Why do some languages use gendered nouns? It seems to just add more complexity for no benefit.

  • Pendulum@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    Sir Terry Pratchett (GNU) wrote a piece of fiction along these lines. In The Light Fantastic:

    The reason for this is regrettably all too common. When the first explorers from the warm lands around the Circle Sea travelled into the chilly hinterland they filled in the blank spaces on their maps by grabbing the nearest native, pointing at some distant landmark, speaking very clearly in a loud voice, and writing down whatever the bemused man told them. Thus were immortalised in generations of atlases such geographical oddities as Just A Mountain, I Don’t Know, What? and, of course, Your Finger You Fool.