I know a lot of languages have some aspects that probably seem a bit strange to non-native speakers…in the case of gendered words is there a point other than “just the way its always been” that explains it a bit better?
I don’t have gendered words in my native language, and from the outside looking in I’m not sure what gendered words actually provide in terms of context? Is there more to it that I’m not quite following?
gendered words, plural agreement, conjugations, declensions were all forms of “parity checking” for spoken languages – ways to make sure you were accurately hearing what had been spoken
as writing systems advanced, languages started to drop some of these forms when the written word was considered to be an “accurate” representation – ex. you can see this happening in the transition from Old English → Middle English → Modern English