2min chapter

Long Now: Seminars About Long-term Thinking cover image

Lera Boroditsky: How Language Shapes Thought

Long Now: Seminars About Long-term Thinking

CHAPTER

The Pervasive Effect of Grammatical Gender on Language

Grammatical genders differ from language to language. The word for the sun is feminine in German, masculine in Spanish. David Sedaris has this wonderful essay about how he was frustrated by learning French grammatical gender so much that he decided to refer to everything in the plural. You don't have a lot of opportunity to forget what grammatical gender things are in Russian. A very pervasive feature of language.

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