Gender in Latin and Beyond: A Philologist’s Take • Hacker News Board

Re: Gender in Latin and Beyond: A Philologist’s Take

#201

Post by goto11 » Sun, Oct 31, 2021, 9:26 AM UTC

leephillips wrote: post #192

goto11 wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A “non-binary” “gender” is just a noise with no idea attached to it. Are you talking about grammar here? Because in many (most?) languages gender is not binary.

I was replying to something. Just read the comment I was replying to. Also, yes, many languages have more than two genders. That’s a non-binary gender system. But no particular word in those languages is “non-binary”.

Words can certainly change gender over time or be non-gendered if that is what you mean. But it doesn't make any sense to say that a word is non-binary in a trinary gender system like in Latin.

Re: Gender in Latin and Beyond: A Philologist’s Take

#202

Post by vehemenz » Sun, Oct 31, 2021, 6:20 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #151

vehemenz wrote: post #37

This was such a great read. I am not a linguist, let alone a philologist, but I had this thought. The modern use of "gender" to mean social aspects of sex (or sex) and the historical use of "gender" to mean sex are still actively used. In a very real sense, these are exclusive and oppositional categories, so any ambiguous use of "gender" in contemporary English should be interpreted as auto-antonymal use. That is, de…

> The modern use of "gender" to mean social aspects of sex (or sex) and the historical use of "gender" to mean sex are still actively used. In a very real sense, these are exclusive and oppositional categories No, they aren't. They are distinct axes of variation, but not opposed. (There are factions which are opposed on normative relations between the two categories, with one holding that the physical category should…

> No, they aren't. They are distinct axes of variation, but not opposed.

I'm only talking about the usage of "gender." This an empirical linguistic question. Some people literally mean sex, others literally mean everything but. As a native English speaker, I see both frequently. Hop on Twitter and you can see both within 30 seconds. This doesn't preclude additional usages among laymen and academic disciplines.

In the sense that nature is the opposite of nurture, "gender" used in the "everything but" way is completely at odds with sex. Likewise when a male identifies their gender as "female" or as a "woman," we get a different understanding of their gender depending on the meaning of "gender" used. At best we might say that male isn't quite the opposite of female, but in terms of reproduction, those are the exclusive roles.

I feel satisfied enough to call these meanings opposites, and "gender" looks similar enough to other auto-antonyms. We have two very different evaluations of "gender" that can shift the meaning of an entire sentence to mean the opposite thing.

Re: Gender in Latin and Beyond: A Philologist’s Take

#203

Post by vehemenz » Sun, Oct 31, 2021, 6:59 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #129

vehemenz wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bad faith might be part of it. I think bad faith is more conducive when neither side of an argument are able to communicate clearly enough for the other. If that's the case, then a better understanding of English is the remedy, not formulating needlessly metaphysical conceptions of gender. But I still think there is more going on. The subject in question is gender and gender identity. To begin with, even educated fol…

> But I still think there is more going on. The subject in question is gender and gender identity. To begin with, even educated folks operating in good faith do not have a particularly coherent account of either. I think there is a common, clear, useful model of both what descriptively exists and what the two main factions prefer normatively: Given: that there exist actual physical differences between people, and Giv…

Thank you for breaking it down. One objection I might raise in your "given" statements is that the categories we use are not all on equal footing. I think the modern idea of gender identity seems to require dualism—a deeply implausible position—but that's a much longer conversation.

Ultimately I agree that we are making decisions about language. I might break it down differently, as follows.

1. Language about how we identify differences should be useful and effective communicate public facts that are socially salient. Sex is public information and highly salient for courting and reproduction, the basis for most human societies' social organization and primary motivators of behavior.

2. Language about how we identify differences should be self-determined, not based on external facts about the world, and should primarily serve the dignity of the individual. An individual's gender is not society's business, unless they say it is.

If someone has a better formulation of 2, I'd be open. I admit it feels a bit strawman-ish.