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From: iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Ivan A Derzhanski)
Subject: Gender in the world's languages: _La cigale et la fourmi_
Message-ID: <D145tq.7Bx@cogsci.ed.ac.uk>
Organization: Centre for Cognitive Science, Edinburgh, UK
References: <787603010.AA02984@clone.his.com> <3csoj4$md2@darkwing.uoregon.edu> <D0z400.vK@cogsci.ed.ac.uk>
Date: Tue, 20 Dec 1994 14:34:35 GMT
Lines: 35


When Krylov was working on the Russian adaptation of La Fontaine's fable
_The Cicada and the Ant_, he found that, because of the mismatch between
French and Russian gender, he had to change the species of one of the
characters and the sex of the other.

In the French both characters were female.  But in Russian the only
word for `ant' is _muravej_, a masculine noun.  A woman could in no
wise be called that, and it is hard to fit a circumlocution such as
_samka murav'ja_ `[the] female of [the] ant [species]' into a fable.
So at least the Ant had to become a man, a diligent farmer.

There is a word _cikada_ in Russian, but it is not widely known and
does not readily evoke the appropriate associations.  (La Fontaine had
borrowed the fable from Aesop, who lived at a more cicadelic latitude.)
In the north the field musician is the grasshopper, _kuznechik_, a close
relative of the cicada.  Unfortunately, that's a masculine noun, and
Krylov didn't want both characters to be men.

He ended up by converting the Cicada into a Dragon-Fly, _strekoza_.
A mighty unusual dragon-fly it was, a leaping and singing one, very
much unlike the silent flying ones found in nature, but Krylov knew
that for most of his readers one bug was as good/bad as the other.
(Chris Majka hadn't been born yet at that time, and the rest of us
care but little for butterflies, moths, mosquitoes and the like.)
What mattered was that this imaginary insect could make a woman
for the purpose of the fable.

(D'apre`s Lev Uspenskij, _Slovo o slovax_)

-- 
`Release Jesus wi this mob hangin aroon?  Nae chance!'  (The Glasgow Gospel)
Ivan A Derzhanski (iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk, iad@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu)
* Centre for Cognitive Science,  2 Buccleuch Place,   Edinburgh EH8 9LW,  UK
* Cowan House E113, Pollock Halls, 18 Holyrood Pk Rd, Edinburgh EH16 5BD, UK
