In linguistics, natural gender refers to biological sex, i.e., the state of being male or female, as opposed to grammatical gender, a system where biological sex is not a primary factor. Broadly conceived, linguistics is the study of human language, and a linguist is someone who engages in this study. ... The members of many species of living things are divided into two or more categories called sexes (or loosely speaking, genders). ... Male is the sex of an organism, or a part of an organism, which produces sperms. ... Female is the sex of an organism, or a part of an organism, which produces egg cells. ... In linguistics, grammatical genders, also called noun classes, are classes of nouns reflected in the behavior of associated words; every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be very few which belong to several classes at once (Hockett 1958: 231). ...

In a language that primarily uses natural gender, such as English, the grammatical gender of a word will normally agree with its referent's natural gender. Things that are neither male nor female are given a separate gender called inanimate or neuter. The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... The word neuter can refer to: the property of being neither biologically male or female: being asexual the sterilization (castration, spaying, etc. ...

Most languages with masculine and feminine genders use natural gender to some extent. A common exception is in diminutive nouns, which are often neuter. In the German language, for instance, Mädchen ("girl") has neuter grammatical gender though its referent's natural gender is feminine. A diminutive ia a formation of a word used to convey a sense of smaller size and/or affection (see nickname). ... German (called Deutsch in German; in German the term germanisch is equivalent to English Germanic), is a member of the western group of Germanic languages and is one of the worlds major languages. ...

Languages that do not exclusively rely on natural gender may classify inanimates as feminine or masculine as well as neuter. This may be done arbitrarily, as in French, where the moon (la lune) is classified as feminine, or it may be done based on formal grounds, as in Latin where words with the suffix -tas, -tatis are classified as feminine. Sometimes natural gender will override formal assignment of grammatical gender: in Latin, for example, nauta ("sailor") is masculine, and nurus ("daughter-in-law") is feminine, even though the endings -a and -us are normally associated with the opposite gender. This article is about the meanings of the word form connected with shape or structure. ... Latin is the language that was originally spoken in the region around Rome called Latium. ...

See also

• StorkSelect.com: Natural Preconception Baby Gender Selection (http://www.storkselect.com/)
• Grammatical gender