Only a relatively small number of English nouns have distinct male and female forms; many of them are loanwords from non-Germanic languages (the suffixes "-ress" and "-rix" in words such as "actress" and "aviatrix", for instance, derive from Latin "-rix", in the first case via the French "-rice"). English has no live productive gender markers. An example of such a marker might be the suffix "-ette" (of French provenance), but this is seldom used today, surviving mostly in either historical contexts or with disparaging or humorous intent.