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From: deb5@midway.uchicago.edu (Daniel von Brighoff)
Subject: Re: World Internet? World Language!
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References: <338A26B4.9E4@-accton.com.tw> <ECynA3.Hwt@midway.uchicago.edu> <868570656.11362@dejanews.com> <868828432.21644@dejanews.com>
Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 15:30:11 GMT
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In article <868828432.21644@dejanews.com>,
Jens S. Larsen  <jens@cphling.dk> wrote:
>Skribis cowan@ccil.org skrev / wrote / schrieb:
>> deb5@midway.uchicago.edu (Daniel von Brighoff) wrote:
>> > [W]hat accounts for the loss of a three-gender
>> > system in almost all of Western Europe?  Or its
>> > preservation in German (despite the fact that there were times in
>> > German history were the "educated" classes used a great deal of
>> > French and Latin)?
>
>> I suspect that the 3-gender system is preserved in Standard German
>> precisely because of Latin.  How well is it preserved in the German
>> dialects?
>
>Extremely differently, and that goes for all Germanic languages and
>dialects on the continent.  There are dialects with one, two and three
>genders within Jutland alone.  Standard Danish has two.

I think he meant "German dialects" rather than "GermanIC dialects".
There may be a lot of variation in Danish, but--like I said--I can't say
I've ever encountred a dialect of German, whether Low, Middle, or
High, with less than three genders.  Assignment of particular words to one
or the other varies, and the distinctions are often minimal (e.g. only in
the articles in singular dative case), but they are there.

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