Formality used to be very important in language in less egalitarian societies, so it's really an artefact. I have seen it argued that (in German at least) gende

Formality used to be very important in language in less egalitarian societies, so it's really an artefact. I have seen it argued that (in German at least) gender can help native speakers with word recognition - i.e. it's easier to differentiate die Brücke and der Bruder with the articles than without. But it's interesting to speculate on what English does which could be considered pointless: * Gendered pronouns (he/she/it) - some languages e.g. Persian/Farsi do with a single pronoun for both. * Number agreement for 3rd person verbs - i.e. he goes but they go. * The continuous aspect. In many languages the expressions 'I run' and 'I am running' are identical. * Articles. 'A cat sat on the mat.' Many languages do without these words and rely on context. * Required tense marking. 'I speak', 'I will speak', 'I have spoken'. Some languages make the distinction optional - i.e. 'I speak' can mean 'Today I speak', 'Tomorrow I speak', 'Yesterday I speak'. Or things which could be useful to introduce to English: * Animate/Inanimate pronouns - i.e. a formal distinction between 'it' (used for objects) and singular-'they' (used for humans and similar). * An actual second-person plural - like y'all, yous, etc. rather than 'You' functioning as both singular and plural. * A distinction between we (including the person to whom you are speaking) and we (excluding that person). 'We are going to the zoo tomorrow' - does that mean me and you, or me and my family? * A grammatically distinct future form - 'I walk' -> 'I have walked' in the past tense, changing walk to walked, but 'I will walk' in the future using the same form as the present.