Does grammar in your language reveal gender of an author of an written statement?

21 comments

1. It’s not the case in Germany but I know it’s the case in Russian so it might be a Slavic thing.

   Italian sometimes also reveals it in certain adjectives. For instance if you say “I’m tired” it’s “sono stanco” for men and “sono stanca” for women.

   And in portuguese the word for thanks is different according to gender. “Obrigado” for men and “obrigada” for women.

2. In Hungarian there is no gender. For example most Hungarian readers of the Harry Potter series (me included) thought Crookshanks was a female cat simply because female cats as pets are more common and there is not even a third person he/she difference in Hungarian. There was even a speculation around on the Hungarian internet back in the 2000s that Crookshanks is Lily, as a secret animagus.

3. I know you can reveal your gender in Romance languages, at least when you’re using most adjectives (not all of them though). A good example is the Italian song “Fiori rosa, fiori di pesco” – Lucio Battisti sings “Fammi entrare per favore, **solo**”, while Mina sings “Fammi entrare per favore, **sola**”. It would actually be weird if she sang “solo”, because she’s a woman.

   Verb forms can give it away as well. In the song “E 40” it’s the same – “Mi sono **informato**” vs. “Mi sono **informata**”. I don’t know Spanish and French well enough yet, but I can bet it’s the same in those languages.

4. In italian it takes effort to hide your gender, it’s not impossible but it’s hard, you couldn’t use adjectives to describe yourself directly and you’d be limited to half of all the tenses you can conjugate verbs in.

5. It can be in Spanish. The longer the written statement the more certain.

   Also, AI can’t figure out race because that doesn’t exist. What it figures out is the self-imposed label BS some American thinks he is instead of what he really is, an American.

6. It’s easier in Romanian and to that extent, in any latin language than it is in English, but I don’t think it is as easy as with Polish.

   There are cases where it may not be obvious in a single sentence since besides masculin/feminine we also have neutral as gramatical gender. Also, the verbs are not gendered, but the nouns and adjectives are.

   For example, all verbs you used would be the same for masculine/feminine:

   I went –> Am fost

   I would go –> As merge

   I will be going –> Voi merge

   Now, if you use any nouns or adjectives, you don’t need AI to see the gender

   “noi doi” – the two of us (masculine)

   “noi doua” – the two of us (feminine)

   “noi doi” – the two of us (neutral, one person is male and another female, or you simply don’t know the genders)

   “o pisica” – a cat (feminine)

   “un pisic” – a cat (masculine)

7. In Finnish, gender must be explicitly told, as the language is genderless. No gendered pronouns, verbs, adjectives, anything.

8. Russian:

   I went/I’ve gone:

   for male: шёл / ушёл

   for female: шла / ушла

   I would go:

   for male: пойду

   for female: пойду

   I will be going:

   for male: буду идти

   for female: буду идти

   So future tense is slightly different

9. There are none in English as far as I know, as it’s a relatively lightly gendered language. The first person singular is always ambiguous. The only way one could tell would be if someone were to use a gendered noun in reference to themselves (actor/actress; chairman;chairwoman) but these are becoming increasingly rare now.

   In French however it would be very easy.

10. In Greek, adjectives and participles inflect for grammatical gender, and if you use one that refers to your self, it should match the grammatical gender of the word that stands in for yourself. Almost always, the word that stands in for yourself is just derived from context, so it will match your real-world gender.

    You can get around it by explicitly using a word to stand it for yourself such as “my personality” (feminine), “my character” (masculine) or “my person” (neuter). Doing so extensively is very unnatural though. It’s a very formal and contrived way to speak, although it’s definitely grammatically sound.

    * * *

    > The mentioned information were things like localization, age, race or gender. I was like “Well, you don’t need using AI to figure out somebody’s gender when they write in Polish, the grammar simply reveals that. Is that really a big deal?”.

    Well, people can always pretend. I can write “είμαι η agrammatic” and falsely claim that I am a woman – and I’m sure I can do that in Polish too (if I spoke any Polish). But given a big corpus of my writing, one can definitely find a lot about my age (e.g. by my spelling/punctuation style and vocabulary I use), my geographical origin (by my vocabulary and grammar), and gender (by my tone and vocabulary), and me just lying about my gender, age, and origin is not enough to fool a careful reader. I would actually need to understand and emulate the writing style of a person of a different gender, age, and origin.

    That’s nothing new by the way, it’s just the field of forensic linguistics getting the AI-makeover. I think the article you read didn’t do a good job explaining what it was really about.

11. Not in German.

    But I know in Thai there’s the suffix ka and krap with the former being female and the latter being male. If you say hello as a woman you say sawadee ka and a man would say sawadee krap.

12. All adjectives and articles have gender in Greek so if you describe yourself at all you’ll give away your gender. It’s a problem for same-sex couples who don’t want to give away the gender of their partner to strangers – even ‘my partner’ has an article in Greek stating the gender.

13. Yes, Latvian grammar is highly gendered so if the author is talking about themselves, the gender will likely be obvious. A text you write about yourself is somewhat possible to write without revealing the gender, but would take a conscious effort. For a third-person text avoiding the gender even for two sentences would be impressive.

    In the first person, any adjectives will reveal the gender, as will any verb using a perfect tense.

    Adjectives: I’m sad (mandatory for Latvian): esmu bēdīgs (male) / esmu bēdīga (female).

    Present perfect: I have read: esmu lasījis (male) / esmu lasījusi (female).

    Past perfect: I had studied: biju mācījies (male) / biju mācījusies (female).

    Future perfect: I will have worked: būšu strādājis (male) / būšu strādājusi (female).

    There’s some more stuff as well but this is already making things difficult.

14. As long as you do not specify your gender:

    > *”as a woman”*
    >
    > *”me, a man”*

    … or use rare gender specific titles that can be easily obscured by using a common neutral counterpart:

    > *”I am an actress.”* vs. *”I am an actor.”*

    … there is nothing in Swedish grammar that reveal whether the author is a man or woman.

15. In Slovenian the gender is revealed basically the same as in Polish. I guess all Slavic languages are like that

16. It does, but it’s not a surprise, considering both Polish and Ukrainian are slavic languages, and are somewhat related.

17. I’d say it’s pretty hard to hide your gender when speaking Bulgarian, but not impossible. Verbs are gender neutral, so “I’m swimming” would be “аз плувам” regardless of who you are. However, you’d be hard pressed to describe your state without announcing your gender as adjectives are either male, female or neutral, and it’d definitely sound out of place if you don’t use the correct form. For example, “I am sad” would be “тъжна съм” for women and “тъжен съм” for men.

    The job becomes decidedly easier, though, when you’re in a context where you’re referred to by your profession, since it’s considered correct to talk about female teachers, architects, etc. by the male form of the word.

18. If you use an adjective in Galician to talk about yourself there’s a very high chance it reveals your gender. If you’re deliberately trying to hide it you can find some workarounds though. For instance, replace “son moi activo” (I (male) am very active) or “son moi activa” (I (female) am very active) with “soy unha persoa moi activa” (I am a very active person).

19. >Examples.

    >I went/I’ve gone in Polish is:

    >for male: poszedłem
    for female: poszłam

    >I would go:

    >for male: poszedłbym
    for female: poszłabym

    >I will be going:

    >for male: będę szedł
    for female: będę szła

    None of these would betray your gender in Portuguese but if you add just a bit more info that already makes ir clear what gender you are.

    Taking one of your examples and adding “*alone*”

    >I went alone

    Eu fui sozinho (male)

    Eu fui sozinha (female)

20. In Czech unfortunately 🙁

    I went

    Šel jsem (male)
    Šla jsem (female)

    Male verb usually ends with L and female with -LA in past tense.

21. Turkish is the same as Finnish and Hungarian, no gender whatsoever. You wouldn’t know anyone’s gender unless explicitly told.