Customer Reviews

Breaking the Patriarchal Code: The Linguistic Basis of Sexual Bias

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When I ordered this book,I was looking forward to read it, because I expected a serious investigation of the different gender positions expressed through linguistic means (because it is true that such phenomena exist). But the way the author approaches the problem is not at all linguistic, it is just a matter of phonetical coincidences that don't explain any further mechanism - based on English forms arbitrarily extended to other languages.I am insterested in Indoeuropean Studies (and Women's Studies as well) so I understand a bit what linguistic investigation should be. The simple presence of some (or the same) combinations of phonemes in different languages does not mean that these languages share a patriarcal structure of their cultures.It could be determined by chance.All linguists seem to share similar ideas at least about this. I think that such features of language(s) should be investigated,found and explained on a totally different basis.

I bought this book because it claimed to be a study of gender bias in Indo-European languages. Since PIE appears to have been spoken by a nomadic male oriented society, I expected an analysis of common gender trends across languages. What I got was a "rant" that was neither academic nor thorough. The book is a series of lossely organized charts, lists, and paragraphs, some of which are based lightly on what must be the author's personal view of linguistics, others of which are completely absurd. This book is OK if you want the angry feminist rejector of punctuation (creative/subversive/flowing non-WO-man); it is useless as a text for serious study. For a wonderful, powerful study of pre-IE europe and matriarchy, see Gimbutas.

This book examines the language bias in Indo-European languages. Ms. Goueffic approaches this difficult topic in a really satisfying way -- by including her copious lists of words that show bias. With only the essentials of explanation, she leaves readers to discover the patterns and problems for themselves. It's an intellectual delight, and definitely intriguing, despite the sometimes uncomfortable information