Let

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Lets Talk About Sex

• (and turnips)

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All the Worlds a Turnip
Masculine Turnips
Feminine Turnips
La rapa - Italian
El nabo - Spanish
Rapa - Latin
Le navet - French
??????? - Russian
O nabo - Portugese
Die Rübe - German
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A-Sexual Turnips
Turnip - English
Arbi - Basque
Kabura - Japanese
Nauris - Finnish
Petrezselyemgyökér - Hungarian
Singkamas Tagalog
Like English, these languages have no gender
systems, a trait they share with a surprising
number of languages.
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A-Sexual Languages

• Afrikaans
• Armenian
• Azeri
• Basque
• Bengali
• Bislama
• Bugis
• Burmese
• Cebuano
• Central Yupik

• Chinese
• Chol
• English
• Estonian
• Finnish
• Georgian
• Guaraní
• Hawaiian
• Hungarian
• Ilocano
• Indonesian

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More A-Sexual Languages

• Interlingua
• Kannada
• Khmer
• Lao
• Lojban
• Malagasy
• Malay
• Malayalam
• Makasar
• Mande languages

• Papiamentu
• Persian
• Nahuatl
• Pirahã
• Quechua
• Quenya
• Sindarin
• Thai
• Vietnamese
• Yoruba

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What is Grammatical Gender?

• Grammatical gender is a form of noun
  classification
• Gender from Latin Genus meaning Kind/type
• Most languages dont associate grammatical gender
  with biological gender

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What is a Noun Class?

• A noun class is a grammatical distinction between
  nouns in a language.
• Not all linguists make a distinction between
  Grammatical Gender and Noun Class.
• This can be based on
• Animate/Inanimate
• Rational/Non-rational
• Human/Non-human
• Male/Other
• Masculine/Feminine/Neuter
• Strong/Weak
• Augmentative/Diminutive

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Why Gender/Noun Class?

• Theories
• Initially biological- males and females.
• Expansion to sexless objects by association
  through myth or religion.
• A way of identifying and differentiating nouns-
  different its.

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You think 4 noun classes is confusing?

• Swahili has 8 noun classes
• Fula has 26
• Navaho has 10, including
• Human Beings
• Liquids
• Round Things
• Long Stiff Things
• Long Floppy Things

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And also

• The aboriginal Australian language Dyirbal has
  four noun classes

Class 1 Class 2 Class 3 Class 4
Men Women Edible Plants Body Parts
Kangaroos Dogs Meat
Possums Platypus Sound
Most Fish Dangerous Animals Language
Most Snakes Fire, water Wind
Hunting Weapons War Weapons Non-edible, non-harmful plants
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English The Linguistic Eunuch

• Its known that English is one of those odd
  languages that has no gender system.
• Old English, however, did. Therefore, at some
  point, the genders fell out of use, or were
  eroded out of the language.

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Old English - Masculine
stán
Nominative
Accusative
Genitive
Dative
Singular
(se) stán
(þone) stán
(þæs) stánes
(þæm) stáne
Plural
(þá) stánas
(þá) stánas
(þára) stána
(þæm) stánum
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Neuter
scip
Nominative
Accusative
Genitive
Dative
Singular
(þæt) scip
(þæt) scip
(þæs) scipes
(þæm) scipe
Plural
(þá) scipu
(þá) scipu
(þára) scipa
(þæm) scipum
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Feminine
giefu
Nominative
Accusative
Genitive
Dative
Singular
(séo) giefu
(þá) giefe
(þære) giefe
(þære) giefe
Plural
(þá) giefa
(þá) giefa
(þára) giefa
(þæm) giefum
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Traces of Gender

• There are, in fact, some traces of gender left
  over in the English language.
• For example, we still utilise he, she, it
  to distinguish between male and female humans,
  animals and inanimate objects.

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Gender Confusion in the Netherlands

• As we all know, the English language has lost
  its gender system. We can see this happening in
  the Dutch language.

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Gender Systems

• Dutch used to maintain a gender system similar
  to German i.e. masculine, feminine and neuter.
• However, the distinction between masculine and
  feminine is becoming more and more vague.

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Dutch Genders

• Dutch has two articles, de and het.
• De is used for both masculine and feminine,
  while het is used for neuter.
• Dutch appears to have experienced an erosion of
  gender similar to the one experienced by English.
• As a result, de witte zout (the white salt), is
  identifiable as neither masculine or feminine.

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Swedutch?

• This erosion that Dutch is experiencing is
  causing it to reach a stage that is similar to
  Swedish which has neuter and common gender.
• Perhaps these are the final days of genders in
  Dutch.

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Just to confuse you a different type of
confusion, particularly regarding milk and eggs
Lac
Masculine Le lait Il latte O leite
Feminine La leche La llet
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Eggsand the mysterious IT
Italian eggs Luovo Le uova
French Celui-ci Celle-ci Ceci
Spanish Éste Ésta Esto
Italian Gli Le Ci
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Super Surveys
French German YOU
Sun Masc Fem Masc
Tree Masc Masc Neuter
Fish Masc Fem Masc
Bird Masc Masc Masc/Neuter
Turnip Masc Fem Masc
Carrot Fem Fem Masc
Gravy Fem Fem Fem
Water Fem Neuter Fem
Sky Masc Masc Neuter
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And finally, for your entertainment

• We were going to give you a quiz. Weve decided
  against that, so instead, here are some of the
  titles we came up with
• A Question of Sprout
• The Weakest Leek
• Im a Celery, Get Me Out of Here
• Who Wants to Be a Potato-aire (we think this
  ones stupid as well)
• 24 Carrot Quiz
• Uni-broccoli Challenge
• Turnip, or not turnip? That is the question.

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Mark Twain Without whom this presentation would
not exist.
In German, a young lady has no sex, while a
turnip has. The Awful German Language