Re: Genders (was Re: Láadan and woman's speak_

"J. Barefoot" wrote:
>
> >From: Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...>
>
> >Any feature of language can evolve from the absence, a caseless language
> >can develop cases, and a genderless language can evolve gender.  Exactly
> >where gender comes from isn't completely agreed-upon, but probably
> >evolves from classifiers.  So, my idea was a language that had no gender
> >(possibly having lost another gender system in the past) developed a
> >gender system based upon things like electric/non-electric.
> >
>
> Hello again everyone. I'm home for the summer (the whole summer, sigh) and
> now officially delurking.
>
> Perhaps if the Internet continues in this manner and takes a prominent,
> permanent place in English-speaking cultures (and lots of other cultures,
> I'm sure), English could develop a gender distinction "cyberspace/real
> world" based on the classifier /i/- . Just a thought.
Definitely maybe. To me, and many people I know, the e- prefix smacks of
irritating advertizing and corporate jargon, beyond the word "e-mail".
I'd probably woudn't accept that sort of distinction. Of course, I'm not
the world, and it could very well become a gender distinction, though it
would take quite a while, I'd imagine.

--
Robert