Editing Noun class (section)

=== Australian Aboriginal languages ===
The [[Dyirbal language]] is well known for its system of four noun classes, which tend to be divided along the following semantic lines:{{sfn|Corbett|1991|p=15}}

{{Ordered list |list_style_type=upper-roman
|animate objects, men
|women, [[water]], [[fire]], [[violence]]
|edible [[fruit]] and [[vegetable]]s
|miscellaneous (includes things not classifiable in the first three)
}}

The class usually labeled "feminine", for instance, includes the word for fire and nouns relating to fire, as well as all dangerous creatures and phenomena. (This inspired the title of the [[George Lakoff]] book ''[[Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things]]''.)

The [[Ngangikurrunggurr language]] has noun classes reserved for canines and hunting weapons. The [[Anindilyakwa language]] has a noun class for things that reflect light. The [[Diyari language]] distinguishes only between female and other objects. Perhaps the most noun classes in any Australian language are found in [[Yanyuwa language|Yanyuwa]], which has 16 noun classes, including nouns associated with food, trees and abstractions, in addition to separate classes for men and masculine things, women and feminine things. In the men's dialect, the classes for men and for masculine things have simplified to a single class, marked the same way as the women's dialect marker reserved exclusively for men.<ref>Jean F Kirton. [http://www.ethnologue.com/show_work.asp?id=21977 'Yanyuwa, a dying language'.] In Michael J Ray (ed.), ''Aboriginal language use in the Northern Territory: 5 reports''. Work Papers of the Summer Institute of Linguistics. Darwin: Summer Institute of Linguistics, 1988, p. 1–18.</ref>