riddle@ut-sally.UUCP (Prentiss Riddle) (02/26/84)
This is a minor point, but Jerry Boyajian (akov68!boyajian) writes: >> ...as I said before, German has a generic "she" (*sie*), rather than >> a generic "he"; their culture is no more nor less oppressive of women >> than any other human culture. Sorry, but this isn't true. There are a number of third-person generic pronouns in German: "man" This corresponds more or less to the English "one", although it is much more frequently used than "one". It has no gender and can only be used in the nominative case. (Ex: "Wenn man 'cat' tippt, sieht man den Inhalt der Datei." When one types 'cat', one sees the contents of the file.) "einer" The indefinite article, used like "man" above but much more versatile than "man", since it can run the full gamut of case and gender and even includes negative forms ("keiner", etc.). Unlike "man", it is not genderless; as with English generic pronouns, if the correct gender is known, it should be used; otherwise the default is the masculine. (Ex: "Wenn einer 'cat' tippt, sieht einer den Inhalt der Datei." When one types 'cat', one sees the contents of the file.) "du/Sie" The forms of "you", often used informally for generic purposes in German as in English. (Ex: "Wenn du 'cat' tippst, siehst du den Inhalt der Datei." When you type 'cat', you see the contents of the file.) [Note that the polite form "Sie" has nothing to do with the feminine third-person pronoun "sie".] "er" The normal masculine third-person singular pronoun, used like the English "he" to refer to an antecedent of uncertain gender. (Ex: "Wenn der Benutzer 'cat' tippt, sieht er den Inhalt der Datei." When the user types 'cat', he sees the contents of the file.) Note that "der Benutzer" is masculine and forces the following pronoun to be masculine, unlike a genderless English noun such as "user". From the point of view of those who would eradicate sexual distinctions from language, this is a major advantage which English has over German. For instance, one can speak of a "doctor" in English and leave the gender ambiguous, while German always forces one to choose between "der Arzt" (male doctor) and "die Aerztin" (female doctor). In my opinion, the problem of gender in generic pronouns pales in comparison to that of professional nouns in languages like German. --- Prentiss Riddle --- ("Aprendiz de todo, maestro de nada.") --- {ihnp4,seismo,ctvax}!ut-sally!riddle
simon@psuvax.UUCP (Janos Simon) (02/29/84)
There seems to be a recurrent confusion between gender and sex in these discussions. There is nothing sexist in gender concordance in languages with gender (as Spanish, German, etc.). If you have to use a pronoun, it has to agree with the noun: if the noun is not explicit, the gender is masculine (in these languages). This does not make the object MALE, only makes it of the masculine gender (any more than the reference >she< to a ship makes her of the female sex). In English, since gender has mostly disappeared, gender and sex get often confused, but in other languages this is not the case. In particular, in Portuguese (a language with gender I am confortable pontificating about), saying "O medico" (masc. the doctor) does not mean or evoke the image of a male doctor - it is the generic doctor, as "doctor" is in English. One would have to say later whether the doctor was male or not.