This essay, surveying the prehistory and history of language and gender research, focuses on the semantic and pragmatic (rather than on the grammatical) intersection of language and gender. Semantically and pragmatically based gender distinctions are universal, although different languages and cultures manifest them in somewhat different ways. For this reason such gender distinctions are diagnostic of the level of equality between women and men in any given society: the fewer and less salient pragmatically based differences in linguistic practice there are, the more egalitarian the society is likely to be. In this way, gender differences are manifested in the speech and discourse patterns of female and male speakers, and in the choice of language available in speaking of male and female subjects. Since these aspects of language are clearly pragmatically based, it is upon them that this discussion will focus