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Gender, Noun Class
GENDER & NOUN CLASSES
Proto-Dene-Sino-Caucasian had noun classes, marked with prefix *u- for male and *i- for female, while prefix *w-/*b-/*m- encompasses
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parts of the body, bodily fluids and some animals. Prefixes *r/*d cover more animals and natural phenomena with *s and *a.
This system is robust among the languages of the Northeast Caucasus, and far to the east where the Hindu Kush and Karakoram meet, and even in Siberia on the banks of Yenisei. Elsewhere relics of the class markers cling to Basque and Tibetan nouns.
The number of noun classes in Niger-Congo languages can reach 23. They accommodate male, female, animacy, inanimacy, places, plants, more animals, diminutives and abstractions.
On the other hand, Eurasiatic and Nilo-Saharan had no such thing, not even her or him. Only much later did some Nilotic tongues like Turkana and Bari pick them up from the banter of some witty or pedantic speakers of Afroasiatic. And the Indo-Europeans, no doubt wishing to be with-it or cool, acquired three genders in an act of excess!
So that leaves one family who’s kept him and her from the start – Afroasiatic in whose prototongue is proof.
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