Thursday, September 29, 2005
Gender bender
Ruth Walker, a language columnist with Christian Science Monitor, has an interesting article on the uses of gender.
A few things I learned:
1. Bengali does not have gender-specific pronouns.
2. "The Algonquian languages divide nouns into "animate" and "inanimate" – and they consider raspberries to be animate and strawberries inanimate."
3. Aboriginal languages of Australia have four classes: men and animate things; women, fire, and dangerous things; edible fruits and vegetables; and miscellaneous things. Airplane, by the way, gets the vegetable gender.
A few things I learned:
1. Bengali does not have gender-specific pronouns.
2. "The Algonquian languages divide nouns into "animate" and "inanimate" – and they consider raspberries to be animate and strawberries inanimate."
3. Aboriginal languages of Australia have four classes: men and animate things; women, fire, and dangerous things; edible fruits and vegetables; and miscellaneous things. Airplane, by the way, gets the vegetable gender.
# posted by Ashok @ 11:06 PM 
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i could also never understand how inanimate things get the male and female gender in Hindi ...no wonder, South Indians find it difficult to get the genders right when speaking in Hindi! :)
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# posted by 
: 11:31 PM
: 11:31 PM 
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