08-06-2026, 09:02 PM
The idea that structures in one's native language may influence world view is called "linguistic relativity". It's highly controversial, and experiments indicating a connection are, let's say, hard to replicate.
Standard Dutch has all but turned into a two-gender system (one being for male and female, the other for neutral). But my dialect still grammatically differentiates between male and female in addition to neutral. This is why many Flemish speakers still have an intuitive grasp of grammatical male vs female, which other dialects have lost.
"Dog" is male. When some older friends of mine were talking about their newly adopted female dog, I remember them saying "he's on his period". Just to say, speakers of gendered languages are able to completely separate grammatical gender from biological gender. From my experience, grammatical gender does not influence my interpretation or representation of the world at all.
Either way, it's very shaky ground to build a theory on. It should be much more solid to look at traditional representations in the arts. If you find that [thing] is generally represented by female personifications, then you have your answer.
Standard Dutch has all but turned into a two-gender system (one being for male and female, the other for neutral). But my dialect still grammatically differentiates between male and female in addition to neutral. This is why many Flemish speakers still have an intuitive grasp of grammatical male vs female, which other dialects have lost.
"Dog" is male. When some older friends of mine were talking about their newly adopted female dog, I remember them saying "he's on his period". Just to say, speakers of gendered languages are able to completely separate grammatical gender from biological gender. From my experience, grammatical gender does not influence my interpretation or representation of the world at all.
Either way, it's very shaky ground to build a theory on. It should be much more solid to look at traditional representations in the arts. If you find that [thing] is generally represented by female personifications, then you have your answer.