Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2009 May 18

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May 18

Gender in languages

As a native speaker of English, one thing that has puzzled me for many years is the extensive use of gender in other languages. Why do languages such as French and German assign gender to inanimate objects, modify verb conjugation depending on gender, and so on? Astronaut (talk) 00:34, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Well, those two languages, along with many others that use it, got it from Indo-European, but I'm not sure why Indo-European had it. There are other languages, such as Arabic, which use it and are not based on Indo-European. Wrad (talk) 00:37, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

See Angr's response under "Evolution of German?" twelve threads above this one. Deor (talk) 00:42, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Languages such as the Bantu languages use classes of nouns which then modify their adjectives, and many languages of East Asia such as Chinese, Japanese, and so on, modify the numbers (by adding a counting word or 'measure word') based mainly on shape. This may or may not be related to the reason Indo-European and Semitic languages use 'gender'. Bear in mind, 'gender' is just a convenient classification, and has nothing really to do with biological gender. It may be only a coincidence that 'man' and 'woman' generally appear as masculine and feminine respectively.--KageTora - (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 01:22, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

T. Burrow (The Sanskrit Language, Motilal Banarsidass First Indian Edition, 2001; reprint of First Edition, UK, 1955, ISBN 81-208-1767-2, p. 122) discusses the growth of grammatical gender in Indo-European languages. According to him, in the earliest period the threefold classification (masculine, feminine, and neuter) did not exist. There was no feminine and nouns were divided into two types, "neuters" and "common gender", the latter so named because the masculine and feminine forms later developed out of it. He gives the example of Hittite, where that twofold system is used. The feminine grammatical gender arose in the later period of Indo-European, and according to Burrow "only then is it possible to speak of gender in the proper sense of the term."

The example given above of languages that modify words by number leads to the example of Sanskrit, which has three grammatical numbers, Singular, Dual, and Plural. Since in Sanskrit nouns also have grammatical gender of masculine, feminine, or neuter, six different affixes are used to express the gender and number of a noun. Another point is that in some cases in Sanskrit, changing the gender of the noun changes its meaning. For example, a river is a नदी (nadī, feminine) but a great river such as the Indus is a नदः (nadaḥ, masculine). (For river examples see VS Apte, The Practical Sanskrit-English Dictionary, p. 534) Buddhipriya (talk) 02:28, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

What does it mean to say that the feminine gender arose later? Surely one gender split into two and the designation of one as new is arbitrary? And why would it only then make sense to talk about gender? Maybe I'm missing something, but this whole thing sounds like an invention of linguists, aside from the existence of two or three or more categories of nouns with "man" and "woman" sometimes falling into different categories and sometimes into the same. Did the genders called masculine and feminine by linguists have those names, or any names, before linguists named them? -- BenRG (talk) 10:56, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Exactly what I've just implied, Ben.--KageTora - (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 11:48, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Okay, now that I reread it I see what you meant. Sorry. -- BenRG (talk) 13:01, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

According to the reconstructions of various linguists, in Proto-Indo-European there was a "laryngeal" ending which originally mainly marked collective nouns, and there didn't come to be a distinct feminine grammatical gender until this ending spread to other contexts (a relic of the Indo-European situation is that in various attested early Indo-European languages the nominative/accusative neuter plural has the same "a" vowel which appears in many morphologically feminine forms). AnonMoos (talk) 11:49, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

I remember being much impressed with that discussion in Burrow when I read it in the 70's, and then being somewhat confused to read of Hittite in Hutchinson's "A Panorama of Indo-European Languages" that "It had lost the feminine gender and was well on the way to becoming a genderless language". I'm not sure which, if either, of these views is more widely held today. (And they're not necessarily irreconcileable: it could be that the feminine did arise later, and existed in Proto-Hittite, but was lost secondarily).

As for Ben's first question - throughout Indo-European (and indeed also in Semitic) feminine inflections are marked relative to masculine ones. (The only counter-examples I can think of offhand are the genitive plural of Russian nouns, where the masculine declension has a suffix but the feminine (and neuter) do not; and the odd reversal of small numbers in Hebrew and Arabic, where the masculine forms are formally feminine and vice versa. --ColinFine (talk) 00:02, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Russian genitive plural feminine nouns are still differentiable from their nominative singular counterparts, though. They don't take a suffix, but they do still change their form by dropping the -а ending. The masculine ones add an -ов suffix. -- JackofOz (talk) 07:36, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Bizarre pronunciation of mischievous

Why do many English speakers add an /i/ after the v of mischievous? Is it just a fluke error that became widespread, or is there some sort of historical or phonetic basis for this oddity?--Sonjaaa (talk) 01:33, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

I wouldn't call it an oddity as such. No other word that I can think of ends with an -əvəs sound, so it's unusual in that respect and that's perhaps the real oddity here. There's a natural tendency to rhyme words, and mischievous at first glance looks like it rhymes with "previous" etc. It's easier to mispronounce it than to correctly pronounce it, and that's where human nature steps in. -- JackofOz (talk) 02:04, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Merriam-Webster says:

A pronunciation \mis-ˈchē-vē-əs\ and a consequent spelling mischievious are of long standing: evidence for the spelling goes back to the 16th century. Our pronunciation files contain modern attestations ranging from dialect speakers to Herbert Hoover. But both the pronunciation and the spelling are still considered nonstandard.

Nothing specific on its origins though. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk • Contribs)} 02:08, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

I've always thought the "rhymes with previous" pronunciation was the one and only correct pronunciation. I've never noticed that there was an 'i' missing, either. Heh. --Kjoonlee 15:37, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

As was implied above, such things usually work by analogy. The culprit might be "devious", as it is similar in meaning. Would a native speaker (which I am not) pronounce "grievous" with an extra vowel? Greets T.a.k. (talk) 19:29, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

These people probably did. I'm sure I've heard people talking about "gree-vee-us bodily harm", but it's not common. It's not a word much used in everyday parlance outside of stock phrases like GBH. -- JackofOz (talk) 19:58, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Having now gone through normal ways of saying it to test the theory (I am from Northern England), I was stunned to discover that my natural thought was - and forgive the lack of IPA - mis-cheev-i-us. There is something in "mis-cheev-us" and "mis-ch-vus" which do not quite sound right to me, almost American, if I can say that. doktorb _words^deeds 19:33, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

It's surprising that the official pronunciation has resisted change. Many words with fewer issues than this one have changed their pronunciation "by popular demand". Not only is it (?) unique for the -əvəs ending, but is there another example where "-iev" is pronounced -əv? The closest would be the root word "mischief", where "-ief" is pronounced -əf. -- JackofOz (talk) 19:58, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

I consistently pronounce mischievous with '-əfəs' on the end. I dont know how widespread that pronunciation is.

Russian

What does "chort" mean? No cyrillic because I don't know how to write it correctly. 80.123.210.172 (talk) 21:37, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Чёрт means "devil". -- JackofOz (talk) 23:11, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Interestingly enough, by the time this particular guy made the travel to South Slavic lands, he took the name črt and has been downgraded to a minor forest demon. TomorrowTime (talk) 23:30, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Also a mild expletive, the equivalent of English "damn!" --Ghirla^-трёп- 11:39, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

<joke> So, is Chort who the chortle was named after? </joke> +Angr 11:48, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

</Angr's jokes> :) --KageTora - (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 16:30, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Aw, man, we even had an article on 'im. Thanks for the info! 80.123.210.172 (talk) 20:55, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Not much of an article. I'd prod it. Chort is just the Slavic name for "devil". --Ghirla^-трёп- 06:54, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Skin colour

The Icelandic term for caucasian skin colour is andlitslitur ("face colour", "colour of the face") and English has the word tan- obviously refering to the colour white people get after having sunbathed. My sister asked me whether black people (or for the sake of this question "those that aren't white") use any similar expressions related to skin, denoting darker colours like Icelanders use andlitslitur while refering to the skin colour of caucasians? --157.157.239.232 (talk) 22:33, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

See High yellow for one example and Colorism for more on the subject. Deor (talk) 22:41, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Colorism refers to discrimination, that's far from what I was talking about. I want to know whether there are any languages spoken by e.g. black people that has a word litereally meaning "colour of face" but actually refers to a darkish-brown colour. Getting an example of a word like this would also be great if it exists. --157.157.239.232 (talk) 22:46, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

OK, I misunderstood the question. Deor (talk) 02:00, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

No problem (I'm OP btw), the my sister's question just struck me as interesting and since Wikipedia is filled with pontificating pedants I figured I should ask here :) I guess I was talking whether there are any non-English languages that have these kind of words --BiT (talk) 14:25, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Flesh-coloured. Churchh (talk) 13:17, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Ah ok, that is very relevant. How on Earth did you manage to find that? :) --BiT (talk) 14:25, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Not an answer, but "incarnate" was the term I was taught to use in the context of artworks. I am a German native speaker, the term is Latin based and I don´t know if it is used in English. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 19:41, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

No, but carnation sometimes occurs in blazon. (Or am I thinking of French blazon?) —Tamfang (talk) 03:13, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

So Icelanders think they're whiter than everybody, or what? 80.123.210.172 (talk) 10:17, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

No, they call the skin colour "skin colour". Bad troll. --BiT (talk) 14:21, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

I think "tan" was probably a color describing leather tanned with tannin before it was used to describe the color of people who'd spent time in the sun, so it's not really a good example. But I don't want to derail your topic; don't mind me. Indeterminate (talk) 11:37, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Ah ok, that's possible --BiT (talk) 14:21, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Be careful with the word "caucasian". From Black people: "A cultural classification of people as "black" exists in Russia. Certain groups of people who are ethnically different, and generally darker, than ethnic Russians are pejoratively referred to as "blacks" (chernye), and face specific sorts of social exclusion (see Racism in Russia). Roma, Georgians, and Tatars fall into this category. Those referred to as "black" are from the former Soviet republics, predominantly peoples of the Caucasus, e.g. Chechens. Although "Caucasian" is used in American English to mean "white people", in Russian – and most other varieties of English – it only refers to the Caucasus, not European people in general." BrainyBabe (talk) 21:25, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Someone needs to edit that article. "Caucasian" in Australian English is more often understood to mean "Caucasoid/white people" then "a person from the Caucasus". --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 03:45, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

That's right, but it's usually used by police or in Crime Stoppers, things of that nature. We don't use it in general parlance to refer to white people. The UK police now use IC codes rather than descriptive words like "Caucasian", "negroid", etc. Not sure whether that system applies anywhere else, but a lot of people watch The Bill ... -- JackofOz (talk) 04:07, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Reminds me: once upon a time I went to the Chinese Hospital (near where I was working) to give a blood sample, and the receptionist marked my race as B. For Blond? —Tamfang (talk) 01:00, 25 May 2009 (UTC)