Street signs, newspapers, friendly banter and Beware of Dog... every day, I'm deluged with symbols and sounds that tell me what to do, where to go and how to respond. Without language, I'd be lost. Gestures convey a lot of information, sure, but try explaining modal auxiliary verbs with nothing but your fingers.
As a Peace Corps volunteer, I'll be teaching English in a secondary school. I'm pretty confident in my expertise on the subject, being a native speaker and a writer by trade. But abroad? I'll need to master a new language. If I can't buy an onion at the market, I can't expect to hold a very meaningful conversation with my colleagues.
The Kyrgyz Republic has two official languages: Kyrgyz and Russian. The latter is spoken mainly in cities and in business. I've been studying both. In Russian, as in the Romance languages, all words are masculine, feminine or neuter. It distinguishes between men and women in most roles, e.g. businessman vs businesswoman. In Kyrgyz, however, there is only one word for he, she and it. There is no designation of a "chair" as male or female, as if an inanimate object has genitalia. Just one pronoun. So far, I haven't noticed many words beyond "mother" and "father" that explicitly assign gender to a person. As someone interested in sociolinguistics and gender roles, I'm beginning to fall in love with Kyrgyz.
How does having a genderless language affect society? Does it lead to more equality? Less? Is gender still expressed in some other way? I hope to find out.
I've heard that historically Kyrgyz men and women had fairly equal footing, with everyone participating in activities like horseback riding, hunting and animal husbandry. Today women hold advanced degrees and work in universities, hospitals and nongovernmental organizations, but they are also expected to marry early, raise children and tend the household more than men.
So maybe language isn't a strong influence on culture. But just for fun - what if English had no words for he or she, or man or woman? How would it change the way you interact with people on a daily basis? Would it matter if you had a waiter or a waitress? And why?
I expect a 300 page essay exploring this theme from every one of you. Annnd... go!
;)
p.s.
To the extent of my small knowledge, the intro says, "Hi! This is the Kyrgyz language." Please correct me if I'm wrong.
Hey Bryce... I hope you don't mind, but I saw your facebook suggestion the other to follow your blog and put it in my Google Reader.
ReplyDeleteOne of the things I've always wondered is whether people who speak languages that genderize all nouns have a tendency (compared to those who speak more gender-neutral languages) to ascribe traditionally feminine and masculine qualities to objects based on the gender of the word. e.g. Compared to an English speaker, do Spanish speakers consider a frog (la rana) more gentle than a cat (el gato)? People ascribe values to things based on all sorts of other arbitrary factors--handedness, the current temperature, etc.--so it would makes sense that word gender could be another. If that's the case, it would only makes sense that cultures who speak those languages would exaggerate gender differences between actual men and women, though it would be hard to distinguish the language effect from the countless other cultural factors at work.
As it is, even if "he" and "she" are necessary, we probably overuse gender specific terms in English. Is there really a substantive difference between a waiter and a waitress? Or an heir and an heiress? I don't see much value in adding gender to these sorts of descriptors.
Anyway, cool post... just thought I'd comment. It's an incredible thing you're doing, and I wish you safe travels and the best of luck picking up the new language and culture.
I don't mind at all!
ReplyDeleteI've also wondered about the qualities people ascribe to objects based on their gender, if any. Countries seem to be typically feminine - which reminds me of our English tendency to "she" things like cars and boats.
I'll have to find a native Spanish speaker and ask them if a frog seems more feminine than a cat. In German, a cat is feminine and a dog is masculine, which makes stereotypical sense to me.
Definitely, gender is unnecessary in job descriptions. Do we need them so employers can determine who to hire? Who to pay more? So restaurant-goers know who to flirt with?
It's great to hear from you, and thanks for the well wishes :)