The working definition presented on this entry — and this framework of theory that I will explore on Cisnormativity — disagrees with the Butlerian premise that “gender is socially constructed”. On the contrary: social order is shaped by a precedent language of gender; societ(ies) followed after the basic building blocks of gender were formalized.

This is interesting! So to put it another way, perhaps society is gender-constructed? I don’t think I’d put it quite like that. I think that risks going back to the old argument that gender is the “first” or “most basic” order, somehow prior to other oppressions. But I think it does point to arguments made by many feminists that this specific society and those like it do seem to be very fundamentally founded on the idea of division (or more accurately dualism). But I can’t buy anything which says it’s a biological (or neurological!) imperative. Where are you going with the idea?

but more urgently, it seems to me that there’s a problem with part of the premise here.

the official languages of europe’s colonial powers do something unusual: they divide humans into different noun classes based on (presumed assigned-at-birth) sex. *most languages*, however, don’t have multiple noun classes at all, and a substantial number of those that do have them, don’t divide humans into different ones on the basis of sex. (it’s also worth noting that neither number of noun classes nor their sex-linking in a given language corresponds particularly to the gender systems of the societies that speak it.)

the fact that noun classes get called “gender” at all is a direct result of that specific characteristic of those european languages, and the racism that centers linguistics as a field of study on the languages of colonial europe.

there are some dandy maps of noun class number and sex-linking at the World Atlas of Language Structures website: here and here.

now, there are plenty of ways that language does gender besides noun classes, but i’m having trouble coming up with other *structural* ways, which it seems your argument requires…

Although, the answer to my question likely lies in the distinction (which I’m not knowledgeable enough to know) between syntax-by-interlocutor, subject-directed syntax, or gendered vocal inflections. I think the latter is what I understand Mandarin to lack. Possible the second. But I’m not sure about the third.

Is my understanding correct when if I understand you to be saying that gendered inflections language (or the way genders is coded into language) depend, in some important way, on this language of gender

Yes.

It was a working hypothesis entertained before further peer research supported a related idea that spoken communication — the use of phonemes — appeared to have a specific locus of origin in time and place.

This proposed relationship between gender-as-language preceding spoken languages is tentatively supported by a prevalence of gendering noted in spoken languages across multiple linguistic families — be it syntax-by-interlocutor; subject-directed syntax; gendered vocal inflections by interlocutor; and so on. Across these, the implementation may differ, but each is still identifiable as gendered once a listener/interlocutor has a basic command of that language’s syntax.

I plan to explore this further with a peer reviewed paper.