Posted: 4/9/2004 6:56:54 PM EDT
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why is English the only European language which does not divided words in feminine and masculine? |
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Quoted: [red]w[/red]hy is English the only European language which does not divide[red]d[/red] words in feminine and masculine? Because it's too complicated for you as it is? Did you mean to say "Why is English the only European language that doesn't assign gender to nouns?" |
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It's not. Cars, ships, airplanes, train engines, etc are female; so are countries, so is the Moon. Animals whose gender is undetermined are assumed to be male for grammatical purposes. The Sun is male, too. Oh, and let's not forget the nouns used to describe living things with /actual/ genders. I'm sure there are a few more examples. |
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Quoted: I always thought the idea of nouns being masculine or feminine completely retarded. Why should I waste my time memorizing if a chair is masculine or feminine ? Or a hammer ? Or anything other then an animal or a person that can actually BE masculine or feminine. Don't many people refer to their guns and cars as "she" as well? |
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Quoted: why is English the only European language which does not divided words in feminine and masculine? Whaddyamean? Of course English still has gender. F'rinstance, why do people refer to boats and ships as "she" and "her"? There may be no "die" "das" or "der" in front of them, but they are still referred to in th feminine sense. Ergo, gender. And certain nouns have built in inflections indicating gender, some of which even change the root of the base word itself (process called "umlaut"). This reflects both the Latin as well as Germanic origins of English. Example: -master...mistress -administrator...administratrix -aviator....aviatrix -actor.....actress Some are just tagged on the end with a feminine inflection: -prince....princess -author......authoress -hunter....huntress True, some of these words are older in origin, and not used everyday, but they are still in the dictionary and used occasionally. |
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Quoted: Quoted: I always thought the idea of nouns being masculine or feminine completely retarded. Why should I waste my time memorizing if a chair is masculine or feminine ? Or a hammer ? Or anything other then an animal or a person that can actually BE masculine or feminine. Don't many people refer to their guns and cars as "she" as well? We only bestowe that honor on things we really like like cars, guns, boats, etc. No one gives a fuck if something simple like a shovel or a table is masculine or feminine. |
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95thFoot, you site examples where the person is male or female, ex hunter/huntress. But I'm talking about dividing nouns into gender. example in Spanish, El carro - the car (masculine) La Camioneta - the truck (feminine) El rifle - the rifle (masculine) la noche - the night (feminine) la policia - the police force (feminine) el policia - the police officer (masculine) The gender of the noun must agree with with the gender of the article, adverbs and adjectives. I just find it curious that English alone amoung the European languages lacks this feature. |
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Quoted: Quoted: why is English the only European language which does not divided words in feminine and masculine? Whaddyamean? Of course English still has gender. F'rinstance, why do people refer to boats and ships as "she" and "her"? There may be no "die" "das" or "der" in front of them, but they are still referred to in th feminine sense. Ergo, gender. And certain nouns have built in inflections indicating gender, some of which even change the root of the base word itself (process called "umlaut"). This reflects both the Latin as well as Germanic origins of English. Example: -master...mistress -administrator...administratrix -aviator....aviatrix -actor.....actress Some are just tagged on the end with a feminine inflection: -prince....princess -author......authoress -hunter....huntress True, some of these words are older in origin, and not used everyday, but they are still in the dictionary and used occasionally. You forgot: -dominator.....dominatrix -terminator...................I'll be back. CW |
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Quoted: Quoted: Yea, I never got the gender thing in foreign languages. My car has neither a penis or a vagina. Maybe that applies if you have a car like a 69 camaro for masculine, and feminine if you have a car like a miata. [LOL] well right now I drive a '88 Chevy Celebrity which is neither masculine or feminine. I'm in the process of getting a Cadillac Fleetwood soon with the 305 engine, so I guess that would be an "el". |
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It is just the family of language. English does have gender it is just not a prevelant. All the Romantic languages have gender on everything and it can change the meaning of the word so you must say the article in every case. Romantic languages are Spanish, French, Italian, Portugese, Romanish and they stem from Latin. English is in the Germanic family which has German, Norwegian, Swedish, Danish and Flemish. There are a lot more languages in each family so I just listed some of the main ones. Do to the fact English is so widely used it has aspects of many langagues which is evident when you start learning some of the others. |
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Quoted: why is English the only European language which does not divided words in feminine and masculine? Sure it does. Actor/actress. Dominator/dominatrix. Masseur/masseuse. It just doesn't attribute gender to inaminate objects which have no discernable maleness or femaleness. And I like that, it makes sense. |
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A friend of mines last name is Hough. She is an elementary school teacher with a fair number of students where English is their second or third language. She has found 7 or 8 different ways to pronounce Hough * in English. Tell me that isn't confusing to some one whose primary language has only one pronunciation for each vowel. * How, who, huff, hew, huge, hoe ring, rang, rung, and sink, sank, sunk but not think, thank, thunk? red, read, reed |
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It isn't a matter of gender, this is just a basic way of speaking about it because a man and a woman are common reference points. You simply follow the spelling of the word and use the appropriate 'feminine' or 'masculine' form. All of the romance languages are simple in terms of structure. English just seems to make a lot more sense if it's your first language. As a bilingual person, I prefer English for literature- formal or cheap fiction. For spoken conversation Spanish just 'feels right'. |
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Quoted: A friend of mines last name is Hough. She is an elementary school teacher with a fair number of students where English is their second or third language. She has found 7 or 8 different ways to pronounce Hough * in English. Tell me that isn't confusing to some one whose primary language has only one pronunciation for each vowel. * How, who, huff, hew, huge, hoe ring, rang, rung, and sink, sank, sunk but not think, thank, thunk? red, read, reed My favorite is Bow and arrow Bow in the hair Bow to the crowd Bow of a ship It really freaks the foriners out. [:D] |