How language shapes gender 

Thank you everyone for your appreciation and feedback, this was a very dear topic close to my heart and I only hope I was able to do justice to the topic and all your beautiful languages. Some corrections based on your feedbacks: 1. Nepali is indeed a gendered language! It was a mistake on my part to include it in genderless languages. I should have known as Pahari, Kumaoni, Garhwali and Nepali are all from the same family and it is unlikey that only Nepali would be genderless. Apologies for this one. 2. Dog is a living being, not a non living being as the video says 😅 apologies to the wonderful doggos 🐶 3. It's not Noi, it's Nodi in Bangla, that was a typo. 4. It's taazhe in MalayaLam and not taaLe Thank you for being so amazing. Love you all 💖😘

His voice and narration make it feel like having conversation with a friend (though highly knowledgeable)

Being a Bengali with strict parents, I always talked to my female friends in Bengali, so my parents wouldn't know if I was talking to a female friend or a male friend.

I'm Keralite, living in Tamil Nadu, I selected Hindi as a second language in class ten and I was completely perplexed by words changing according to gender 😬 eventually I got a hang of it and now I'm okay with it😂

Can we take a min to appreciate his accent..... You speak like a native speaker. I'm not sure about other languages but the way you spoke Odia was legit, as a Odia I'll say, "Tame bahut bhala kahila bhai."😅😊 And all these information is so rich. Thank you buddy.

Mind = Blown ! This has to be most content rich video I had ever seen. People complete PhD / Masters thesis with less.

As a native English speaker, it certainly looks as if learning Bengali would be the easiest option from a structural point of view. of course, pronunciation would be another matter altogether! This was very clearly and intelligently explained, thank you.

My Bengali dad never used to get angry at us growing up no shouting no thappads, cooked and packed our school lunch while mom helped us get ready, always jokes around and smiles often, tells us he loves us, still dances in the rain, let me go to another state for my university and now I’m doing my masters in a foreign country and he has always been supportive. Sure I didn’t need any financial help cuz full board scholarship but I’ve seen my childhood friends whose dads wouldn’t remember their freaking birthdays much less let them leave to study elsewhere…. So if Bengali men are considered effeminate men and they are like this I’d gladly mingle with effeminate men. You don’t need wartime leaders in peacetime….

As a Tamil and linguist, let me say I really appreciate how you pronounce the name of my language! Most north Indians seem to struggle with it

You brought tears to my eyes brother. I am an Axomiya, never heard such brilliant pronounciation by any other non Assamese speakers. And when you said Axomiya. Bro...❤️❤️❤️

"My two quirky angels" literally brought a huge smile on my lips😌

I'm a Bengali and you were right that we do have gender issues when communicating in Hindi....u were bang on about what ever u said. Best wishes and keep up the good work 👍👍

I was born and raised in the U.S.A. my parents are gujju and i picked up speaking gujarati and a little bit of hindi. but i didnt realize just how diverse all the languages are in terms of structure within India. I have Bengali and Bangladeshi friends but had no idea Bangla is gender neutral! So many south indian friends yet no clue how the genders of those languages worked as well. Truly informative and oh so fascinating. And seems like your accent for all the languages was pretty spot on too. Loved this video, im so glad it was randomly recommended to me!

you know there's something wrong when you feel emotional because no one's talked to you as nicely as the speaker here did

I am a Hindi speaker living in Bengal who was never able to actually figure out why Bengalis tend to mix up genders while speaking Hindi. It has been for the first time in around 17 years of speaking Bengali that I have actually realised that it's a gender neutral language causing obvious confusion in the minds of native Bengalis....all thanks to you 😌😌.

Being a South Indian who can speak kannada, Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam. I must say this video has made me much more aware than experience. Wonderful way of explaining this with respect to the sub continent. Must've taken a lot of effort, well done brother!

Love how you pronounce all the Tamil sentences perfectly

Being a Bengali, I still make mistakes in gender while speaking Hindi, even when I have learnt the language 15 years ago. Mothertongue influences us in ways much more than we can comprehend. I feel so blessed to have been born in such a diverse country like ours.🙃❤

THIS GUY DOES HIS RESEARCH MAKES EVERYONE FALL IN LOVE WITH THEIR OWN LANGUAGE AS WELL AS LANGUAGES FROM ALL OVER INDIA❤️ i really appreciate it :)))

As a malayali, the concept of gendered objects was confusing for me too. Plus, it's so hard to remember which is which, Malayalam seems much more efficient. Bengali and Odia even more so

I'm an anthroplogist by study and this is a very good explanation of things. Well done! That's why it's important to protect isolated, endangered languages because when a language dies so does an entire world view.

When u mentioned bengali and odia people gets confused about the usage of gender in hindi verbs smile came out of my lips cause it's so damn true... Btw your knowledge and research in different language family deserves respect...

I can't imagine the amount of research u have put into making these kind of informative videos . 😀👌👌

Can't believe the way you pronounced all the languages correctly like you know all of this very well😃,,as an odia girl I really like the way you pronounced the sentences as liked a odia boy😀and as a proud Indian,, I'm so grateful🥺💕🙏🏻that I born in a heavenly place in earth i.e my beloved bharat🇮🇳🥰who holds so many different cultures,languages, traditions,festivals & maintaining unity in diversities😍❤️...keep it up bhaiya🙌🏻,,you really did a good job👏🏻💫

@10:19 Telugu gender categorization is very unique...it treats real life things as masculine and non masculine things..This is because the culture treats the nature/environment/creation as feminine in nature.

Being from Meghalaya... i truly appreciate the fact that you also talked about Khasi and Garo... A lot of people are unaware of these languages and their unique culture... Thank you so much for this Amazing & informative video !

Bonus Fun fact: Han Chinese names tell you almost nothing about the person, not even gender. From most Indian names, you will instantly know gender, religion, region, caste, etc. This has huge implications.

I know Mundari, Odia, Hindi, Bengali and english languages and you have spoken the words of each of these languages fluently. 😲 Your voice is very nice...

As a sociologist myself, this was one of the most enlightening videos to watch. Korean for example, although not an Indian language, has a whole set of honorofic terms to be used, when speaking to someone older or of a higher authority. This explains why they're some of the most respectful, disciplined and punctual people in the world!

All Indian languages are wholesome. Must be protected.

12:50 Somebody: Everybody should be treated equally! Bangla, Odia , Maithali ,etc: Wish granted!👍

I’m a Bengali from Assam and trust me bro you spoke both the language perfectly. The pronunciation is exactly the same… Basically the non-Assamese can’t pronounced the “x” sound but you did very well

At 9:18 you talk about mango and it's gender. In Marathi, unripe mango is called Kairi. Ripe mango is amba. And Kairi is feminine. Amba is masculine. So as a fruit ripens in Marathi, it undergoes gender transition. Even in marathi the same sentence for unripe mango will be kairi Khali padli just like Gujarati.

As a native Tamil in the US I was very suprised by your perfect Tamil pronounciation awesome job!

I'm Bengali and have been questioning my gender for the past year, but when that sudden realization hit me that my language doesn't have any grammatical gender I felt so good :] (btw, I use they/them + neos!)

17:37 the quote is taken by most people without any context. As a person who is in touch with SwamiJi's work, I can confirm that he DID NOT meant it like that and he WAS NOT influenced by the western male standards. He told many times to strengthen our mind. Also he was one of the best students in his academic career. He actually meant that we can learn many things like brotherhood, hardwork etc from Geeta but we can experience those things irl by playing football.

I just want to mention and appreciate the extra effort you have taken in learning to pronounce so many words and phrases from all the different languages spoken in a perfect manner. Kudos to you!

Telugu is one of the earliest languages to have separated from the Proto-Dravidian, perhaps long before this family of languages could fully evolve a gender & number system. So afterwards, Telugu developed a part of it on its own. That’s why the Telugu’s gender & number system is a little different from other languages in the same family. For example, notice that other Dravidian languages have two plural suffixes [kaḷ for objects and ar/aru for humans] while Telugu has just one [lu] for all. Does that mean that Telugu insults humans? (Some assume that lu evolved from kaḷ . But I think that both forms could simultaneously have existed in Proto-Telugu as well as Proto-Dravidian. But lu disappeared in other languages). I personally guess that long long ago, Telugu used to have a separate set of verb forms to describe the female action. They used to end in ‘తి’ (ति) instead of the present ‘ది’ (दि). For example : వచ్చుచున్నతి (वच्चुचुन्नति) - She is coming. వచ్చుచున్నది (वच्चुचुन्नदि) - It is coming. వచ్చినతి (वच्चिनति) - She came. వచ్చినది (वच्चिनदि) - It came. In course of time, తి (ति) merged into the pronunciation of ది (दि). Then onwards, the gender distinction between the Telugu feminine verbs and neuter verbs got erased, finally culminating in what we are left with now. What is this ‘తి’ (ति) unknown to any modern Telugu person, scholar or linguist? It is the same as the ‘తి’ (ति)we find in the end of the nouns and pronouns like ఒక్కతి, ఎవత్తి (ओक्कति, ऎवत्ति) etc. If there is an interrogative pronoun called ‘ఎవత్తి’ (ऎवत्ति), compulsorily there must be an affirmative pronoun too, like అవత్తి, ఇవత్తి (अवत्ति, इवत्ति) etc. Not only that, the end-తి (ति) must also be the ending of related verb forms, just like it happens with other Dravidian verb forms. For example : [TAMIL] அவள் வந்தாள் = అవళ్ వందాళ్ = अवळ् वंदाळ् - She came. அவர் வந்தார் = అవర్ వందార్ = अवर् वंदार् - He (honorific) came. அவன் வந்தான் = అవన్ వందాన్ = अवन् वंदान् - He came. Plz Notice the ள், ர், ன் (ళ్, ర్ and న్/ ळ्, र् and न्) which are common to the endings of the pronouns and the related verb forms. Telugu is on the same page with Tamil in this aspect. For example : [TELUGU] అది వచ్చుచున్నది = अदि वच्चुचुन्नदि - It is coming. వారు వచ్చుచున్నారు = वारु वच्चुचुन्नारु - They are coming. వాఁడు వచ్చుచున్నాఁడు = वाँडु वच्चुचुन्नाडु - He is coming. Plz Notice the ది, రు, డు (दि, रु, डु) which are common to the endings of pronouns and the related verb forms. CONCLUSION : So, ancient Telugu must separately have had both pronouns and verb forms ending in తి (ति) for describing the feminine. I commented about this on the instagram post which you posted long ago too.

I'm a Bengali and I always wondered about the fact that my language is gender neutral. Many Bengali people often make mistakes while assigning gender related words while speaking in Hindi. Also, there's more openness about LGBTQ topics in Bengal and Female empowerment is deep rooted in Bengali culture, which is beautifully reflected in the language.

I don't understand Hindi as a Sri Lankan Tamil and also a huge philology, archaeology and sciences nerd, I thoroughly enjoyed your content and understood everything you said in English. You integrate just the rights amount of English chunks for non Hindi speakers to be able to comprehend and enjoy your videos.❤

heartwarming to see the someone finally creating a linguistics video on rich languages on india and bringing exposure to this lesser-known, very interesting topic! really well made and explained

I loved how you said Oxomiya instead of Assamese. Huge respect :)

I as a linguist really enjoyed this video. So much information about Indian languages which I craved to know. Thank you so much for English subtitles though. I have only started to learn Hindi but, man, I like all of the languages and think about starting to learn some more! Thank you so much for doing such good research)

What an incredible video! Combining analysis of gender in a cultural context, the influence of colonialism, and the grammatical conventions of so many different South Asian languages from different language families! All of that, and the video is still quite short and easy to follow! I cannot commend you enough. I'm subscribing for sure!

I have fallen in love with this channel.... and specially this video....this person's voice, his research, his care for using proper accent and the beautiful narration together makes it one of the best videos in RU-vid on this particular topic 😍

As a Tamil, I can say that you pronounced tamil words in the best way that a non-tamil could say. Even the stress in letters like n and l. 🔥 Pronouncing zha in the right way is hard for some of us. You did good. Just some more practice would make your pronunciation as good as the best tamil speaker.

I loved this. I'm German and we have three genders. Children are neutral gender in German language. When I learned Italian it really annoyed me that children from the first day were assigned either male or female gender and that the male form is used even for female children, when speaking about children in general. I felt the Italian language was linguistically giving more importance to male humans. In English there's only one gender and that was interesting, too. Later I also learned Greek and that has three genders, just as German. I absolutely agree that the structure of each language has influence on how we perceive the world.

Observe him speaking different languages, he speaks very normaly, but in main stream media they made fun of all the languages by just showing funny tones ... Things are not the same as we always thinks ... Every Indian language has their own heroic nature ...

This is the best 19 minutes spent today by me. So beautifully and passionately discussed. ❤️

While I'm Speaking Tamil,Marati,Kannada and Hindi still I make mistakes because of this gender changes... Anyway I'm a Mallu Guy 👍

I seriously wasn't aware that I had watched 15 mins of the video until you asked for another 4 mins. Seriously man, I won't at all be hesitant to watch even 1 hr video uploaded by you...such is the level of research, originality and vibrancy in your videos. A Biggg Thank You for such a great video, I absolutely loved it ❤️

Such a well produced, impeccably researched, brilliantly voiced and expertly edited video! Fantastic job!

This is an appreciation comment for you to spell out the words from each language in their own accent, and almost it was precise! Kudos brother!! ❤

I'm a Malayali who learned English and Hindi in school. But I did find it harder to learn Hindi than English. I thought it was due to difference in exposure or something, but seeing this video I suddenly realised that it was because of the gendering of things and verbs in Hindi. We have pretty much the same 'gendering' words like he (avan), she (aval) and it (athu), and in English there is no change in the verbs with the gender just like in Malayalam. Then I started learning Hindi and it took me so many years to get a hang of the gendering stuff, and I still make a lot of mistakes. Because of this I still can't speak Hindi confidently even though the teachers in my school thought well for the 12 years I learned it

Being a Tamilian, more conservative places, we try to no use podi/ Aval for women (As these words are traditionally reserved for the Husband). Instead we use Agrinai pronoun which is considered more respectful. Uyardhinai/ Agrinai difference also seem to depend on the whether you are named. When we say a baby we use the neutral pronoun it. As soon as the child is refered with a name, we started associating with a Gender. This rule applies even to pets most of the time.

I've never seen anyone nailing every languages' pronounciation that good. Hats off to you!!!

This is hands down my favorite channel for indic content. You have definitely inspired me to learn linguistics and Indic languages. Keep up the great work!

Being a Malayalee, I always face difficulty in assigning gender to non-living things and changing your verb according to the gender of the subject. This video perfectly explains it. After moving to Karnataka, I am struggling to learn kannada, not because of its vocabulary, but the change of verb according to the gender of the subject. Same difficulty I face while using Tamil and Hindi too. Thank God English is free from that.

I am a Bangladeshi, this video was popping up in my recommendation. So, I decided to give a try and it's worth it. Even though I am a Bangladeshi, I grew up watching Hindi movies, shows and programs. That's why I can speak and understand hindi pretty well. And always, I have wondered about this gender thing. Now, after watching this video, I am proud of my mother tongue even more than before.

This video is worth gold and may help researchers understand differences in the society and world, even about how languages shape human behavior. Kudos to you for researching and creating it. Glad to have found your channel. 😊

I am a language teacher. I loved the research you've done and the easy representation. I'd really like to watch more videos on language, if you make them.

Hello I’m brazilian and I haven’t seen any brazilians commenting so far, portuguese is completely gendered between male and female (even when we talk about objects) and spanish and french also are. It was really cool to learn all those things about Indian languages, I would never have learnt that hadn’t I watched this video and it was very interesting learning about languages that treat objects and people differently than the ones I speak! Thank you, Ashris!

Funny thing about Chinese. It used to be totally and completely ungendered. Chinese still does not gender nouns, verbs or adjectives. But, in the 20th century as part of “modernization” they introduced gendered pronouns for he 他, she 她 and it 它 in writing. Gendered pronouns didn’t catch on verbally, and those three still sound the same in pretty much all variants of spoken Chinese. Prior to the 20th century, 他 could mean he, she or it, so if you don’t know what context to read something in, you might mistakenly believe 他 to be a man when 他 more likely refers to an object or a concept. Anyways, what makes old Chinese pronouns challenging isn’t gender but rather Chinese honorifics. Thankfully for Chinese learners, modernization really simplified the Chinese honorifics system.

Thanks for beautifully explaining the genders in Languages. Also I really appreciate so accurate pronunciation in Spanish, German and Hindi.

Your pronounciation of all the words in this video was just amazing! really great video mate!..

As a great proud Odia I discovered such a great variety in the diversity of genders in different languages। ମୁଁ ମୋ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷା ଉପରେ ଅତ୍ୟଧିକ ଗର୍ବିତ କାହିଁକି ନା ଆମ ଭାଷା କୌଣସି ଦ୍ରବ୍ୟ ଉପରେ ଲିଙ୍ଗର ଭେଦଭାବ ରଖି ନାହିଁ।ଓଁ ଜୟ ଜଗନ୍ନାଥ 🙏🙏

I was shocked when you spoke in Kannada, the accent was perfect, even in other languages too. My father is Bengali and my mom is Karnatakan, thanks to my parents who thought me the best of both cultures.

Cool video. There is an entire library of awesome educational videos made by Indian scholars that are slowly popping up on my youtube feed. I feel so proud when I watch these

That was so interesting. What glued me till the end of the video were your unbiased views and originality! Hats off to you, homie ❤

It is so true! When I was learning hindi in seventh standard.. I often made sentences containing both masculine and feminine words.. I was so confused as to why do hindi speakers have to differentiate so much😅😅

Fun fact: Telugu distinguishes between masculine and non masculine in singulars and human and non human in plurals to make it more confusing. Being a native Telugu speaker who has grown up in Bangalore learning to speak fluent kannada I never ever noticed this difference until recently lol. Hope you could add these in the other video thank youuu.

randomly got recommended this video, very surprised and pleased by just how good it was. I really like the way you explain concepts in detail and cover all the questions people are thinking at the right time. Good work, I subscribed!

Mind blown. As a Bangla and English speaker, I thought only germans and French has such gender indicated verbs and pronoun. I know a about gender dependent verbs of Hindi language. But this video opened my eyes wide. This topics has a especial place in my heart. I love your contents related to languages. Thanks ♥️

First of: I am beyond impressed with your pronunciation at least vis-a-vis Tamil. As a non-Tamilian, you really nailed it! This actually brings me to another point. As a native Tamilian, I've found it quite hard to manage genders in languages that assign masculine/feminine genders to non-living things. As you mentioned, language does indeed play a key role in shaping thought. An interesting case study for this comes in the perception of time. Most languages come under two classes when using adjectives to quantify time: using length-based adjectives (long/short) and using size-based adjectives (big/small). Being multilingual, I can sense my perception of a duration of time changing according to the language I'm communicating in. All this to basically say that there is a reason why progressive ideologies aim at reforming language because it does indeed shape the way we think about things. Loved the video, loved the conclusion, and loved the effort you put into it. Please keep them coming!

Excellent! Listened to it in full and enjoyed it. Came away much better informed about the languages of India.

Thanks a lot for making this video. I will share it with all my friends as they all speak different languages but united by English. We often have debate that how hindi speakers expect all other language speakers to know and be able to speak hindi. And they claim that hindi is a National language so whole of india should be fluent in it. But this video beautifully captures some intrinsic details of each language and how there can be hurdles learning another indian language. My personal option is that all languages are beautiful and deserve equal respect.

Hi, this video is incredibly well made. The amount of data you have collected, fact checked and compiled, and the effort you put into getting the pronunciations and accents right really shows through. There were very minor things I noticed which weren't perfect but at this point, that's just nitpicking. Thank you for this content! I clicked subscribe right away

Everybody was a gangster!😎 Until Sanskrit introduced Napunsakling in Gender classification!😱😂😂😂

As a Hindi learner, I LOVE that you speak clearly!!

🤯 this video was a mind blowing journey driven by the insight of your narrative. My first language is English. I also speak some Spanish, Hindi, Thamizh and Malayalam. It’s occurred to me much too often how languages shape culture, ethics, behaviours, values and politics. You nailed it - and also illustrated just how diverse Bharath/India actually is …lots of love and greetings 🙏🏽 from India 🇮🇳 South Africa 🇿🇦 Australia 🇦🇺 and the USA 🇺🇸 (I’m all these)

Bro, you combined my two favourite topics: languages and gender! This is such a well-made video 🥺💛 Also, the way you pronounce German and Spanish and Tamil and Axomiya...it's evident that you've put in work not just to bring out the intricacies of different languages but also how they are spoken by the natives. Loved the bit at the end as well. Completely agreed!

There's another point I'd like to add. In Assamese, the pronouns tai (she) and xi (he) are only reserved for people who are your equal or juniors, or someone who you're friends with. While referring to elders, seniors, authoritative figures or simply someone you don't know, "teo/tekhet" is used. Regardless of their gender. :)

My mind is blown!!! One of the most interesting and influential videos I have seen on this platform. Thank you @India in Pixels, for bringing this content.

You've done great research which is eye opening. Specially like your gender perceptions and analysis in different cultures & steered it near their political ideologies- just brilliant. More strength to you

As an Odia I always face problem with ki and ka in hindi. 😂

I'm not Indian, but I love learning about linguistics, and my language (Polish) is itself a very gendered language. Present tense verbs are not gendered, but past tense verbs are gendered - we also gender our adjectives and we even gender other nouns depending on who are you talking about and how they affect the things. This video was very interesting and very informing! I also liked that you partially spoke in English and partially in other languages, the same way that my household switches between English and Polish. Thank you c:

I LOVED IT !! It's like having all my observations being said out loud !

Great! A detailed analysis on our language, I'm not a student of linguistics but I love to know about different languages how they work actually, and your video precisely explained how a language can control our perspectives. Thanks for sharing your knowledge.😊

In Tagalog, we don't have grammatical gender. When we speak of the pronouns of English, we always say 'she' mistakenly instead of 'he' since it's near 'siya' which is our translation of 'her' in Tagalog. Also, its easier on the tongue too. What we do have that are close to grammatical gender are a bunch of loanwords with assigned gender from Spanish like 'labandera' laundry woman, or 'sorbetero' ice cream man. We can change the ending from the feminine '-a' to a masculine '-o' and vice versa but it always feels off since the words themselves have some psychologically-attached meaning and expectation that the one who does laundry is feminine or the one who sells ice cream is masculine.

Bro, it's ironic ( and beautiful ) ... you mention the differences in our languages and leave us more united than before, making us feel better about our language and admiring those of our neighbours, SIMULTANEOUSLY!!

That was really mind opening bro - I grew up in so many states and now countries that I don't have a fixed idea of my nationality or identity. Everyone wants me to choose a camp and fight while I don't feel like I belong in any of them. It is both liberating and isolating at the same time. In a time when the news and media talk about people, it is refreshing to talk about ideas on what makes people tick. Meta !!

Hey, you should definitely consider opening memberships. Your content is too good and I am sure there will be lots of people willing to support you.

To be honest in Bengal gender bissasss is also much much less than many other states..as you said, language is the representative of culture! Maybe that's why our Bengali men and women are both mostly poetic, soft and strong, no one has to be just a mountain or a river! All languages are beautiful ❣️ it's a fascinating thing to explore.. Great video man.. Mon vore galo🌻

As a native Tamil speaker and an NLP enthusiast, this video spoke to my soul! Man, your Tami'zh' is on point! Kudos! Love from Tamilnadu! ☺️❤️

You really blew my mind. I'm not exaggerating, this video really changed the way I look at the world. Thanks

This channel is so amazing. Your breakdown of linguistics in India and the politics associated with it is just *chef's kisses*. Learnt a lot from this video, lots of food for thought, I'm a fan now. Looking forward to more amazing videos!

In marathi we have, स्त्रीलिंग , पुलिंग , and नंपुसकलिंग

I am a Bengali . I learnt Hindi for 5 years but even now I confused about the gender of anything. Very confusing... 😅

I have always been searching for a channel like this which will show diversity of our culture and languages. Keep it up

Really love all your videos on linguistics! Really cool content that I haven’t really seen from anyone else, especially with the level of analysis you go into. Please keep it up! Best wishes to you going forward and thanks for sharing this with us :)