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by thaumasiotes 1180 days ago
> English has no gender at all

The Indo-European gender difference still survives in the distinction between he, she, and it.

More interestingly, English is in the process of developing a gender distinction between people and non-people, reflected in the use of the relativizer who for people and which for non-people. (The words do not otherwise differ; this is a purely grammatical distinction!) This incipient gender distinction is absorbing the old one, leading to the feeling that it expresses that the referent is not a person.