Re: Láadan and woman's speak

On Mon, 22 May 2000, Barry Garcia wrote:

> Hmm very good thought there ;). I was thinking the same thing, either the
> gender system developed later, or it was a scientific language that was
> adapted by the public. Perhaps the need for a distinction came because
> people and technology are so linked together?
Hmm... Where do genders come from?  Very good question.  At least in what
I've read so far, Corbett talks about how pronouns might evolve into
gender agreement markers, and how nouns might evolve into classifiers
which might in turn evolve into gender agreement markers, but I don't know
how a language "chooses" what a gender system is going to look like.  How
do they grow?  Interesting question!