PC world
Q: English uses gender words like 鈥渕an鈥� for people, 鈥渟he鈥� for ship and the
masculine 鈥渉e鈥� for a person whose sex is unknown. Are there any
languages鈥攑rimitive, modern, whatever鈥攖hat don鈥檛 apply gender to any
words other than those that clearly refer to males or females?
The question turns out to be several rolled into one.
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1) Do all languages have pronouns like 鈥渉e鈥�, 鈥渟he鈥� and 鈥渋t鈥�?
2) Do all languages (or at least those that use 鈥渉e鈥�, 鈥渟he鈥� and 鈥渋t鈥�
pronouns) sometimes assign a gender to inanimate objects (such as a ship or
贵谤补苍肠别)鈥抬诲
3) In languages where nouns have gender (such as German or French) do these
nouns really have male and female qualities?
A: 1) There are many languages with no grammatical gender for words. My own
language, Finnish, is one. Feminists may appreciate the fact that we have only
one word for 鈥渟he鈥� and 鈥渉e鈥� (han) and that our word for a 鈥�(hu)man
being鈥� (ihminen) has no relation to the word 鈥渕an鈥� (mies).
Our translators have some difficulty translating stories from Indo-European
languages. 鈥淗e kissed her鈥� requires the names of the participants or other
clarifications. Otherwise it could mean all possible combinations of mutual
kissing.
Osmo Wiio
Kauniainen, Finland
Thanks to other readers who told us that there was no gender in Bengali,
Cheremis, Chichewa, Chinese, Estonian, Glosa, Hungarian, Ndebele, Indonesian,
Ingrian, Japanese, Kerelian, Kiswahili, Kirundi, Kinyarwanda, Klingon, Lapp,
Livonian, Maori, Mordvin, Nubian, Ostyak, Shona, Tamil, Thai, Turkish, Veps,
Vote, Voytak, Yoruba and Zyrian. In fact, languages with gender are in a
minority and mostly Indo-European.
A: 2) English does not refer to inanimate objects in the masculine or
feminine gender, except poetically, to indicate affection towards a country or a
vehicle. Such use in prosaic language would appear strained: 鈥渢he British Rail
diesel multiple unit began her last journey . . .鈥� For inanimate objects,
English uses the neuter gender (it).
In British English, he is not used to indicate a person of undetermined sex,
but always denotes a male. However, to avoid an explicit indication of sex, we
can refer to a single person in the plural, for example, when someone comes to
the door, they ring the bell. This is not just substitution of the pronoun: the
subject of the second clause is wholly plural (so we don鈥檛 say: 鈥渢hey rings the
产别濒濒鈥�).
The neuter gender can be used when referring generally to young children of
indefinite sex, as in: 鈥淏efore a child walks, it crawls鈥�. But this becomes
unacceptable about the time when the child begins to interact socially, after
which he or she must be used. This unusual use of the neuter gender is mirrored
in some Slavonic languages (where animate objects are rarely neuter). In
Croatian, for example, the word for child is the neuter dete.
Barry Lord
Rochdale, Lancashire
A: The use of a marked (different-to-expected) gender to apply to certain
inanimate items is not an unusual feature of many languages and seems to have
evolved independently in a number of geographically distant places. One common
pattern seems to be the use of the feminine gender as a sort of diminutive,
expressing affection for an object. In the Native American language Lushootseed,
for instance, gender marking is purely natural, males and inanimate objects
being distinct from females (human and animal), except when men refer to small
animals and their hunting canoes, in which case they refer to them as
feminine.
David Beck
University of Toronto, Canada
A: English has only a vestige of grammatical gender (principally in the use
of the pronouns 鈥渉e鈥� versus 鈥渟he鈥�), while in other languages such as French,
German and Swahili, the gender of a noun has far-reaching effects, such as on
the form of plurals, adjectives and verbs. Because English has so little gender,
it is easy to use it in a nonsexist way, by avoiding the use of gendered terms
for referents of mixed or unknown gender.
A cautionary note for those of us who do make the effort to write nonsexist
English. If a language has no gender it does not follow that the society that
uses it is nonsexist.
Anthea Fraser
University of Leeds
A: 3) Grammatical categories originated from the way languages originally
tried to classify objects and actions鈥攈ence the residual connection
between gender and the sex of some objects. Gender was a zoomorphic extension to
all objects and abstract notions of the sexing that the languages applied to
humans and animals. This extension was arbitrary: for the Romans the Sun was
masculine and the Moon feminine, but Germanic peoples had it the other way
round. It was also incomplete and inconsistent: sentinelle (sentry) is
feminine in French and Italian although most sentries are male.
Additionally there are other inconsistencies. Plurals point to quantity but
there are exceptions (trousers is a plural noun but a single object) and verbal
tense points to time but only vaguely (most future actions are expressed in the
present tense).
Giovanni Carsaniga
University of Sydney
New South Wales
A: First we must rid ourselves of any notion that there is a link between
鈥渟ex鈥�, a term from biology, and 鈥済ender鈥�, a technical term from
grammar鈥攖hey describe different things.
Presumably, we are clear as to the meaning of sex. Gender refers to the
division of nouns, as a set, into inflectional groups. It is (almost) irrelevant
that grammarians decided to use the labels 鈥渕ale鈥�, 鈥渇emale鈥�, 鈥渘euter鈥� and so on.
They might have saved a deal of grief if they had decided to use labels such as
鈥淎鈥�, 鈥淏鈥� and 鈥淎B鈥�. Modern English has no grammatical genders since it has
no systematic way of dividing nouns into groups on the basis of inflection (99
per cent of nouns taking no inflection at all).
Ashley Oliver
Wisbech, Cambridgeshire
Warm fronts
Q: I have often been told that 鈥渋t will get warmer when it snows鈥�. This seems
counter-intuitive, yet the weather in Edinburgh was freezing until a couple
of days ago when it started to snow. Is this coincidence or does snowing
actually warm up the air?
A: The reason it seems warmer after it has started to snow is because it is
warmer. Snow can fall when ambient temperatures are between 1 and 3 掳C. So the
atmosphere needs to warm up before the snow can start to fall.
Charlie Ferrero
by e-mail, no address supplied
A: Snowing does not cause the warmth, the relative warmth causes the snow.
During very cold weather the capacity of the air to contain moisture is greatly
reduced. What water vapour remains is deposited as frost. At the same time,
evaporation is reduced and therefore air humidity remains low. In these
conditions snow can not form.
Warmer air can hold more moisture before saturation point is reached and the
water vapour begins to condense out. So when warmer air moves into cooler areas
not only do we feel the increase in temperature but the excess vapour
precipitates as snow.
Kevin Lowe
Wolverhampton, West Midlands
This week鈥檚 question
Tap dancing: Why do we tap our feet in time to music?
Andy Prior
Malvern, Worcestershire