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Pronouns

Started by keithpenrod, December 16, 2011, 04:28:08 PM

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keithpenrod

Not sure this is technically a social issue.  Strictly speaking, it's a linguistic issue. 

Anyway, here's the question: what do people here think about gender-based pronouns?  I mean, we have only one second-person pronoun (you) that is independent of gender.  Plural pronouns are also independent of gender.  Nouns and verbs (in English) are never conjugated for gender.  So, why do we have gender-specific third-person pronouns?  (He, she; him, her; his, hers; etc.)

I don't know too much about other languages.  I know that in Spanish most nouns have gender, but that has little to do with human sex (for example, a table is feminine and a book is masculine).  In Japanese, they have male and female pronouns, but the subject is frequently omitted, therefore reducing the effect gender-specific pronouns might have.

Are there other languages that have only gender-neutral personal pronouns?  Personally, I think that it'd be a big step toward erasing sexism, heterosexim, and discrimination against transgendered people if we would use gender-neutral pronouns.  The language a person speaks has a great impact on how that person thinks.

Tank

One could say one is happy or sad?

Personally I try to avoid he or she whenever possible unless I'm specifically referring to an individual.
If religions were TV channels atheism is turning the TV off.
"Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt." ― Richard P. Feynman
'It is said that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die. That is true, it's called Life.' - Terry Pratchett
Remember, your inability to grasp science is not a valid argument against it.

OldGit

AFAIK any Indo-European language will have masc and fem 3ps pronouns and many will have retained the neuter one.

QuotePlural pronouns are also independent of gender.
Not always,  eg French ils/elles.

QuoteI think that it'd be a big step toward erasing sexism, heterosexim, and discrimination against transgendered people if we would use gender-neutral pronouns.
Why destroy a useful distinction just for political correctness?  Even if a major campaign over a century could achieve the change.  Fashion and politeness have already destroyed or hijacked the singular/plural "you" differences in most European languages.  The useful dual/plural distinction has vanished everywhere.  Let's hang on to what we've got.

keithpenrod

Quote from: Tank on December 16, 2011, 04:45:33 PM
One could say one is happy or sad?

Personally I try to avoid he or she whenever possible unless I'm specifically referring to an individual.

"One" does work.  It would be nice to see that (or some other word) become more mainstream, though.  Using it now, one comes across as stuffy and academic.  Also, it could be confused with the numeral 1. 

Quote from: OldGit on December 16, 2011, 04:53:15 PM
AFAIK any Indo-European language will have masc and fem 3ps pronouns and many will have retained the neuter one.

QuotePlural pronouns are also independent of gender.
Not always,  eg French ils/elles.
Sorry, I meant in English.

Quote
QuoteI think that it'd be a big step toward erasing sexism, heterosexim, and discrimination against transgendered people if we would use gender-neutral pronouns.
Why destroy a useful distinction just for political correctness?  Even if a major campaign over a century could achieve the change.  Fashion and politeness have already destroyed or hijacked the singular/plural "you" differences in most European languages.  The useful dual/plural distinction has vanished everywhere.  Let's hang on to what we've got.
Japanese doesn't distinguish between singular and plural, and that's not a big deal to them.  I mean, it really isn't any huge distinction anyway.  We only distinguish between 1 and "more than 1".  So, a plural is very ambiguous since it could mean 2 or 200,000, which is a big difference.  Including 1 in the mix wouldn't be all that different, really.  We're just trained to think that because the language we speak differentiates between singular and plural.

Also, I don't see why the need to distinguish between the two sexes is so important.  We don't have personal pronouns to distinguish tall from short, fat from skinny, gay from straight, or any other classification.  So, why distinguish between male and female?  I wouldn't suggest such a change in the interest of political correctness, but in fact in contention with your assertion--because it is unnecessary.  As for me personally, the only time I've ever found the distinctions "he" and "she" give are when I'm talking about a married couple.  Then I can say "he" as a shortcut for "the husband" and "she" to mean "the wife".  However, with more and more gay couples being open (and married), this has no benefit, since "he" or "she" could refer to both members of the couple.  Aside from this one scenario, I've never found the need to distinguish between male and female.  I use the appropriate 3rd-person pronoun because that is the societal (and linguistic) norm, but not because I find it useful to know whether the person being discussed is male or female.

xSilverPhinx

#4
Quote from: OldGit on December 16, 2011, 04:53:15 PM
Why destroy a useful distinction just for political correctness?  Even if a major campaign over a century could achieve the change.  Fashion and politeness have already destroyed or hijacked the singular/plural "you" differences in most European languages.  The useful dual/plural distinction has vanished everywhere.  Let's hang on to what we've got.

This ^

I've grown accustomed to using "he/his and she/her" instead of "he/his" for any generic person in English, but when it comes to other languages, the distinction is actually part of it. ???

It would seem odd to give a word with a masculine pronoun a feminine or neutral one.

Do you speak any romance language? Or German (that I know also has this feature...)They're not exactly on comparable grounds with English since the latter doesn't have that characteristic.

Edited to add: Disconsider everything I said. I was half asleep before I realised that I had confused a few things ;D (poor neurons of mine have been fried repeatably this whole semester... ::) )
I am what survives if it's slain - Zack Hemsey


DeterminedJuliet

There was a queer theorist who tried to come up with a whole new "neuter" language, but it didn't really work. I don't remember the individual's name.
"We've thought of life by analogy with a journey, with pilgrimage which had a serious purpose at the end, and the THING was to get to that end; success, or whatever it is, or maybe heaven after you're dead. But, we missed the point the whole way along; It was a musical thing and you were supposed to sing, or dance, while the music was being played.

Stevil

My wife is Chinese. The word for he in Mandarin is "ta" and the word for she in Mandarin is "ta" spelt differently by sounding the same. So I think it was difficult for her to grasp the concept of "he" or "she", this made it difficult for me at times when she was talking about her siblings, I was often confused whether she was talking about her brother or her sister.

When speaking "you", the person generally knows you are talking about them, there really is no need to put a gender onto it, and sometimes it is best if you don't as with some people, unfortunately you might get it wrong.

Tank

If this is a problem in English isn't it worse in French where items have gender?
If religions were TV channels atheism is turning the TV off.
"Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt." ― Richard P. Feynman
'It is said that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die. That is true, it's called Life.' - Terry Pratchett
Remember, your inability to grasp science is not a valid argument against it.

OldGit

#8
The parent Indo-European language assigned one of three genders - masculine, feminine or neuter - to every noun.  This situation persisted in its earliest recorded descendants, like Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, Primitive Germanic.  Some languages, like Russian, German, Rumanian, Gaelic, still keep this feature unchanged.  All Latin-derived languages except Rumanian have lost the neuter, assigning its nouns to the masculine.  Most Germanic languages have simplified it to common and neuter, common being masculine and feminine coalesced.  English is pretty well unique in Western Europe in that we have abandoned gender in all inanimate nouns.

NB
1. PLEASE don't call neuter 'neutral'.  It hurts.  >:(
2. Don't point out that ships are called she.  It's not the same phenomenon and makes us linguistic historians reach for a heavy object to throw.  ;D

OK, now we've got that out of the way - yes, all IE languages (AFAIK) make pronouns and nouns agree in gender.  It's very, very useful in communication and bugger political correctness!

Pharaoh Cat

Quote from: OldGit on December 17, 2011, 10:39:11 AM
English is pretty well unique in Western Europe in that we have abandoned gender in all inanimate nouns.

Ah, eunuch universe, dickless by diction, wombless by wording, bereft of anima and animus thenceforward, a grayer golem.

Hmm?  Oh, don't mind me, just being turgid for the Pudding's benefit. ;)

"The Logic Elf rewards anyone who thinks logically."  (Jill)

xSilverPhinx

Quote from: OldGit on December 17, 2011, 10:39:11 AM
NB
1. PLEASE don't call neuter 'neutral'.  It hurts.  >:(
2. Don't point out that ships are called she.  It's not the same phenomenon and makes us linguistic historians reach for a heavy object to throw.  ;D

Sorry OldGit ;D I've become quite good at taking a shot at linguists, though psycholinguists in particular.
I am what survives if it's slain - Zack Hemsey


DeterminedJuliet

Quote from: OldGit on December 17, 2011, 10:39:11 AM
The parent Indo-European language assigned one of three genders - masculine, feminine or neuter - to every noun.  This situation persisted in its earliest recorded descendants, like Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, Primitive Germanic.  Some languages, like Russian, German, Rumanian, Gaelic, still keep this feature unchanged.  All Latin-derived languages except Rumanian have lost the neuter, assigning its nouns to the masculine.  Most Germanic languages have simplified it to common and neuter, common being masculine and feminine coalesced.  English is pretty well unique in Western Europe in that we have abandoned gender in all inanimate nouns.


Yes, I took Russian for a couple of years in University, and I found having to "genderize" everything to be very strange. It's definitely more prevalent in Russian than in French (another language I am faintly acquainted with) and both of those languages more-so than English.
"We've thought of life by analogy with a journey, with pilgrimage which had a serious purpose at the end, and the THING was to get to that end; success, or whatever it is, or maybe heaven after you're dead. But, we missed the point the whole way along; It was a musical thing and you were supposed to sing, or dance, while the music was being played.

history_geek

Grammar.....*sigh* still the opening post seemed interesting, so it might be worth it to wreck my brains a bit to give even a partial answer.

Now that i think about it, finnish is a rather non-gender specific language in the way that we use the same word for "he/she", hän (for those who don't know, 'ä' is pronounced the same way as 'a' in 'apple' or 'I am'). even in plural it is "hänen" or "his" and "her/hers".

and this is where my understanding just falls appart. to give you some idea why, here are the pronouns in finnish and their categories:

1.Persoonapronominit
minä, sinä, hän, me, te, he
(I/me, you, he/she, we, you, they)

2.Demonstratiivipronominit
tämä, tuo, se, nämä, nuo, ne
(this, that, it, these, those, them/those)

3.Interrogatiivipronominit
kuka, (ken), mikä, kumpi (ja kumpainen)
(who, (whom), what, which one/other then?)

4.Relatiivipronominit
joka, mikä
(that, what)

5.Indefiniittipronomineja ovat muun muassa
joka, jokainen, joku, jompikumpi, jokin, kukin, mikin, kumpikin, kumpainenkin, kukaan, kenkään, mikään, kumpikaan, kumpainenkaan, eräs, muuan, itse, kaikki, molemmat, moni, muu, muutama, toinen, sama, samainen, ainoa, usea, harva
(that, each/everyone, someone, some thing, each, ..., both, both/each one, anyone, anyone, what ever, either, either one, someone, someone certain, -self, all, both, many, other, few, other, same, exact same, only one, many/a number of, few)

Refleksiivipronomini
itse (hän satutti itsensä)
(-self (he/she hurt himself/herself))

Resiprookkipronomini
toinen (toinen toistaan)
(other ((both)each other)

Quick translations by me. I have no idea if this was along the lines of the thread or not and currently my brains hurt too much to care. Hope it has given some food for thought though  ;D

finnish is a Urlic language, btw, but I don't know this craziness is a result of that or if it's just us....
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Arthur C Clarke's Third Law
"Any sufficiently advanced alien is indistinguishable from a god."
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Je n'ai pas besoin de cette hypothése - I do not require that hypothesis[img]http://www.dakkadakka.com/s/i/a/4eef2cc3548cc9844a491b22ad384546.gif[/i

OldGit

#13
As you say, yours is one of the four non-Indo-European languages in Europe, so it's not surprising that it differs from IE concerning gender.  I know none of it, so I am fascinated and grateful for a sight of those pronouns.  It's fascinating that minä and hän/he look like relatives of their Germanic counterparts.  I know you've borrowed words from Germanic throughout history (rengas/ring goes back to prehistory); but pronouns are fundamental.

Pharaoh Cat

Quote from: history_geek on December 17, 2011, 07:24:53 PM
finnish is a Urlic language...

Whoa, really?  Finlland is farther away than I thought, then, if this is accurate: http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Urlic
"The Logic Elf rewards anyone who thinks logically."  (Jill)