| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3 4 5] > | Which languages don't have a gender system? Thread poster: Sara Senft
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Kevin Harper 
United Kingdom
Local time: 03:05
German to English
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| Feminine in English | Oct 5, 2009 |
It isn't simply an informal expression, particularly for ships. When a ship is launched by the Queen she says something like "God bless her and all those who sail in her."
It has the effect of attaching a certain personality to an object, but it isn't always consistent. On last night's Top Gear, Richard Hammond referred to a specific car he had driven as "him"!
| | | | Melzie
Local time: 04:05
French to English
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Japanese doesn't have a gender system neither.
[Modifié le 2009-10-05 08:29 GMT]
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Armenian too is completely unisex, not even masculine and feminine pronouns.
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I hope software developers will read this topic and take into account that many target languages do have gender system, so provision should be made for "male" and "female" strings.
e.g. ENG-RUS localisation:
NAME sent you a message.
(SHE) отправила вам сообщение
(HE) отправил вам сообщение
Sorry for offtop ... See more I hope software developers will read this topic and take into account that many target languages do have gender system, so provision should be made for "male" and "female" strings.
e.g. ENG-RUS localisation:
NAME sent you a message.
(SHE) отправила вам сообщение
(HE) отправил вам сообщение
Sorry for offtop ▲ Collapse
| | | | | implied gender | Oct 5, 2009 |
I researched quite a lot on gender representations and language for my MA in Art History and I think that although English might not have a formal gender system it is interesting to think about the implied one. I did a little test on myself to see if I had to put a gender to a word which would I chose - and it was pretty easy to decide. This implies that we use words with a notion of gender subconsciously in mind, and can thus make our speech masculinised or feminised and attribute gender to peo... See more I researched quite a lot on gender representations and language for my MA in Art History and I think that although English might not have a formal gender system it is interesting to think about the implied one. I did a little test on myself to see if I had to put a gender to a word which would I chose - and it was pretty easy to decide. This implies that we use words with a notion of gender subconsciously in mind, and can thus make our speech masculinised or feminised and attribute gender to people and things through our words. Fascinating stuff ,no? ▲ Collapse
| | | | Lingua 5B
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Local time: 04:05
Member (2009)
English to Croatian
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Richardson Lisa wrote:
I researched quite a lot on gender representations and language for my MA in Art History and I think that although English might not have a formal gender system it is interesting to think about the implied one. I did a little test on myself to see if I had to put a gender to a word which would I chose - and it was pretty easy to decide. This implies that we use words with a notion of gender subconsciously in mind, and can thus make our speech masculinised or feminised and attribute gender to people and things through our words. Fascinating stuff ,no?
In a language, a lack of functionality in one aspect is always made up for with the easy functionality in some other aspects. Balancing is always present.
| | | | Lingua 5B
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Local time: 04:05
Member (2009)
English to Croatian
+ ...
Kevin Harper wrote:
It isn't simply an informal expression, particularly for ships. When a ship is launched by the Queen she says something like "God bless her and all those who sail in her."
It has the effect of attaching a certain personality to an object, but it isn't always consistent. On last night's Top Gear, Richard Hammond referred to a specific car he had driven as "him"!
OK, that's just for ships and some other minor exceptions.
What about having a gender for each noun that exists?
All inanimate entities in English are simplified to "it" pronoun ( neuter)..While each inanimate entity in Serbian/French has a specified gender, sometimes totally illogical one, especially in French.
[Edited at 2009-10-05 22:32 GMT]
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Tim Drayton
Cyprus
Local time: 05:05
Turkish to English
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| Third person pronoun is gender neutral | Oct 5, 2009 |
Özden Arıkan wrote: Languages of the Ural-Altaic family, or Uralic and Altaic families according to another classification, have no gender system. My native language Turkish is among them (Altaic, according to the latter classification.) You can find more details in this Wikipedia article. [Edited at 2009-10-05 03:17 GMT]
There is even only one third person singular pronoun ('o' in the uniflected, subject form) corresponding to English 'he', 'she' and 'it'.
| | | | Lingua 5B
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Local time: 04:05
Member (2009)
English to Croatian
+ ...
| German- gender and verbs | Oct 5, 2009 |
inkweaver wrote:
In German, verbs don't tell you anything about gender. It is only the personal pronoun which could give you an indication of that, but not in the plural form. To pick up your example, "They brought us a cake" could be translated as "Sie brachten uns einen Kuchen". This does not tell you anything about the gender of the persons referred to by "they" at all - "they" could be all men, all women or both men and women.
Thanks for reporting this, it's been a long time since I studied and used German. I definitely know it has a gender system, there is a set gender for each noun ( die, der, das). I made a confusion with verbal suffixes obviously and will edit my posting. I know nouns and pronouns are changed in terms of gender.. do you have any examples of verbal-gender changes in German ( disregard the example I have given) ?
[Edited at 2009-10-05 10:30 GMT]
| | | | Elizabeth Rudin
United Kingdom
Local time: 03:05
Member (2005)
Hungarian to English
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Hungarian pronouns are not gender-specific, either.
This can be quite frustrating, particularly when I translate Hungarian hospital discharge summaries/medical reports of patients participating in clinical studies. Names and all personal data are deleted for confidentiality, and I often translate a dozen pages of medical documentation without knowing whether the patient is male or female. I rejoice (sad, I know!) when I see some gender-specific examinations in the physical examinati... See more Hungarian pronouns are not gender-specific, either.
This can be quite frustrating, particularly when I translate Hungarian hospital discharge summaries/medical reports of patients participating in clinical studies. Names and all personal data are deleted for confidentiality, and I often translate a dozen pages of medical documentation without knowing whether the patient is male or female. I rejoice (sad, I know!) when I see some gender-specific examinations in the physical examination section, or diagnoses such as prostate-related or gynaecological problems, because the sex of the patient becomes clear, and it is such a relief to be able to use the relevant English pronouns instead of trying to circumvent the problem without too may repetitions of "the patient...":)) ▲ Collapse
| | | | Tim Drayton
Cyprus
Local time: 05:05
Turkish to English
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| The following list is useful | Oct 5, 2009 |
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noun_class#Languages_without_noun_classes_or_grammatical_genders
Languages without noun classes or grammatical genders
• Afrikaans
• Altaic languages
• Armenian
• Azeri
• Basque
• Bengali
• Bislama
• Bugis
• Burmese
�... See more http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noun_class#Languages_without_noun_classes_or_grammatical_genders
Languages without noun classes or grammatical genders
• Afrikaans
• Altaic languages
• Armenian
• Azeri
• Basque
• Bengali
• Bislama
• Bugis
• Burmese
• Cebuano
• Central Yup'ik
• Chinese
• Chol
• English (a trace of the masculine/feminine/neuter distinction of Old English in the personal pronouns "he", "she", "it" and some related pronouns)
• Esperanto (includes a system of "natural" gendered personal pronouns similar to English, but without other morphological impacts)
• Estonian
• Filipino
• Finnish
• Georgian
• Guaraní
• Hawaiian
• Hungarian
• Hurrian
• Ido
• Ilocano
• Indonesian
• Interlingua
• Japanese
• Kannada
• Khmer
• Korean
• Lao
• Lojban
• Malagasy
• Malay
• Malayalam
• Makasar
• Mandar
• Mande languages
• Papiamentu
• Persian
• Nahuatl
• Pirahã
• Quechua
• Quenya
• Sindarin
• Sinhala
• Sami languages
• Tamil
• Telugu
• Tetum
• Thai
• Tlingit
• Tok Pisin
• Toki Pona
• Tulu
• Turkish
• Tzotzil
• Tzeltal
• Urartian
• Vietnamese
• Yoruba ▲ Collapse
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Tim Drayton
Cyprus
Local time: 05:05
Turkish to English
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With reference to the above list, from the little I know about Sinhala/Sinhalese, different forms of numerals are used depending on whether we are counting people, animals or things, so this language can be said to have retained the vestige of a noun class system, even if it is not gender based.
| | | | | How is this phenomenon explained? | Oct 5, 2009 |
It's still more interesting to know the reason why at all gender distinction exists in languages, and why some languages can get along with it, while others cannot. As a child I was told that it's the result of personalizing all phenomena and objects, that is, in very old times men believed that all objects around us have spirits and are living beings -- I forgot the name of this phenomenon; it should be something related to pantheism. While this seems to be a logical explanation, I still have a... See more It's still more interesting to know the reason why at all gender distinction exists in languages, and why some languages can get along with it, while others cannot. As a child I was told that it's the result of personalizing all phenomena and objects, that is, in very old times men believed that all objects around us have spirits and are living beings -- I forgot the name of this phenomenon; it should be something related to pantheism. While this seems to be a logical explanation, I still have a feeling that there must be some other explanation. Otherwise, why should it have been persisted this long. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Sara Senft
United States
Local time: 22:05
Spanish to English
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TOPIC STARTER | Associating a word with a gender | Oct 5, 2009 |
What I meant is that English speakers can easily associate certain words with certain genders. One example is that people tend to associate the color pink with girls and women. The gender of the words "color" or "pink" isn't formally indicated, but people can make the connection themselves.
Henry Hinds wrote:
You say you notice more and more that people often subconsciously attach a gender to an English word. Could you perhaps explain or provide some examples? That sounds interesting, it is something I haven't noticed.
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