How language shapes gender

Linguistics is an amazing field because it constantly keeps throwing at us unexpected connections that unravel deep insights about our society.

How do our languages shape the way we make sense of the world? How is gender treated by different societies and cultures in India?

This video is a distillation of months of research on anthropology, sociology, and linguistics attempting to put a jigsaw together. Ties together the stories of Hindi, Sanskrit, Tamil, Telugu, Marathi, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Assamese, Bengali, Odia, Khasi, Bhoti, Garo and Mundari.



REFERENCES

Watch More India in Pixels:

India in Pixels is documentation of Ashris' explorations of combining art, research, and technology to tell stories about India - heavily based on his interests in linguistics, data, maps, and more.

[iip]

Thank you everyone for your appreciation and feedback, this was a very dear topic close to my heart and I only hope I was able to do justice to the topic and all your beautiful languages.

Some corrections based on your feedbacks:

1. Nepali is indeed a gendered language! It was a mistake on my part to include it in genderless languages. I should have known as Pahari, Kumaoni, Garhwali and Nepali are all from the same family and it is unlikey that only Nepali would be genderless. Apologies for this one.

2. Dog is a living being, not a non living being as the video says 😅 apologies to the wonderful doggos 🐶

3. It's not Noi, it's Nodi in Bangla, that was a typo.

4. It's taazhe in MalayaLam and not taaLe

Thank you for being so amazing. Love you all 💖😘

[bhargavbhatt]

His voice and narration make it feel like having conversation with a friend (though highly knowledgeable)

[grayknight]

Being a Bengali with strict parents, I always talked to my female friends in Bengali, so my parents wouldn't know if I was talking to a female friend or a male friend.

[katechiconi]

As a native English speaker, it certainly looks as if learning Bengali would be the easiest option from a structural point of view. of course, pronunciation would be another matter altogether! This was very clearly and intelligently explained, thank you.

[thatajml]

I'm Keralite, living in Tamil Nadu, I selected Hindi as a second language in class ten and I was completely perplexed by words changing according to gender 😬 eventually I got a hang of it and now I'm okay with it😂

[LabourLawAdvisor]

Mind = Blown !
This has to be most content rich video I had ever seen. People complete PhD / Masters thesis with less.

[nehaamishraa]

THIS GUY DOES HIS RESEARCH MAKES EVERYONE FALL IN LOVE WITH THEIR OWN LANGUAGE AS WELL AS LANGUAGES FROM ALL OVER INDIA❤️ i really appreciate it :)))

[ssjblckgohn]

I can't imagine the amount of research u have put into making these kind of informative videos .
😀👌👌

[rpt]

Can we take a min to appreciate his You speak like a native speaker. I'm not sure about other languages but the way you spoke Odia was legit, as a Odia I'll say, "Tame bahut bhala kahila bhai."😅😊 And all these information is so rich. Thank you buddy.

[Huntul_puntul]

Being a Bengali, I still make mistakes in gender while speaking Hindi, even when I have learnt the language 15 years ago.

Mothertongue influences us in ways much more than we can comprehend.

I feel so blessed to have been born in such a diverse country like ours.🙃❤

[it_g__riturajburnwal]

I am a Hindi speaker living in Bengal who was never able to actually figure out why Bengalis tend to mix up genders while speaking Hindi. It has been for the first time in around 17 years of speaking Bengali that I have actually realised that it's a gender neutral language causing obvious confusion in the minds of native Bengalis....all thanks to you 😌😌.

[oishipal]

you know there's something wrong when you feel emotional because no one's talked to you as nicely as the speaker here did

[White_ranger-pl]

I'm a Bengali and you were right that we do have gender issues when communicating in Hindi....u were bang on about what ever u said. Best wishes and keep up the good work 👍👍

[jinslostsister]

Being from Meghalaya... i truly appreciate the fact that you also talked about Khasi and Garo... A lot of people are unaware of these languages and their unique culture... Thank you so much for this Amazing & informative video !

[lyricsassam]

You brought tears to my eyes brother. I am an Axomiya, never heard such brilliant pronounciation by any other non Assamese speakers. And when you said Axomiya. Bro...❤️❤️❤️

[noirdezzir]

Bonus Fun fact: Han Chinese names tell you almost nothing about the person, not even gender. From most Indian names, you will instantly know gender, religion, region, caste, etc. This has huge implications.

[infidreamer]

As a Tamil and linguist, let me say I really appreciate how you pronounce the name of my language! Most north Indians seem to struggle with it

[suvamoybanerjee]

When u mentioned bengali and odia people gets confused about the usage of gender in hindi verbs smile came out of my lips cause it's so damn true... Btw your knowledge and research in different language family deserves respect...

[saswatimukherjee]

"My two quirky angels" literally brought a huge smile on my lips😌

[mallikamallika]

Telugu is one of the earliest languages to have separated from the Proto-Dravidian, perhaps long before this family of languages could fully evolve a gender & number system. So afterwards, Telugu developed a part of it on its own. That’s why the Telugu’s gender & number system is a little different from other languages in the same family. For example, notice that other Dravidian languages have two plural suffixes [kaḷ for objects and ar/aru for humans] while Telugu has just one [lu] for all. Does that mean that Telugu insults humans?

(Some assume that lu evolved from kaḷ . But I think that both forms could simultaneously have existed in Proto-Telugu as well as Proto-Dravidian. But lu disappeared in other languages).

I personally guess that long long ago, Telugu used to have a separate set of verb forms to describe the female action. They used to end in ‘తి’ (ति) instead of the present ‘ది’ (दि). For example :

వచ్చుచున్నతి (वच्चुचुन्नति) - She is coming.

వచ్చుచున్నది (वच्चुचुन्नदि) - It is coming.

వచ్చినతి (वच्चिनति) - She came.

వచ్చినది (वच्चिनदि) - It came.

In course of time, తి (ति) merged into the pronunciation of ది (दि). Then onwards, the gender distinction between the Telugu feminine verbs and neuter verbs got erased, finally culminating in what we are left with now.

What is this ‘తి’ (ति) unknown to any modern Telugu person, scholar or linguist? It is the same as the ‘తి’ (ति)we find in the end of the nouns and pronouns like ఒక్కతి, ఎవత్తి (ओक्कति, ऎवत्ति) etc. If there is an interrogative pronoun called ‘ఎవత్తి’ (ऎवत्ति), compulsorily there must be an affirmative pronoun too, like అవత్తి, ఇవత్తి (अवत्ति, इवत्ति) etc. Not only that, the end-తి (ति) must also be the ending of related verb forms, just like it happens with other Dravidian verb forms.

For example :

[TAMIL] அவள் வந்தாள் = అవళ్ వందాళ్ = अवळ् वंदाळ् - She came.

அவர் வந்தார் = అవర్ వందార్ = अवर् वंदार् - He (honorific) came.

அவன் வந்தான் = అవన్ వందాన్ = अवन् वंदान् - He came.

Plz Notice the ள், ர், ன் (ళ్, ర్ and న్/ ळ्, र् and न्) which are common to the endings of the pronouns and the related verb forms. Telugu is on the same page with Tamil in this aspect.

For example :

[TELUGU] అది వచ్చుచున్నది = अदि वच्चुचुन्नदि - It is coming.

వారు వచ్చుచున్నారు = वारु वच्चुचुन्नारु - They are coming.

వాఁడు వచ్చుచున్నాఁడు = वाँडु वच्चुचुन्नाडु - He is coming.

Plz Notice the ది, రు, డు (दि, रु, डु) which are common to the endings of pronouns and the related verb forms.

CONCLUSION : So, ancient Telugu must separately have had both pronouns and verb forms ending in తి (ति) for describing the feminine.

I commented about this on the instagram post which you posted long ago too.