Sex-based and Non-sex-based Gender Systems
Nouns and pronouns · one world map for each value
WALS codes 257 languages for this feature. The most frequent value, “No gender system”, covers 145 of them (56%); the least frequent, “Non-sex-based gender system”, covers 28.
That value is most frequent in North America (80% of the 40 languages coded there) and least frequent in Africa (22% of 49).
All 20 Afro-Asiatic languages coded have “Sex-based gender system”.
Niger-Congo is the most divided, its largest group reaching only 18 of 23.
No gender system145 languages · 56%
Sex-based gender system84 languages · 33%
Non-sex-based gender system28 languages · 11%
One map per value; each dot is a language WALS codes with that value.
By macro-area
| Value | Africa | Eurasia | Papunesia | Australia | North America | South America |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No gender system | 11 | 42 | 32 | 13 | 32 | 15 |
| Sex-based gender system | 19 | 34 | 9 | 10 | 4 | 8 |
| Non-sex-based gender system | 19 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 2 |
| All values | 49 | 78 | 41 | 24 | 40 | 25 |
Inside the largest families
| Family | Coded | Most frequent value | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Niger-Congo | 23 | Non-sex-based gender system | 78% |
| Austronesian | 21 | No gender system | 95% |
| Afro-Asiatic | 20 | Sex-based gender system | 100% |
| Indo-European | 18 | Sex-based gender system | 89% |
| Pama-Nyungan | 14 | No gender system | 79% |
| Altaic | 10 | No gender system | 100% |
| Sino-Tibetan | 10 | No gender system | 100% |
| Trans-New Guinea | 9 | No gender system | 89% |