Why do some languages use gendered nouns? It seems to just add more complexity for no benefit.

  • cali_ash
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    4
    ·
    10 months ago

    How do they make things easier? (Asking as a German).

      • cali_ash
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        edit-2
        10 months ago

        I agree that German is concise. I just don’t see what the gendered nouns are contributing to that quality or any other one.

        • Lath@kbin.social
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          10 months ago

          Who said anything about gendered nouns? The question was about greater complexity making things easier.
          In my eyes, the German language achieves that.

          • cali_ash
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            3
            ·
            10 months ago

            Who said anything about gendered nouns?

            The title of this post is “Why do some languages use gendered nouns?” …

              • cali_ash
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                2
                ·
                edit-2
                10 months ago

                But that comment is in response to a another comment that is direclty about the title … did you just forgot the context of the entire conversation only 2 replies in?

                • Lath@kbin.social
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  arrow-down
                  1
                  ·
                  10 months ago

                  Why would I care about context? Comment had a question, I had an answer. Problem solved.
                  Context is unimportant.

      • raef@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        10 months ago

        Sometimes more specific (sometimes. Verbs carry some widely different meaning and depend on propositions to differentiate), but not always more concise. If you’ve done or compared German-English translations, you see the English is always shorter, both in word and—especially in—character counts. My experience has been usually about 20, up to 30, percent.