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From: deb5@ellis.uchicago.edu (Daniel von Brighoff)
Subject: Re: International Language.
Message-ID: <1995Jan8.181104.10649@midway.uchicago.edu>
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References: <3ejt2e$duv@panix2.panix.com> <1995Jan8.003137.4773@midway.uchicago.edu> <3eouom$l18@panix2.panix.com>
Date: Sun, 8 Jan 1995 18:11:04 GMT
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Xref: glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu sci.lang.translation:537 sci.lang:34055

In article <3eouom$l18@panix2.panix.com> rcpj@panix.com (Pierre Jelenc) writes:
>In article <1995Jan8.003137.4773@midway.uchicago.edu>,
>Daniel von Brighoff <deb5@midway.uchicago.edu> wrote:
>>
>>In every European language of my acquaintance, specifically feminine
>>agent nouns are derived from the masculine agent noun.  How is this
>>"correlation in a single example"?  Also, I think it's really sufficiently
>>clear that European cultures have not even striven for equality of the
>>sexes until recently and that this fact is reflected in their languages.
>
>Indo-European languages in such a context count as one, obviously. The 
>stuff one inherits from an ancestor is hardly to be counted as an 
>innovation. 

Who was calling it an "innovation"?  Certainly not I!
>
>No culture that I know of has striven for equality between the sexes until
>recently, especially not those that have genderless languages such as
>Turkish, Japanese, or Hawaian. Thus, if anything, a genderless language
>appears to correlate with _higher_ inequality among the sexes in today's
>world. 

I wouldn't make such a careless generalisation, especially not based
on a mere three examples.

>[It may not be absolute, but it was my feeling when I was living in 
>Sweden, that there was also much more equality between male an female 
>Swedes (with a gender language) than between Finns (with a genderless 
>language).]

Nu?  Who said that gender in a language has anything to do with
determining modern attitudes?  My point with reference to Esperanto
is that deriving feminine nouns referring to people (agentative and
non-agentative) from the corresponding masculine nouns implies that
masculine persons are primary and feminine ones secondary.  Although
I certainly wouldn't say that this practice subliminally makes all 
Esperantists sexist, I don't like the symbolsim and  would prefer an
alternative:  e.g. "knabo" meaning simply "child", "virknabo" 
meaning "boy" and "knabino" meaning "girl."  This visibly puts
the masculine and feminine equivalents on equal terms in the same way
as Spanish pairs like "hijo/hija" (to use Mr. Harlow's example). 
But it doesn't really matter because I don't plan to ever use 
Esperanto for anything.  

-- 
	Daniel "Da" von Brighoff (deb5@midway.uchicago.edu)  /\
	5242 S. Hyde Park Blvd., Apt. 303		    /__\
	Chicago, IL  60615				   /____\
