Last Update: 8 October 2023
Languages are a mirror into the world's diverse set of cultures, values, and social norms. In modern times and especially in the Western world, one unique feature has been a topic of much debate: grammatical gender. However, there exists a fascinating subset of languages that defy this conventional linguistic norm – languages with no gender at all. In this article, I'm going to take a look at some of the genderless languages of the world and their linguistic features.
Languages: Understanding Gender
In order to understand what languages without gender actually mean, let's start at the opposite end of the spectrum: gendered languages. In several languages, you have grammatical gender assigned to nouns and their accompanying adjectives, pronouns, and articles into several categories often described as masculine, feminine, or neuter.
Some say that languages with grammatical gender can still be found to perpetuate certain gender stereotypes and biases. You'll e.g. see that the word "doctor" is masculine in Spanish and French, while "nurse" is feminine, and that by not redefining these terms in the language, we're bound to reinforce certain societal roles and expectations, making it challenging to break free from what society expects of you as a man or a woman. In this blog, I won't make an argument for or against any claims, but rather just look at the inherent grammatical features of gender and gender neutrality.
The Shift Towards Gender-Neutrality
Having established what grammatical gender is, you'll see that some languages have little to no gender and they treat all nouns, pronouns, and adjectives as gender-neutral, eliminating any inherent bias. Some argue that it also gives them the capacity to adapt and evolve faster to the society around them and that it allows people to express themselves more freely without constraints from linguistic norms.
Languages with Little to No Grammatical Gender
Let's have a look together at some of the gender-neutral languages out there.
🇨🇳 Chinese
Mandarin and other Sinitic languages like Cantonese are by large gender-neutral. Spoken Mandarin has virtually no distinction between the third-person singular pronouns "he", "she", and "it" as they are all pronounced "tā". Written Mandarin, on the other hand, have distinct characters for each of them:
He is written "他" with the radical "亻" from "人", meaning person;
She is written "她" with the radical "女" from "she";
It is written "它";
God is written "祂" with the spirit radical for "deities; and
The "it for animals can be written "牠" with the radical for "cow".
The plural tāmen "他们/她们": Similarly, the third-person plural pronoun "tāmen" can mean "they" for both genders. The characters are identical; context distinguishes gender.
💡 Fun fact: The character for "she" wasn't invented until the early 20th century due to Western influence. Prior to this, the character that today means "he" was used for both genders (the radical "person" doesn't refer to specific genders).
🇫🇮 Finnish
Finnish is one of the best-known examples of language without gender. If you ever hear people from Finland mix up "he" and "she" and "it", it's because it simply doesn't exist in their language. Instead, they have "hän" to refer to all of these concepts. This word was what inspired Swedish (and subsequently Danish and Norwegian) to adopt the word "hen" as a gender-neutral pronoun. So when saying "Hän asuu Helsingissä" (he/she/they live in Helsinki), you will have to "guess" the gender from context. This is very different from the rest of the Scandinavian languages.
💡 Fun fact: While "hän" is used in written Finnish to mean "he" and "she" and "se" means "it", the colloquial form actually allows for "se" to be used for all three. The logic also applies to the closely related Estonian (🇪🇪) and the third-person singular pronoun "tema".
🇳🇴 Norwegian
While you can always find dialects that differ from the norm, Norwegian has in general maintained three distinct grammatical genders. It should be mentioned here that classic Norwegian Bokmål was based on Danish, and thus, the feminine "ei" would often become "en". And you'd see "en kvinne – kvinnen" (a woman – the woman) based on the Danish model compared to more modern Bokmål that might opt for "ei kvinne – kvinna".
Norwegian noun | English | Gender |
En mann | A man | Masculine |
Ei bok | A book | Feminine |
Et eple | An apple | Neuter |
🇩🇰 Danish and 🇸🇪 Swedish
Old Norse has historically had three genders – masculine, feminine, and neuter – but as these two languages developed, the masculine and feminine have merged. That means that today both standard Danish and Swedish have two grammatical genders but they don't abide by masculine and feminine. Instead, they are called common gender (en) and neuter (et/ett). Which means that they are by large, in the same way as English, gender neutral. But I will deep dive into this in another blog post.
🇹🇷 Turkish
Turkish as well as other Turkic languages like Azerbaijani (🇦🇿) is understood to have no grammatical gender. It utilizes a single set of pronouns and articles that are gender-neutral. The third-person singular pronoun "o" can refer to "he," "she," or "it", but there are other ways to refer to gender such as "kadın" woman vs. "erkek" man, "boğa" bull vs. "inek" cow or some loanwords from French and Arabic like "aktris". In most gender-neutral languages below, you will see that they largely follow the same pattern.
🇭🇺 Hungarian
Hungarian is a Fnno-Ugric language that – you guessed it – has no gender distinctions. Like the other languages on this list, it heavily relies on context rather than gendered language to convey meaning. Nouns are not assigned to masculine or feminine categories – whether it's the word for teacher "tanár" or the gender-neutral pronoun "ő" used for "he," "she," or "it".
🇪🇸🇫🇷 Basque / Euskara
The language isolate of Basque has a distinct absence of grammatical gender. Not only is this language a bit of an enigma in itself, but it also has the unique feature of not assigning gender to nouns. In Basque, the third-person singular pronoun "hura" can refer to anyone or anything without indicating gender. So while "gizon" means "man" and "emakume" means "woman," "hura" doesn't refer to either as well as "it". The same goes for words such as "lagun" for friend.
🇦🇲 Armenian
Armenian, also known as hayeren, has around 5.3 million native speakers and is also known for its lack of grammatical gender. While the language does have a rather intricate system of declension, Armenian nouns do not carry gender – and that goes for both classical as well as modern Armenian. Thus, the third-person singular pronoun "նա" ("na") is used for "he," "she," and "it". While they have implicitly gendered words such as "տղա" ("woman") or "մարդ" ("man"), as well as a feminine suffix (-ուհի "-uhi") that can be attached to nouns (ուսուցիչ "teacher" vs. ուսուցչուհի "female teacher"), it has no grammatical effect on the sentence whatsoever.
🇬🇪 Georgian
Just like its neighboring language, Georgian, or kartuli ena, lacks any grammatical gender system. Georgian nouns, such as "კაცი" ("k'atsi" for "man") and "ქალი" ("q'ali" for "woman"), do not have inherent gender properties. The third person singular pronoun "ის" ("is") is used for "he," "she," or "it," maintaining gender neutrality within the language.
🇲🇾 Malay (Bahasa Melayu)
Malay does not make use of grammatical gender. Most words for family members, professions, and so on do not distinguish between sexes E.g. "adik" means younger sibling of any sex, and "orang" means "person", while "dia" refers to both "he" and "she".
💡 Fun fact: In Bahasa Indonesia, the word "pacar" refers to both boyfriend and girlfriend. In Danish, you also have the gender-neutral expression "kæreste" in this case. Do you know any other languages where such terms exist?
🇹🇿 Swahili
Swahili is a Bantu language spoken in East Africa and it also maintains gender neutrality in its grammar. Swahili nouns do not inherently carry gender distinctions, and whether you're referring to "mwanaume" (man) or "mwanamke" (woman), the third-person singular pronoun "yeye" includes the terms "he," "she," or "it". While the language has an extensive grammatical gender system, it is usually called "noun classes" as it does not refer to natural sex.
🇮🇷 Farsi / Persian
Persian is mainly spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan, and it is another language devoid of grammatical gender. In Persian, nouns, like "مرد" ("mard" for "man") and "زن" ("zan" for "woman"), don't have inherent gender attributes. The third-person singular pronoun "او" ("ū") can be used to refer to "he," "she," or "it" and even loanwords from Arabic that might have the gendered ending -a (ـة) becomes the genderless -e (ـه) in Farsi.
🇯🇵 Japanese
Japanese stands out for its minimal use of gender. While there are words that specifically refer to males and females, such as "男" ("otoko" for "man") and "女" ("onna" for "woman"), or gendered pronouns, "彼" ("kare") for "he" and "彼女" ("kanojo") for "she", these are not typically used as grammatical markers.
💡 Fun fact: the Japanese language is a peculiar case that rather obviously highlights how gender is far from only embedded in grammar. It is ingrained in our mannerisms and ways of speaking – what words we choose. In Japanese, they often distinguish between 男言葉 and 女言葉 – male speech and female speech.
The Historical Context
Languages with no gender have always existed. In most cases, we assume that they have simply undergone a very distinct path of development and the reasons for their inherent gender neutrality are rather diverse – maybe even inexplicably.
Other languages underwent specific language reforms. One such example is Turkish. In the early 20th century, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, founder of modern Turkey, aimed to modernize and simplify the Turkish language by removing Arabic and Persian loanwords and, importantly, eliminating grammatical gender distinctions. Atatürk was a strong believer in promoting equality and inclusivity in Turkish society.
The connection between Gendered Language and Equality
So does more gender-neutral language rewire our minds for us to erase our biased opinions on gender and societal norms? When looking at the GII (Gender Inequality Index) developed by the UNDP, there is nothing that truly supports the claim. We do see that gender-neutral languages tend to be both at the top and at the bottom of the ranking. At the same time, it is almost virtually impossible to prove or disqualify claims for or against.
Let's Sum It up
Even having a discussion about gendered vs. non-gendered languages can help offset a debate about gender inclusivity and challenge traditional gender stereotypes. The absence of grammatical gender in these languages – Chinese, Finnish, Estonian, Danish, Swedish, Hungarian, Basque, Armenian, Turkish, Swahili, Malay, Persian, Japanese, and Georgian – demonstrates the remarkable linguistic variety that exists across vastly different cultures.
As societies continue to advance towards greater gender inclusivity, it will without a doubt be interesting to observe the role of language. These languages not only challenge the conventional notions of gender embedded in grammar but also showcase how we may or may not be able to adapt our languages to the future.
Comments