2007/10/5, D. Michael McIntyre <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>
> On Friday 05 October 2007, Heikki Johannes Junes wrote:
> > In Finnish language we do not have gender, or, everything is neuter.
> > That is why we only ponder why things have originally started to be
> > feminine or masculine.
>
> Score one for Finnish!!! (Though how do you determine the gender of
> things
> that really do have gender, like male vs. female humans, or dogs, or
> flowers?)
In Finnish: 'Minä, sinä, hän' are used for persons 'I, you, (s)he', all
neuter.
'Tämä, tuo, se' are used for things or animals 'this, that, it', all neuter.
Finnish does have a way to add '-tar' or '-tär' to the end of the word.
For example, word 'kaunotar' means a beautiful woman.
Earlier there was a habit to add '-mies' at the end of the word, like in
salesman.
We still have weird constructs like 'Rouva puhemies' which means 'Madam
speakersman'.
As women enter more and more in occupations in which men work traditionally,
common trend is to invent new names for occupations which become then
gender-neuter.
The gender specific suffix '-mies', a man, becomes replaced with '-henkilö',
a person.
Some animals have different genders, like vuohi ja lammas which are goat and
sheep.
Dogs are dogs.
Of flowers I do not know the gender---no example comes in my mind. What
makes
a flower a masculine or a feminine ? Should be only their stamen or carpel.
Best regards,
Heikki
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
This SF.net email is sponsored by: Splunk Inc.
Still grepping through log files to find problems? Stop.
Now Search log events and configuration files using AJAX and a browser.
Download your FREE copy of Splunk now >> http://get.splunk.com/
_______________________________________________
Rosegarden-devel mailing list
[email protected] - use the link below to unsubscribe
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/rosegarden-devel
