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From: deb5@midway.uchicago.edu (Daniel von Brighoff)
Subject: Re: SF & Language - Minimums
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References: <01bc265a$a239f270$275ee8cd@sal9000> <kedamono-0503972228290001@cnc096055.concentric.net> <5gbm2s$ka@universe.digex.net> <332c8711.3021574@news.mindspring.com>
Date: Wed, 19 Mar 1997 21:21:11 GMT
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In article <332c8711.3021574@news.mindspring.com>,
D Gary Grady <dgary@mindspring.com> wrote:
>nancyl@universe.digex.net (Nancy Lebovitz) wrote:
>
>>Why have he and she as pronouns?
>
>Indeed, many human languages, such as Chinese and Finnish, do not.
>(Chinese sometimes used different male and female third-person
>pronouns in literary works, but not in ordinary speech, if I recall
>correctly.)

...and these were a recent adoptation (around the turn of the century,
IMS) under influence from European models to boot.  In those unenlightened
days, Chinese was thought "inferior" to European languages because it
lacked gender distinctions in its pronouns.

Off hand, I can't think of *any* East Asian language with pronomial gender
distinctions.


-- 
	 Daniel "Da" von Brighoff    /\          Dilettanten
	(deb5@midway.uchicago.edu)  /__\         erhebt Euch
				   /____\      gegen die Kunst!
