You know, that’s really close to the original way gendering was done in German.
There used to be separate word endings for male and female, and if you don’t care you’d just skip the ending. IIRC it was “Bäcko” for male, “Bäcka” for female and “Bäck” for “I don’t care as long as I get good bread”.
The vovel shift then changed -o and -a both to -e, and then there was no gender marking at all. The modern -in ending for female forms only originated in the 16th century to make women more visible in the language.
That’s why German doesn’t have symmetric male/female variants but only a generic and a female form. As in, if you say “Bäckerin” it’s clear you are specifically only referring to women, while “Bäcker” doesn’t clearly mean you are only referring to a man.
You know, that’s really close to the original way gendering was done in German.
There used to be separate word endings for male and female, and if you don’t care you’d just skip the ending. IIRC it was “Bäcko” for male, “Bäcka” for female and “Bäck” for “I don’t care as long as I get good bread”.
The vovel shift then changed -o and -a both to -e, and then there was no gender marking at all. The modern -in ending for female forms only originated in the 16th century to make women more visible in the language.
That’s why German doesn’t have symmetric male/female variants but only a generic and a female form. As in, if you say “Bäckerin” it’s clear you are specifically only referring to women, while “Bäcker” doesn’t clearly mean you are only referring to a man.