How language shapes gender

Linguistics is an amazing field because it constantly keeps throwing at us unexpected connections that unravel deep insights about our society.
How do our languages shape the way we make sense of the world? How is gender treated by different societies and cultures in India?
This video is a distillation of months of research on anthropology, sociology, and linguistics attempting to put a jigsaw together. Ties together the stories of Hindi, Sanskrit, Tamil, Telugu, Marathi, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Assamese, Bengali, Odia, Khasi, Bhoti, Garo and Mundari.
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REFERENCES
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India in Pixels is documentation of Ashris' explorations of combining art, research, and technology to tell stories about India - heavily based on his interests in linguistics, data, maps, and more.
Follow my personal page at your own risk: Ashris

[@iip]

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 💖😘

[@aparajitadubey7831]

Thankyou so much for this! ❤️

[@adithyakrishnas2401]

In Malayalam thaazhe (ഴ) not thaale ള.

[@krsna753]

@@adithyakrishnas2401 i think it's quite hard to pronounce. I have seen so much people trying hard to study that pronounce.

[@gayatrimdas7653]

True! The zha is difficult to pronounce... I’d love to hear him try it tho

[@kirtidwivedi2453]

V informative

[@bhargavbhatt5839]

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

[@bruuu2026]

Oops btw u roasted ur friends 😅😅

[@sanchaitadas8015]

Yeah lol so trueee

[@umeshsatapathy8953]

Yep I agree, he is a voice charmer.

[@kalki3060]

he is the smart friend we all need

[@arnav6238]

Exactly

[@grayknight8986]

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.

[@theeternal6890]

lol

[@prathamjain4023]

@@sudiptoborun 😂😂😂

[@jitangshunath8714]

I am also a Bengali.

[@sparshdevsharma9714]

Mah man a fkn chad move

[@sanudapilapitiya6223]

That's useful and nice 😅😄😂

[@katechiconi]

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.

[@nmo3148]

If you are french Bengali is easy and vice versa. My French teacher couldn't get over my accent at tge beginning!

[@kakalimukherjee3297]

Yes, I agree. Bengali grammar is indeed very regular and easy. But on the other hand, Hindi has got way more utility.

[@normalweirdoboy3507]

@@kakalimukherjee3297 It's got more utility because we let it have more utility. If Indian Bengalis had been careful enough to preserve the status Bangla enjoyed at the time of independence, this pathetic condition of our culture would have never arised. They are too shy to speak their own language in front of other groups, even when conversing with a speaker of their own tongue. We have gone downhill culturally. But that can be changed, what we need is a linguistic revolution... If only it were so easy though... sighh... খুব দুঃখের বিষয়...

[@swaha222]

Well; can assure you It will not be. I mean there will be hardly any difference between Hindi/Bengali or anything. Why? cos the pain point comes not at the gender level; It comes in the structuring a sentence. bengali uses Noun+object+verb rather than Noun+Verb+object in English. And this will be THE pain point while learning Bangla or Hindi. ps- I am a native Bengali speaker from kolkata; with fluency in both English & Hindi.

[@gachi1297]

@@renegadepuppy You put it exactly how I see it! I’ve observed another example myself. Tagalog, my country’s national language, is similar to Spanish in the same sense that Ilokano, a regional language, is similar to Italian.

[@thatajml]

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😂

[@AllhaSuarwala]

Same case with me too. 😆 I'm from Odisha.. My 3rd language was Hindi in class 8 to 10 but it's genders are difficult to understand. Odia language doesn't have any gender rules. So It was very new for me.

[@jpivarski]

English was my first language, and French was my second, so I had the same confusion: English only has gendered pronouns, but French is a subjectively binary language like Hindi, Marathi, etc. (and like Spanish and German, examples from this video). Every noun is inexplicably male or female. I'm learning Hindi now, so grammatical gender is not as surprising as it was the first time, but there's another difference: gender must match between the noun (subject), verb, and any adjectives. In French (and all European languages, I think), gender only needs to match between the noun and adjectives, not the verb. And then Hindi only has यह and वह for pronouns, so you have to look at the verb to know whether the subject is male or female, rather than the pronoun! The business of including "your pronouns" must seem strange when you're coming from a language that doesn't work that way.

[@jpivarski]

Correction: there are some European languages in which the noun and verb have to agree on grammar: Russian does, but only in the past tense. Anyway, it's rare in Europe, but most of the example sentences in this video were showing agreement or non-agreement between nouns and verbs.

[@sunilkumar-ns5pl]

Which board did you studied ?.

[@jpivarski]

@@sunilkumar-ns5pl Which "board"? I didn't understand your question, so I did some web searches and learned about the ISC and CBSE. Now I know what you mean! Language education works differently in the United States. Where and when I grew up in the state of Massachusetts in the 1990's, was an optional course in high school (9th through 12th grades, the last 4 years of mandatory education). The four options were Spanish, French, German, and nothing at all, though taking a language course is generally considered a good idea for university admission. Spanish is more obviously useful in the United States, but my perception was that it wasn't taught as rigorously. Also, I really wanted to learn Latin, but it had been cancelled because the last Latin teacher in my school retired. Latin is a dead language to a much greater extent in Europe and the U.S. than Sanskrit in India. I took 5 years of French in high school (I was allowed to start a year early in middle school) and thought I was pretty good at it until I went to France. Many French speakers didn't even know that I was *attempting* to speak French. This is still true, even though I've spent quite a lot of time in France and Switzerland for work over the years. I went back to learning languages (for fun) on Duolingo when I decided that I didn't need to be able to talk to people; it would be enough for me to learn interesting facts about the grammar and how words are etymologically related to one another. I did the Haitian Creole course first because of its similarity to French and then started into Hindi because I have work colleagues in India and because it's the farthest branch on the Indo-European tree-I like the fact that some things are familiar and recognizable, but others aren't, and learning the history of how they got that way. Outside of Duolingo, I've made some Javascript tools for practice, use Wiktionary for etymologies, Google Translate, HiNative, and two textbooks. None of these are as formal as the ISC and CBSE. Even courses I took in high school are less formal because schools in the U.S. are organized by counties (smaller units within states), rather than nationally. And now I just noticed that your question is not indented; you were asking @Ala Ajmal Malik, not me! Sorry! But I've typed so much that I think I'll send this anyway, since I've written so much and maybe it's interesting. If not, ignore it. :)

[@oishipal3213]

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

[@iip]

😭😭😭 I want to send you a warm hug. I hope you are treated with love and care as you rightly deserve ❤️❤️❤️

[@oishipal3213]

@@iip STOPDSJS thats so nice of you😭 I hope so for you too and also i appreciate your work a lott

[@anmolpandey9670]

Rulaaegi kya pagli?😂😭

[@pandekratika]

I had the same thought plus his voice has such a calming effect 😇

[@Huntul_puntul]

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.🙃❤

[@Huntul_puntul]

@@gymjee9980 we have survived with different languages for thousands of years, we will survive thousands more. Let's just be positive and save our own cultures.🙂

[@somnathdas1582]

Same here being an Odia some time I use the wrong sentence while speaking hindi

[@radhekrishna4652]

@@Huntul_puntul No it was the cause of separation. In very past our language was sanskrit. The truth, philosophies, religion and knowledge which are absolute. Culture represents in which environment u live, like I speak gujarati but its mixed with english and bit hindi, my parents speak pure gujarati and my grandparents speaks desi dialect of gujarati. In future after several generations all this combination of gujarati, hindi and english will be their cultural. Not just in language but in everything as our world is changing at a very fast rate. So culture in present age is not absolute its changing. You people keep on saying that we should save our culture which adapting western culture somehow. I speak gujarati, marvadi, marathi, haryanvi, english and sanskrit. Out of all this I can tell sanskrit is very perfect and english is the worst of all, see the irony that I have to write this in english as we all are becoming part of culture that is not our own, I being a gujarati cannot talk to u in bengali we need english to communicate with each other. Look at china they have everything in mandarin their education, websites, communications, write systems etc. That is the reason despite having late start than western world they are very ahead same with Japan.

[@Huntul_puntul]

@@radhekrishna4652 culture based on religion was the cause of separation. Not language right? Also with the passage of time things have diluted, yes. But we still carry on with the same daily traditions at our homes everyday and speak in our mothertongue, even after using English in our workfront. I am as fluent in English as in Bengali, and I am able to read, speak and understand Hindi. What is the problem there then? There is no harm in learning multiple languages when we live in a global era. Earlier when Sanskrit was the prime language, world trade was very limited. The ancient Greeks learnt Sanskrit and we learnt Greek to trade between us. It is the same with English today. There is no harm according to me if we know or converse in English as long as we continue to know and use our mothertongue as much as we use English. P.S. I am a PhD scholar, and in our institute which is centrally funded, all of our verbal communication between scholars and professors occur in Bangla, be it informal or formal. And the written orders are passed in English and Hindi both. How balanced is that! I take pride in this.. Also I am currently learning Sanskrit for the sake of reading manuscripts as old as I can find. I hope soon I will be able to find the beauty of Sanskrit as you have found.🙂

[@adarsha3950]

Ha thik

[@saswatimukherjee3563]

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

[@lilithmallory3944]

Same

[@sagnik_20]

And we make same mistakes in gender again n again while speaking hindi 😅

[@rumamoitra3822]

I am bengali

[@BanerjeeBabu]

@Sagnik Banerjee Ikr same

[@hesusandventingg]

Yup have many frnds who makes mistakes in he and she while talking .😂Btw in our Gujarati if I am a boy the usage of he or she sometimes depends on situations. Sometimes she is used for a boys 😂

[@4rp1t4]

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.

[@drpriyeshmaharana]

He is an Odia sis...

[@soniya487]

I guess odia is easy to learn for hindi natives

[@anontaku1]

​@@drpriyeshmaharana bengali

[@mohanlalpremranjannaik107]

He is from western odisha and is fluent in odia and bangla

[@4rp1t4]

@@mohanlalpremranjannaik107 ooo i didn't know

[@jinslostsister8538]

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 !

[@joyid]

Are there few Rabha tribes in Meghalaya? I am a Rabha from Assam, BTR. I have read few Rabhas are scattered all around Meghalaya even Bangladesh. Just curious. 😂

[@jinslostsister8538]

@@joyid Yez there are Rabhas in Meghalaya... 😊

[@universeofopulence]

@@jinslostsister8538 ...well , wan means come in khasi I guess, which is same in Tamil, Spanish, Korean, chinese (few dialects), Cameroonian, Australian aboriginal languages..so surprising 😲

[@varunkhandelwal5956]

Yeahh actually I didnt even knw these language also exist in India Coooool

[@anotherone.]

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

[@meghnarajesh349]

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

[@jonathanalvinrays..7070]

@nothing nothing Really??? Then why learn Mandarin, Japanese, German, Spanish, French???

[@_Infocars]

@nothing nothing English is already that common language.

[@_Infocars]

@nothing nothing Your name

[@acommenter1255]

it is same in TAMIL too avan,aval,adhu😁

[@Uda_dunga]

let me clear one thing if any languages is having more words,verbs and all it would be easier to learn unlike english

[@White_ranger-p8l]

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 👍👍

[@mallikamallika5260]

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.

[@anikettandale7765]

You have your own good research 😉✌️

[@ಸಿಡಿ]

I'm Telugu and it makes me proud 😹😹, usually I never thought this type of female Gender తి existed once in Telugu !!

[@charithreddy23]

Your research Is really so logical and useful tysm for sharing it :")

[@achyutmurari1218]

Heyyyy!! Mallika! I'm a telugu guy, and till date have never found this logical reasoning behind the usage of తి and ది. Cannot thank you enough for being so much explicitly informative to the core. And also the reasoning have made it much clear to me. Never knew that Telugu had a deviated descent from Proto Dravidian, and thereby it has developed it own way of dealing. Thank you so much:) I feel blessed to have such profound diligent language as my mother tongue

[@user-pakshibhithi10]

For everyone in this comment section! Don't be proud of your language, because you didn't achieve it, just love your language. (I said this because you people are being proud). భాష గర్వించదగ్గ విషయం కాదు

[@basantprasadsgarden8365]

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

[@Super.youknow]

But we bengalis add one more extra word to describe gender although he didn't mention Rahul pore gelo Se pore gelo Sei chheleta pore gelo Anjali pore gelo Se pore gelo Sei meyeta pore gelo

[@basantprasadsgarden8365]

@@Super.youknow Mey means Girl and Chelle means boy , these are noun !

[@cyantn1634]

What about Assamese?

[@basantprasadsgarden8365]

@@cyantn1634 Akhomia is similar to Malyalam

[@tstar007as7]

Santali, Mundari, Khariya - What's is gender. Human is human 😎

[@jayasankarvn]

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.

[@randompie5558]

English is more difficult than any languages of the world, for example, how do you pronounce roll and doll, they both have same composition but pronounced differently,other examples are would and mould,lord and word,boot amd good,break and bleak🤣🤣🤣 It doesn’t make any sense how they pronounce every word in english without any proper rule

[@cocokoochie9648]

does Malayalam not have much gender based words ?

[@luciddream6983]

I'm Bengali, working in Chennai. We don't have any gender based pronounce. So it's not easy to speak English with Tamil. All the time I forgot to use she for our madam.

[@schoolkid1809]

@@luciddream6983 👌👤👌

[@greatsiraj]

@@cocokoochie9648 no

[@Horangwooahe]

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….

[@cam0987]

Which overseas country u went to

[@funku2527]

But generally, it's better to be a warrior in a garden than a gardener in a war.

[@anantprakashsingh8777]

@@funku2527 who says a warrior can not be gentle and kind. All truly strong people are also gentle. Anger sprouts from fear, and kindness sprouts from strength.

[@funku2527]

@@anantprakashsingh8777 bro, I guess you did not get it. i basically quoted the same thing from Jordan Peterson. Better to be a warrior in a garden than to be a gardener in a war.

[@anantprakashsingh8777]

@@funku2527 none of the above quotes are from jordan peterson, he merely regurgitated them. Also, you never made a point to begin with.

[@dhritimanroy2839]

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😅😅

[@pranabkantinath9581]

Ekdom

[@rain919]

Same!

[@Ani-13-w8d]

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.

[@LabourLawAdvisor]

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

[@swaha222]

Agree

[@subhmaypatra5562]

I'm your fan Rishabh sir

[@sanidhyapandey2891]

Hey lla

[@RKB192000]

But, both have something in common - _the art of passing something bogus as content-rich._

[@shagunkhurana7661]

Pehchana?

[@abhilashprasad422]

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!

[@helenaforbes2650]

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!

[@vineets16]

Met a Brazilian girl three years ago here. She told me the same thing.

[@vineets16]

@@musicdiaries9365 you're from Nepal?

[@vineets16]

@@musicdiaries9365 which state ?

[@vineets16]

@@musicdiaries9365 south ex ?

[@Aman-qr6wi]

Portuguese is indo-european language so it has similarities with hindi and sanskrit and bengali.

[@pragyanbezbo]

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

[@atanubhuyan7004]

Also glad he pronounced it as 'o'xomiya instead of 'aa'xomiya (may be he read my comment in a previous video lol)

[@manzurelahi4873]

​@@atanubhuyan7004 ohomiya

[@nawalbangali61]

​@@atanubhuyan7004 he must be an East Indian 😂😂

[@charvaka5705]

@@atanubhuyan7004 well he is a bengali, in bengali we use 'o' instead of an 'a'. Though we try our best to not have it influence us while pronouncing other languages.

[@user-xm6tp6ys4y]

The term Assam name is older than Axom.

[@vishwanathgopalkrishna4180]

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

[@iip]

Omg this is such a fanboy moment! I am an ardent reader of your Quora answers, Sir!

[@hamsadhvani95]

Sir jee 🙏🙏

[@thavasuraju2164]

Thalaivaa ingaiyumaa..🤗🤗

[@user-lehsun-le-garib]

Quora wale sir jii🙏🙏

[@Betty-zj3uy]

Quora fam😀😀

[@VarunSrinivas]

Love how you pronounce all the Tamil sentences perfectly

[@pranshu123pandya]

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!!

[@dcd7393]

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. :)

[@Rex-mo8me]

There is also eiu (এওঁ)and( এগৰাকী)

[@atanubhuyan7004]

@@Rex-mo8me I always felt agoraki was feminine, but glad it's not gendered

[@thegodofwar973]

that's just like Sylheti

[@newbie4789]

Honorifics is an equally complex system

[@TheFelineBunny]

Yep

[@દ્રષ્ટિબારોટ]

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!

[@rmkhr048]

Except Telugu which made me kinda sad, but atleast he tried 🥲

[@khyatimahanta4905]

I really do appreciate how he pronounces "Axomiya" accurately but the other words, which are "Xi" (won't include "tai" as it was pronounced almost accurate) "eitu". But I just blushed when my mothertongue is said so beautifully. 😌. Thnx brother.

[@suchismitanayak3945]

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👏🏻💫

[@gunja574]

Actually he might possibl odia,bengai,assamis, khasi,or monipuri . Probolbly ,,,... Look at her speaking way ,,.. sounds purest ,,,, as estern indian people have this power ,,, I'm bengAli n I can speak any language with the tone verry easily ,,,,, if u look carefully u I'll understand s 🙏🏾

[@arunakumarpanda5127]

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 🙏🙏

[@akshaypatil204]

In Marathi, Amba is masculine while kairi is feminine. The same fruit changes gender as it ripens.

[@sayakchoudhury9711]

For some reason that made me laugh! 😅

[@SouravPatil_Divinity]

I think its becoz Kairi is Pieace of unripen mango

[@smartbaba1321]

Amba ? Goddess Amba is feminine.

[@apoorvrane3951]

@@smartbaba1321 not Amba he is talking about Aamba(mango)

[@hellllo257]

In gujarati it's not Kairi We call it Keri(pronounce like that-carry😅)

[@pratikbal4937]

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

[@bikash_nayak7]

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

[@ଅନ୍ୱେଷପତି]

Same with gendered objects. ଜିନିଷର ଲିଙ୍ଗ କେମିତି ହେଇପାରିବ ଯେ

[@bikash_nayak7]

@@ଅନ୍ୱେଷପତି Seyya

[@avas4543]

We bengalis do same mistakes speaking Hindi 🤣🤣🤣

[@JRReviewOdia]

👏👍👍

[@subhranildutta1712]

why learning hindi..learn english, french, spanish....

[@nagabhushanganeshhegde5292]

Amazing video! Btw there is a dialect of Kannada called "Havyaka Kannada" where gender categorization is similar to Telugu: masculine and non-masculine. Interestingly, the primary speakers of this language are towards the coastal region of Karnataka far away from any Telugu influence. I wonder how was the gender categorization in Indian languages during medieval times 🤔

[@iip]

Thank you for mentioning this!

[@adityaranjanbiswal4044]

ಕರ್ನಾಟಕದ ಯಾವ ಜಿಲ್ಲೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ಈ ಉಪಭಾಷೆಯನ್ನು ಮಾತನಾಡುತ್ತಾರೆ?

[@nagabhushanganeshhegde5292]

@@adityaranjanbiswal4044 ಹೆಚ್ಚಾಗಿ ಉತ್ತರ ಕನ್ನಡ, ಶಿವಮೊಗ್ಗ, ದಕ್ಷಿಣ ಕನ್ನಡ ಹಾಗೂ ಕಾಸರಗೋಡು. ಈ ಉಪಭಾಷೆಯು ಹಳೆಗನ್ನಡದ ಕೆಲವು ಶಬ್ದ ಮತ್ತು ವ್ಯಾಕರಣವನ್ನು ಹೊಂದಿದೆ. ಆದ್ದರಿಂದ ಇದು ಕನ್ನಡಕ್ಕಿಂತ ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ವಿಶಿಷ್ಟವಾಗಿ ಕಾಣಿಸಿಕೊಳ್ಳುತ್ತದೆ.

[@adityaranjanbiswal4044]

@@nagabhushanganeshhegde5292 ಉತ್ತರ ಮತ್ತು ದಕ್ಷಿಣ ಕನ್ನಡದ ಭಟ್ಟರಲ್ಲಿ ಈ ಉಪಭಾಷೆಯು ಜನಪ್ರಿಯವಾಗಿರಬೇಕು ಎಂದು ನಾನು ಭಾವಿಸುತ್ತೇನೆ.

[@nagabhushanganeshhegde5292]

@@adityaranjanbiswal4044 ಹಾ ಹೌದು.

[@rar7749]

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.❤

[@nuduw]

Let's just take a moment to appreciate how diverse our languages are, while also sharing fair amount of common lexicon. Edit: Also appreciate your pronunciation. It was almost 'perfect' (at least for Kannada and Telugu I can say). Not even natives bother to pronounce it properly when conversing at a fast pace.

[@krishKOfficial]

Your voice is sooo much soothing 😍 যে 19 মিনিট কেনো আমি 1 ঘণ্টা ধরে আপনার কণ্ঠে এই ধরনের ভিডিও দেখতে প্রস্তুত আছি।❤️ I'm so obsessed with your voice 😅😅. And intentionally I mixed English and Bengali.Btw now there is a translate option 😁

[@MatthewBofenkamp]

This is really interesting! As a Norwegian speaker, our gender system is most like that of Gujarati, Marathi, Kannada, and Tamil, where we have three genders (masculine, feminine, and neuter) that affect the pronouns, articles, and adjectives we use, but we're transitioning to be more like Telugu (gendered and not gendered). For example, in Norwegian, the word for boy (gutt) is masculine, girl (jente) is feminine, and egg (egg) is neutral. So for example "I am a boy" -> "Jeg er EN gutt", "I am a girl" -> Jeg er EI jente," and "I am an egg" -> "Jeg er ET egg." However, in some dialects, including the most spoken one, it's now grammatically correct to use the masculine endings to describe all feminine things, so saying "Jeg er EN jente" is also correct, even though "en" is the masculine word for "a." This means you could end up never using the feminine article "ei" in your life and always be correct.

[@therationalhuman9874]

Hey Matthew, I'm a native Telugu speaker. As mentioned in the video, Telugu has masculine and non-masculine distinction for non-honorific singulars. It is not acceptable in the current form of Telugu to use masculine conjugation for women or girls like how explained it to happen in Norwegian.

[@sanchayansarkar2953]

Because all Norse Languages and Sanskrit based languages belong to the same language family - Indo-European language.

[@sasankaavadhanula4362]

@@sanchayansarkar2953 telugu is not indo European

[@vanisridhar5509]

@@sanchayansarkar2953 Tamil, kannada are not indo european. And not came from Sanskrit.

[@believer990]

Appreciate your efforts man 👍

[@aniruddhashid5696]

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.

[@sudhhasharrma]

Same goes for Hindi. Kaccha aam is fem. kairi, while pakaa aam is masc. aam.

[@devanshsumariya]

Same for gujarati કાંચી કેરી🥭 અને પાક્કો આંબો

[@meenakshis4033]

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! ☺️❤️

[@go9565]

It was really nice that he pronounced the zh sound when reading the Tamil words. But the same zh sound in Malayalam he replaced with L 😅😅

[@AstroDude_P]

@Meenakshi S Same....I was also thinking the same

[@D__Ujjwal]

Its good because "l "​ is sweeter than "zh", which is also hard to pronounce@@go9565

[@sarvasyamahatym]

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

[@thecomment9489]

No need to be confused about genders of non-living objects. You can assign any gender to non-living objects and it will be grammatically correct. There is no grammatical rule in Hindi about assigning genders to objects. It is more of convention that certain objects are called as masculine and other as feminine but even if you mix up it will be correct sentence.

[@akkashjamadar9047]

Being a Bengali,I felt so much difficulties while reading Sanskrit... I was like "are eisob bostudero gender ache" ... But yes... Diversity makes our INDIA unique from other nations... We are lucky to be born here...

[@MrCrunch808]

India is like Europe with how diverse it is, but the different cultures actually interact instead of drawing massive lines. North America is really bland in comparison. And Africa makes India look bland with how insanely diverse it is.

[@shahjadatalukder2706]

Like when did non living thinga grow genetals

[@debkalpapal2682]

@@shahjadatalukder2706 LMAO

[@rrrabad1234]

@nothing nothing hindi is worst. 😂😂

[@rrrabad1234]

@nothing nothing Only language in india where 70 percent non snaskrit islamic words are used. Like , Dusman( Satru),Sukriya(Dhanyabad) lakin(kintu), Soch(chinta). You dirty hindi. 😂😂

[@ramyan6372]

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!

[@AnimaxNeil]

same in bengali. there are different pronouns for age and authority of the listener over the speaker.

[@rationalist7]

that may be related with the confucian philosophy of respecting the elders aka filial piety....

[@Zulu_1-1]

Man I loved it. You literally answered some 10-20% questions of a secretly aspiring Linguist that lives somewhere inside me. I am always so much perplexed and so much in awe of similarities and dissimilarities in Languages and also the impact a Language has on its culture. Thank you for this video! 😃

[@anomienormie8126]

My brain is so confused from the mix of English and Hindi. I get lulled into a false sense of security and forget to read the subtitles when in reality I only understand half of what he’s saying without it. Beautiful narration, still.

[@RKB192000]

After all, the incapacity to weave a sentence in one language without having to strewn it with English words is a mark of progressive-ness.

[@Khushwant-Singh]

Code-mixing, that is. Very prevalent in India.

[@yatharthbakshi]

My man you should definitely consider starting two channels like kurzgesagt. One of them purely in Hindi, for native Hindi speakers from inside India. And another one in English for the international and non-Hindi speaking audience. I’d love to see some beautiful content like this being presented in pure Hindi. You don’t see much of that on the internet. On the other hand, having an English language channel would help you reach anglophonic audience, who are increasingly interested in the culture of India!!

[@THEKNI8]

He doesn't require....it was the whole point of the video....not emphasizing only Hindi to represent to Indians...bahut sari bhasayein hain bharat me...Sab important hain...so he gave importance to all...

[@mrithabose134]

@@THEKNI8 bruh he's talking about the language for mode of communication and not as a topic 💀

[@mainaksanyal9515]

Quite rightly said...people outside india should know and appreciate the beauty of Indian languages so well depicted here.

[@ganpatibappa77777]

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 ...

[@shaswatamukherjee2888]

Man, being a statistician I envy your love for data centric story telling ability, not to forget your outstanding research mind and power of describing everything in most lucid yet interesting way. I wish I ever get a chance to meet you in person. Take love and best wishes 💝 🎉

[@aman.vashisht]

I always used to get confused why non native hindi speakers use words like 'hum khati hai'. Now, I know

[@KishanSharma-fe7qo]

Such Deep research on languages. I thought you are an engineer. No words to explain your work bro

[@rajeebbarma]

Engineering can seep into literally anything

[@lautheimpaler4686]

@@rajeebbarma except engineering itself.

[@ashutoshmahapatra537]

He's an software engineer. But he's also in path of pursuing truth asking philosophical questions that nobody has answer. Understanding the nature of existence thus he tries to learn many new things which is linguistics as of now.

[@mimis.5139]

@@lautheimpaler4686 true

[@mimis.5139]

@@ashutoshmahapatra537 lol i didn't knew he is from my branch.. your comment made me subscribe him

[@krishnvm1027]

As someone who speaks Kannada, we use gender neutral words also sign of respect for other individuals, like calling they/them and not any masculine or feminine pronouns. This association indicates if someone is using gender neutral pronouns, means they're trying to be respectful as possible.

[@amantyagi5629]

same in hindi as 'aap kaise ho'

[@Uda_dunga]

@@amantyagi5629 wahh bhai g**nd faaad de apne to👏👏

[@udivesh]

Interesting video! One Suggestion: Nepali language doesn't ignore gender altogether. It has gendered pronouns, gendered verbs, and differences in written and spoken gendering for objects. The difference in addressing objects differently in literature, however, could be because of the influence of Hindi literature among older writers. All said, gendering is definitely present in the Nepali language.

[@grishmabasnet871]

It doesn't have gendered pronoun tho. It has gendered verbs but every pronoun is gender neutral

[@anandsai9378]

Really Great presentation. In the matters of Telugu language, the classification as : "masculine" and "non-masculine" is said to be the original feature of Proto-Dravidian language perfectly retained by it, when Proto-Telugu spilt at 1000 BCE. ❤️

[@samratbhanja8238]

So theoratically Ancient Dravidian society was hardcore Patriarch(maybe?)

[@anandsai9378]

@@samratbhanja8238 Nope! Actually, Proto-Dravidian Language could be a "feminine language" since it associates all the things from everyday utensils to hills to rivers to skies with femininity. Just like how the videomaker explained about a European language which is feminine in the beginning.

[@anandsai9378]

@ॐ ಸಿఙిఐిజః Yes, there are many differences between Telugu and Tamil-Kannada-Malayalam group.

[@smithasreejith8855]

Its not just with dravidan but in every english to people connect things like rivers, lake, ship as feminine and things like steel, mountains, stronge objects, or fire and air are seen as masculine. Pretty much everything is considered masculine, but only delicate things or easily destroyable ones are considered feminine.

[@anandsai9378]

@@smithasreejith8855 The case is completely different with Telugu language. Let's take some examples; (I) _Inumu Tuppupatti Poy _*_indi_* > The Iron has got rusted. (II) _Konda Chsāla Ettugā Un _*_di_* > The hill is very high. (III) _Makkera Kadalatlē _*_dhu_* > The vehicle isn't moving. (IV) _Ēka Mettagā Un _*_di_* > The feather is soft. (V) _Nippu Āripōy _*_indi_* > The fire has got exhausted. (VI) _Ammāyi Bujjigā Un _*_di_* > The girl is cute. (VII) _Mēku Ūdipōy _*_indi_* > The nail (hanging one) dropped off. (VIII) _Emuka Gattigā _*_undi_* > The bone is hard. In all the above, not just girl and feather, but also hill, fire, vehicle, iron, nail and bone are also considered "feminine" ("-indi", "-di", "dhu"). That's the speciality of Telugu language and Proto-Dravidian.

[@chaitanyareddymuthyala2967]

In telugu, their exists only male and non male , but in pronouns we have male , female and neutral , but to speak with elders ( old men ) we use with non male words , because male words are considered rude , for example To ask a friend how are you ? We say yetlunnav ra ? And to ask the same to a very old man We say yetlunnare ? And even in non male we have female words like aame , eeme etc and for neutral words like adhi , edhi etc Telugu is really a unique language

[@ericawill4867]

I am a Delhiite, but I love telugu language and even trying to learn it since I heard some telugu songs like buttabomma, samajavaragamana etc and watched some movies like Ala vaikunthapurramuloo, Geetha Govindam etc, AA is my fav actor now, and I really like AA and pooja hegde onscreen pair

[@lucifer-mahiravana-iblessa4959]

@@ericawill4867 I suggest you should try listening "telugu Carnatic songs"...I think your musical choice lies there.

[@ericawill4867]

@@lucifer-mahiravana-iblessa4959 ohk thanks for the recommendation, I have listened to a few telugu songs and I like most of them... Most of the songs of the movies Geetha Govindam, Avpl and DJ are really good

[@ericawill4867]

@@bharathkumarsm1941 Indeed, telugu is beautiful to hear❤️ will surely try the Carnatic music

[@welovebts7]

Does aame mean "we"?

[@100_percent_deBil]

When malayalees converse in tamil with tamilians, there's this opinion that malayalees don't give respect to tamils. I've heard this many times and seen it a few times. I finally got the reason why they do this! Since malayalam uses same verb for all nouns, their sematics kicks while conversing with tamils who have their concept of self-aware and self-unawareness. Video is an eye opener, truly!

[@embrace7052]

Same thing I realized why Axomiyas makes mistakes while speaking verbs in Hindi because axomiya don't have that concept of gendered verbs only gendered pronouns

[@nithin4338]

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!

[@swayam-devraj]

Hearing his voice, takes me to another world 🌏 which is just absolutely calm and so soothing 💟 And being a Bengali, I can related to the easeness he's talking about. As there's no concept of gender, there's no confusion in it.

[@shini6409]

Loved the video! But just to point out, end mein when you talked about non gendered pronouns such as they/them, and how we could implement that in Indian gender binary languages such as hindi and punjabi, we sort of do that already. I'll take hindi examples as I do not speak punjabi. While referring/talking to older people we use honorifics like "aap". So when asking questions such as "What do you think", we might say • Tum kya sochte ho • Tum kya sochti ho • Aap kya sochte ho The last line would be used generally while talking to someone older. Notice that there are no gendered pronouns or verbs there. That statement will be same regardless of gender. So if you happen to know anyone using they/them or any other gender neutral pronouns and you talk to them in hindi, keep this in mind! As a non binary person who has been speaking hindi pretty much all my life, I completely forgot about this and didn't notice it until someone else pointed it out.

[@tanyaroy2996]

This same concept of honorifics applies to Bengali as well... Tumi, tui and apni. Sometimes I think that the reason hindi has been so easy for me to learn is because of the similarities that exist between hindi and bengali... The similarities in the appearance of alphabets, certain words etc.

[@shini6409]

@@tanyaroy2996 As someone who speaks both hindi and bengali, I agree! I also learnt bengali alphabets by associating them with the hindi ones quite often

[@rsh5394]

Perfect Kannada pronunciation. Absolutely loving your channel. The research and the holistic view of India is refreshing.

[@oneannoyingfolk]

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

[@tushermajumder7211]

I was shocked when he pronounced Bengali, Assamese, Odiya...so welll...

[@drpriyeshmaharana]

He is an Odia btw...

[@victordashmohapatra3546]

just watch odia/assamese tv channels for few days , even u be able to speak fluently

[@humanbeing9327]

Being a Malayalee, glad that we don't use gender verbs, but I always wished our pronouns were gender-free..! But nowadays Malayalee youngsters use the same word ' ėda' for both girls and boys in a friendly way.

[@nknkannadiga9742]

bro is gender neutral in bengaluru 😂

[@itzmehDevi]

Oh yeah! I do call both my female friends and male friends "Eda"

[@prabhu19]

When the gender neutral will be sister or di.. Than that will be interesting.. Using da bro etc is still a male world :D

[@nknkannadiga9742]

@@prabhu19 most of the women I know have no problem with it. If they consent then its fine

[@prabhu19]

@@nknkannadiga9742 it's all fine, bro, dude, comrade for female, am saying if you can reverse it than that's something... 😊

[@aditijena7682]

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 KZbin on this particular topic 😍

[@zeref611]

Actually in marathi & gujrati Singular subject have dual genders while plural subjects have neuter gender

[@cloneroots]

Yes! Like " हे झाड " and "ही झाडे"

[@mohaksahu5574]

Please explain

[@aparnasingh9358]

Right same in hindi

[@rsacode]

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

[@pdd1240]

And I just remembered when I was in 4th standard one day I just got the thought that "why do we call a 'Darwaja' like a boy(like masculine) and 'Khidki' like a girl (feminine) and then I started looking at each object in my house and calling them as masculine or feminine or neutral " (I am a marathi so we yeas we have neutral one)...and I also used to think who decided which object is girl and which object is boy (by the that time I only new marathi language)

[@xbhigyxn]

you've changed my whole perspective, man! what a research you've done on this topic. a must watch if to understand the linguistic and cultural diversity of our country.

[@atharva1509]

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

[@himanshugurjar9002]

Greatest video so far by this channel. Make more on such deep topics about Language

[@Nick-Odd]

I am not so sure about that. Well the video was nice in total, but I personally didn't like a few things in this video, like you haven't done enough research on a few matters. Collecting data and comparing them are well and good, but you can't draw conclusions so easily, and specially if you are talking about a person. A few quotes are not enough to understand them, most of these quotes are usually either used out of context or presented with political intentions, and sometimes they are even intentionally patched to defame them, so if you dare speak ill of a person you need to at least invest time going though their philosophy and thoroughly explain your reasons. I am not a bengoli but still it hurts me that even Indians can't understand Vivekanand or Shubhash Chandra Bose. I hope you won't mind my view, anyways thanks to anyone who is reading this comment, for investing time to read this long comment.

[@EagleOverTheSea]

@@Nick-Odd Don't you think you are projecting your subjective ideas of what is an insult and what is a compliment on others? I did not think the video insulted Swami Vivekananda or Netaji. It was just pointing out that they like other human beings had subjective opinions that were shaped by the times they lived in.

[@Nick-Odd]

@@EagleOverTheSea Suppose if I say "mahatma gandhi ji said Indians are impotent" just to show that he had his own views.... would that be considered an insult of both Indians and Gandhi. Or just me stating the facts!? I think that would be an insult. Similarly, Swami Vivekananda never called Bengoli people lacked manliness, and if you wish to know his views on gender, just read his poem/stuti on maa kali....

[@islandsunset]

@@Nick-Odd I am a Bengali and none of what he said is insulting. Even Gandhiji thought eating meat made the invaders stronger than Indians. He even tried once I guess. A great man has many sides. We often as successors see the most glorified side. If Vivekananda thought that Bengali men are docile then not necessarily it was right. It might have been true but not right. Doesn't mean all his other works are wrong. I have been thinking that for a long time that why there's no regiment named after Bengal in Indian Army. The docile and God loving nature of Bengali men might have encouraged British to not make a regiment for them. And post independence the Indian govt didn't raise one thinking Bengal's borders are mostly peaceful. That's my conclusion though but I think it's pretty accurate that most Bengali men in pre independence were not the agressive "macho" type but are known for being thinkers and pioneers and intellectual. Subhash Chandra Bose being one of the few exceptions.

[@Nick-Odd]

@@islandsunset The fist name of Indian army was "British Bengal Army" which was the key of crushing the Maratha in Palasi.....so maybe there's no Bengal regiment in Indian army just because the whole Indian Army is the Bengol Regiment.

[@joyouslife09]

Bro, your diction for each and every language is tremendous. Being a bengali-punjabi myself, I can speak 4 different Indian languages but your command in languages deserves huge respect bro! 🙌🏻 Our India is so diverse and this is so thrilling! Awesome content indeed and I so wish we could be friends in real life too baithkey sunta teko yaar.. hehe 👊🏼❤️

[@Veena-hq4mu]

Thank you Ashris. As a person with Malayali heritage, growing up with yoga, a professional Chinese medicine practitioner trained in UK, parents having migrated here when I was a child, I find the free movement of your thinking follows the patterns of how humans really are. Like prana & qi there are many states of manifestations which the Western paradigm is slowly catching up with, eg. plasticity of the brain, using the languages of neurophysiology, neuroscience, psychology, etc. India is continuing to struggle away from colonial distortions with its historical intelligence re-emerging, having profound awareness of these phenomena inherently. Love your rendition of one aspect of it.

[@shifeless7871]

10:30 That's true for Polish plural nouns (and verbs) as well: While in the singular masculine, feminine and neuter nouns are distinguished (like in Sanskrit), the only gender distinction surviving in the plural is between male persons and everyone else. Thus, we have "Μężczyźni byli dobrzy" (The men were good), but "Kobiety były dobre" (the women were good), "Ptaki były dobre" (the birds were good), "Książki były dobre" (the books were good). Note how the agreement affects the verb as well as the adjective.

[@tajriankamal5608]

Being from Bangladesh I could understand and speak hindi from a very young age. But I never picked up the fact that hindi has gendered verbs until very recently. And something I would like to add bangla does have different pronouns for humans and the rest of the living/ non living world. For example: for humans he/she fell down would be "shey pore gelo" for a book it would be "ota pore gelo" Another fun fact you can find gendered pronouns similar to Assamese in some dialects of Bengali. For example she fell down would be "tai pore gese" and he fell down would be "he pore gese". My grandfather actually speaks in this dialect. I've never thought about this before watching this video. The video was amazing!

[@devapala879]

Is that Sylheti?

[@hakunamatata3935]

Kon arear dialect? Amar jana chilo na

[@marufruma]

Noakhailla bangla dialect also has "hete" for he and "hiti" for she.

[@ishajahankhan1270]

Bengali is perfect, no need to change the verbs.

[@muhammad_hussain]

also, Bangla nouns and adjectives can have 'gender', for example 'shundor' and 'shundori' masc. and fem. term for 'beautiful' respectively. 'shuhash' and 'shuhashini' masc. and fem. term for 'a person with beautiful smile'.

[@budmonk2819]

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 !!

[@avipsadas8796]

Thank you for mentioning Sri chaitanya mahaprabhu 🙏🏼 ଜୟ ଜଗନ୍ନାଥ ☺️

[@অজানাপাখি-ষ৬গ]

জয় জগন্নাথ

[@agnibsyndicate5830]

Joi Jogonnath 🙏🌼❤

[@akashpaul3783]

He is from Bengal

[@krix2604]

@@akashpaul3783 Actually the language is Odia

[@krix2604]

@@akashpaul3783 It says Jay Jagannath

[@shminhaz]

Loved it! I was wondering about the shape of the letters/alphabet in different Indian languages. If we move from east to west the letters become more rectangular (hindi/gujrati/marathi...) with counter clockwise curvatures from triangular (asamese, Bengali, manipuri...) with occasional Clockwise curvature. Again if we go down towards South the letters become more and more circular and curvey. Is there any research on it?

[@cyberinsomnia3573]

A team of dedicated researchers on it as we speak!

[@shee839]

good observation!

[@roshanrajakrishnan4435]

Ancient Tamil manuscripts were written on palm leaves with a pointed metal object. Which probably necessitated curvy scripts, since scratching straight lines along the leaf fiber would tear it.

[@shminhaz]

@@roshanrajakrishnan4435 May be! But in bengali (and pali etc...) also in ancient time they used to write on palm leaves with feather pen dipped in black ink.

[@DibyajyotiPatraAshu]

@@roshanrajakrishnan4435 All of the Dravidian, South-East Asian Languages ('Cause they're influenced by Tamil & Odia) & Odia as well, due to the availability of Tala Patra instead of Bhoja Patra!

[@tyrantfox7801]

That might be why I hated studying Hindi in school and became more confident in speaking English than Hindi. As a Native malayalam speaker , the transitioning between English and Malayalam felt so easy for some reason 🤷🏻‍♂️. Influence of media might also be a reason, as I almost exclusively watched hollywood and Malayalam movies than anything. I was the odd on among my peers... They watched Hindi , Tamizh and everything.... But not me Also you can pronounce tale as "thazhe"

[@preetammahanna8572]

yes u r still completely not independent from british...

[@tyrantfox7801]

@@preetammahanna8572 Umm...... Are you ?

[@preetammahanna8572]

@@tyrantfox7801 yes i am....i will still use hindi or my mother tongue odia more around 90prcnt...

[@tyrantfox7801]

@@preetammahanna8572 No one speaks hindi around me.. The need for me to speak hindi everyday is non existent unlike you... I use my mother tongue all the time

[@tyrantfox7801]

@@preetammahanna8572 Does that mean , you are under Hindi colonialism ? Shame on you for not realizing it

[@kapilmakkar1]

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

[@aatmk451]

I feel a good way to include gender neutrality in Hindi may be the use of “vah” (वह). While usually a placement pronoun literally meaning “that” (as in “वह पुस्तक” = “that book”) I feel like it could work well in certain contexts. For instance, “he” is going to school could be “वो विद्यालय जा रहा है”, “she”, “वो विद्यालय जा रही है”; and “they”, “वह/वे विद्यालय जा रहे है”. Though also used to denote a multiplicity (similar to the English “they” in that regard), this is often used to showcase respect as well (similar to the royal we/I), making it all-round suitable imo 😅

[@timothy4090]

True true

[@MeghanNorean]

Thank you for this! I'm non-binary and just started learning Hindi (my spouses native tongue) and have found it really difficult. I would love to speak from my gender identity and this could be an option. I hope something like this becomes more mainstream soon.

[@RAIRADIO]

@@MeghanNorean Not just that.. it would make life easy for everyone. Make Hindi easy to learn and speak for all Indians.

[@gangadin2873]

Right now he is spouting "gender neutrality" garbage - wait till he starts demanding mandatory personal pronouns.

[@aatmk451]

@@gangadin2873 he who, op? Personal pronouns _are_ grammatically mandatory lmao - every language uses them. Do you mean the more recently widespread phenomenon of people choosing and using pronouns different from the ones assigned to them at birth (on the basis of biological sex)?

[@beactivebehappy9894]

now it becomes clear to me the classical stereotype of South Indians “ Tola Tola Hindi Aata” lmao

[@angloacharya9442]

Man, what a show! You've really done your homework. Being a multi-linguist myself, I realise the far reaching effects of language on our thinking, our attitudes and culture. Your presentation is a beautiful blend of knowledge, research, humour and food for thought. Keep going, man!

[@paulomichakraborty9849]

I have never ever encountered such an engaging and communicating video before. You exactly know how to communicate and take inputs even if the communication is unidirectional. Just awesome!!! You sincerely have a soothing voice. All love from a Bengali Speaker and Maithili Lover..

[@snehasnow5657]

I am a teacher from west bengal and while teaching hindi to bengoli student is little funny and little bit tough just because they are so overwhelmed with the gender concept. Also you nailed the speaking part of different languages. ☺️ Loved your video. ❤️👌👍

[@madhousenetwork]

0:43 it's Kangaaru in Thamizh as well. "Ka will act as "ka" or "ga" depending on words which is another tricky part of Thamizh language 😅😅

[@rood_ruru]

This channel feels so warm and safe almost like a sanctuary. I could feel myself wrapped in a blanket with fairy lights all over, being taught by some angel from heaven god that sounds so weird but IDK THE NARRATOR IS SO AMAZING and calm and soft and aaaaaasdjsjds. The way he goes the extra mile to pronounce the languages as they should be, like Axomiya for Assamese and Tamizh for Tamil. The way he tries to accurately pronounce words instead of just going with the flow. It is such a small thing but this is what I absolutely love about this channel. Also, it is so evident that he thoroughly does his research and doesn't make videos just for the sake of it. I am in love with you and your channel.

[@chaitanyaharde8945]

In Marathi , we use to pronounce 'To'(He) , 'Ti'(she) and 'Te'(it) for people of same age or people with less age . But for elder people we use complecated way to pronounce. We use grammer of neutral gender for elder masculine people. For example 'te khali padle' (he fell down) used for elder masculine people and also for the neutral gender for example 'te khali padle'( it fell down) . And for same ager masculine person , we use 'To khali padla'( He fell down). For Elder feminine person, we use more complicated way , we use plural form of noun and verb for example, for same ager feminine person we use ' Ti khali padli ' ( she fell down ) and for elder feminine person 'Tya khali padlya' ( she fell down ) which is similar to 'tya khali padlya' (there are so many things which fell down)

[@yubi-kun958]

15:24 WOAH! This gave me a whole new perspective of different people! Awesome video! Love from Gujarat ❤️

[@pawannfcb]

Love from Maharashtra ❤️🇮🇳👌

[@rishabhjain7543]

Ikr. I was like yeah, it makes complete sense.

[@lucylucas6415]

This was such a great video. I enjoyed watching every bit of this video. Being Maharashtrian, this video hit home, on levels I didn't know it could. I felt so heard knowing that some languages in my own country are gender-neutral, especially being a non-binary Indian. My mother tongue restricts my expression of gender to categories too, but knowing that there are languages which are neighbouring to me that gpo beyond gender is validating to another level. Again, I absolutely loved this video, and the content of it. Apratim! as I would say in Marathi.

[@vidyakangane210]

I'm Maharashtrian too. And I always thought non-binary people use 'नपुंसकलिंग' in Marathi. I've heard people using it. If you're comfortable you can use that, right?

[@kajoripatra50]

Hi, firstly, I loved the conclusive statements, I definitely had not given this an actual thought, it does seem that linguistics influences our personal politics. Great video, man. Second, as a native Bengali speaker, I would like to add that, we do have different pronouns too for the living and the non-living (sometimes extended to animals, especially lesser animals, an insect, for example). We use 'se' for humans as pronouns (both male and female and say, a pet cat) and 'ota' for things and, let's assume, mosquito. Additionally, we do have some older and less prevalent concepts of gender of non-living things which are used in older texts. These are often in adverb or adjective form, for example while describing a Nadi or river, we will say, 'srotoswini' meaning, she who has motion, clearly implying that river is a gendered noun. We used to refer to some rivers as masculine and some as feminine too, such as, Brahmaputra Nad (river) but Ganga Nadi (river) because Ganga is associated with the mother figure of Gangetic plain, she who sustains life, while Brahmaputra is associated with floods, he who destroys life (snarky Bengalis, I guess!). Similarly, we have two different words for lightning, and they have two different gender connotations, and they can be used according to the context of the writer: bidyut (or tarit) and bijli (or chapala). For example, if the writer is focusing on say, a feisty woman they will use 'chapala' to perhaps describe her or describe the natural phenomenon as a reference to her. But if they're writing about a sharp and clever man, they will associate that character with 'bidyut'. These kinds of nuanced writings are a little lost on people who do not read extensively, I think. But with time Bangla has, appreciatively, become more gender fluid, which makes it more accepting of various gendered concepts than most other language. I assume only people who prefer reading texts written till the beginning of 2000s will only understand my distinction. This was a well-researched video, thanks!

[@RippleReader124]

This put me in a trance. ❤. I really like videos with a holistic All-India perspective.

[@iip]

Thank you :)

[@shauryapratapsingh6052]

Beautifully explained ....you are so amazing 😀👍 शक्ति के बिना शिव भी शव हैं।🙏

[@shash3391]

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

[@Indian_-guy]

When I was a 12th grade student , I had a portion in Bengali Gramar called " Vasa Tatya" ( Linguistics) attracted me so much but I was not satisfied due to lack of information or writting style , but after watching this video , I am fully satisfied that I had learnt something new ....... Thanx dude ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

[@souvikdebnath8001]

I'm also from bengali board and I was really interested too from the topic

[@aadityadeshmukh2463]

Incredible this was. Such an amount of research and analysis that went through here is just outstanding. Comparative learning is always helpful. Being a Marathi I feel I had a benefit in learning or understanding languages. looking forward for more such content.

[@userone-lh3is]

Either languages should have three genders, like Sanskrit, or none at all, like Bengali, Odiya etc.......otherwise it creates unnecessary confusion.

[@nishanj9400]

Can you do a video about how “Sinhala” language being in down south, is an Indo-Aryan language and its connections to Indian languages ?

[@aparnasingh9358]

Yeah should have included that as well here

[@bhanupratap1063]

@@aparnasingh9358 There Is one more Indo-Aryan Language Called Sindhi.

[@aparnasingh9358]

@@bhanupratap1063 haa pata hai mere bohot sare sindhi friends hai.

[@संस्कृति-ठ8ङ]

@@aparnasingh9358 mtlb bhai ?

[@gokulkuttikod3611]

@ॐ ಸಿఙిఐిజః could be an interesting analysis on how the language of Indian roots have changed over a period of time to be distinct on its own and yet share elements that are very much the same as other Indian languages. And btw, the name of the channel shouldn't limit it from making good content.

[@srmonlineclass2003]

Great content as always. As a bengali from Bangladesh, I admit in standard Bangla we don't have different nouns,pronouns for Male-female gender. But in dialects we can. For example: Se kothay jae?(where does he/she go?) It is in standard Bangla and you can't say this 'se' is male or female. But in Cumilla dialect'heti koi jae' here heti directly means she and also ' hete koi jae' here hete is he.In Bangladesh , people using other dialects can do that but it's not possible for the standard Bangla.

[@aditchandrachud9216]

I absolutely appreciate the way you have incorporated gender dynamics and identities so flawlessly and effortlessly in the lingual context. Gendering languages definitely does have a subconscious (not exactly positive) effect on how we see the 'masculine' and the 'feminine' and I agree with everything that you have so cogently said in this video. I was simply compelled to subscribe!

[@yeshwanthgaddam689]

In telugu the word for green and yellow is same (పచ్చ)(pachha)... But when theres a need to differentiate the colours, we say ఆకుపచ్చ (leaf pachha =green) పసుపు పచ్చ (turmeric pachha= yellow)

[@iip]

Oh wow! This is a fascinating piece of insight! It'll be interesting to compare if this also has an impact on how the colors are exactly perceived by Telugu speakers

[@yeshwanthgaddam689]

@@iip nope. We can differentiate the colours easily.(I mean today's generation can differentiate) I can 100% surely say that our telugu ancestors could also differentiate the colours easily. But there may be some cultural or some other reason for naming the colours same

[@yeshwanthgaddam689]

@@iip maybe the word pachha is given to green and yellow because the two colours are similar to each other than any two other colours

[@govinddwivedi582]

14:52 how beautifully you arranged all this information in a simple chart! You really have talent to process and organize big amount of information! And this whole video was very interesting! A big thank you!