Indeed, and the same is true for Kannada. I removed the whole Dravidian group from the sentence. Largoplazo (talk) 19:50, 4 February 2024 (UTC)