Ancient Greek in action: gender identity and language

As you’ve seen in this module, we group ancient Greek nouns, adjectives and pronouns in categories called “gender.” What does it mean to say that δῶρον is neuter, γνώμη feminine or λόγος masculine?

In this article entitled “Gender Diversity in Greek and Latin”, Classics scholar and teacher Tom Hendrickson looks at grammatical gender in Greek and Latin (which is also traditionally analyzed as having the three genders masculine, feminine and neuter). While Hendrickson’s survey of how ten ancient authors discuss grammatical gender underscores the continuity of thinking about language in gendered terms from antiquity to today, the varied concepts of language and gender in those sources also provoke us to think about our own understanding of language and gender.