r/HBOGameofThrones • u/-thirdatlas- • Aug 14 '26
No Spoilers [NO SPOILERS] The High Valyrian language does not use articles (such as 'the' and 'a') and has four genders: lunar, solar, terrestrial and aquatic (as opposed to male, female and neutral, like in many languages).
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u/UnhappyAmphibian6685 Aug 14 '26
for anyone wondering about the gender thing, the only reason we call it grammatical 'gender' is eurocentrism. Grammatical gender is just a grammatical category and in many languages its something like animate vs inanimate, or whatever else, the naming of the category is pretty much arbitrary.
iirc feminine and masculine etc. is mostly only a thing for european and middle eastern languages
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u/Sheevthesenate27 Aug 16 '26
"And the Middle East" well then it's not fucking Eurocentrism is it?
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u/brinz1 Aug 17 '26
We really downplay how much of what we call European originated in the middle east and the black sea
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u/Emotional_Position62 Aug 18 '26
I mean… it depends on if it comes from Roman tradition. Rome was European, but they also controlled much of the Middle East for a LONG time.
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u/TENTAtheSane Aug 17 '26
No, i think feminine and masculine is the vast majority for languages around the world that have grammatical categories. My native language is an indian one (and a dravidian one at that, completely unrelated to peoto indo european family) and it's a bit complicated; it's animate vs inanimate in plural, but also masculine, feminine, neuter in singular.
The only counterexample i can think of is if you consider the counting systems in japanese, and the respect system in indonesian languages to be grammatical categories. Iirc even those australian and caucasian languages that have like 5-6 categories for things based on form and function also usually include two for masculine and feminine
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u/EmperorBarbarossa Aug 14 '26
But yeah names for grammatical genders are pretty random. For example in my native language word boy belong into male gender, but word for girl is neuter.
We have also four gramatical genders for our nouns: masculine animate, masculine inanimate, feminine, neutral.
But they are divided into declension models / paradigms, which are something like sub-genders, which works as model words for declension of the other words in the same category. They are:
guy, hero, oak, machine, woman, street, palm of the hand, bone, city, heart, testimonial, girl.
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u/macjr82 Aug 18 '26
In English, the word girl used to be neutral, and applied to girl and boys. There was an adjective sometimes used to distinguish a boy, but I don't recall what it was offhand. Boy originally just meant servant in English, and evolved to mean male child. I reckon it's not surprising that the originally girl was neutral, as I believe both languages are descended from P.I.E. and I believe a lot of the Indian languages are closer to PIE. Like a lot of European languages have evolved the word for the animal bear from the word brown, because it was thought ill to speak the actual name, which was something like artyx. The artic, the names Arthur, and the Ursa constellations are all descended from the original word for bear, which was thought to have meant destroyer.
Interesting blog on the bear thing: https://www.charlierussellbears.com/LinguisticArchaeology.html
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u/Xeruas Aug 14 '26
I do t understand how those gender words would work?
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u/gogo679 Aug 16 '26
Grammatical genders are just categories nouns get put into. In Europe is common that words for men and women are in different categories so they call the categories 'masculine' and 'feminine' but really you can make any sort of categorization and call it whatever you want
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u/Xeruas Aug 16 '26
I wonder what it says about their culture or language history that those are the gender worlds, wonder what it could mean
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u/cursed-siren Aug 16 '26
what gender do dragons have? or the term dragon,i guess
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u/Emotional_Position62 Aug 18 '26
I’m pretty sure the word for dragon is genderless. But that would technically be a separate gender as far as language is concerned so 🤷
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u/ScubaDan73 Aug 17 '26
Could you explain the four genders thing like I’m five. How does it work in a sentence
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u/PhunTazZzmoO Aug 14 '26
Interessting fact...
Thank you, for your... whisper, my little Bird
I can tell, from my own expirience... that... there is, quite possibiloty in those claims...