Re: Grammatical Gender

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Rick McCallister <gabaroo6958@...> wrote:

> My understanding is that only IE, AA and Khoi-San have grammatical gender

No. Possibly associated with IE and AA we have Dravidian (allegedly also Nostratic) and NE Caucasian (apparently connected with IE in some fashion, possibly as a neighbour). Ket (Yeniseian) might also belong here.

Further afield, we have Algonquian (animate v. inanimate), Dyirbal (Australian, 4 genders) and, dare I suggest, Bantu.

There are also several cases where unrelated languages seem to have copied gender from neighbouring languages.

Richard.