Why are there gendered words for some professions like actor and actress but not e.g. doctor and doctress?
In: 1937
English is a mixture of multiple different Latin based languages and some Anglo Saxon sprinkled in as well. Compared to most Latin languages, it is hardly gendered. Languages like Spanish and German have a gender that’s very obvious in the word for almost all professions. However some gendering still exists.
The strongest influences in English are French and German which are both heavily gendered languages and used to exist parallel in the language. The upper class would use all French derived words while the lower class would use German derived ones. This is why there are basically two identical words for just about everything. Over time the words took on slightly different meanings in many cases as the two versions merged, but the pronunciations are very difficult for a non native speaker because the rules change based on the root language.
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