Gender in languages

From UniLang Wiki

Gender in language refers to a pattern of word endings associated, at least loosely, with human or animal gender (male or female).

It is difficult to give good examples in English, because it has few such patterns.

One English gender pattern is the use of -ess on the end of nouns referring to female humans: 

 count/countess

 prince/princess

 actor/actress

Another English gender pattern is the use of -man -woman endings referring to male and female humans, respectively: 

 chairman/chairwoman

 policeman/policewoman

 fireman/firewoman


Some languages, including Romance and Slavic languages, have much more well-developed and regular pattern systems associated with gender, extending to words not directly associated with humans or even animals.


For more information, refer to gender



In ancient forms of Persian language such as Avestan (A.D. c. -2000 to -300), Old Persian (A.D. c. -600 to -300), Persian has had masculine, feminine, and neuter. But, since Middle Persian (A.D. c. -300 to +700), Persian doesn't have gender any longer.

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