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English & Afrikaans = More Advanced? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| autodidactic Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United States tinyurl.com/cunningl Joined 6634 days ago 100 posts - 110 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish*, French Studies: Russian, Japanese, Kazakh | Message 9 of 39 27 November 2006 at 7:53am | IP Logged | |||||
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1. They're called "genders" but that doesn't mean it has strictly to do with sex. German has 3 genders, and last time I checked "it" wasn't a sex. Gender is just used because it's convenient and it's a good metaphor for how there are two or more categories of nouns, just as there are 2 categories of people.
2. When I say my teacher, my cousin, my friend, my lawyer, my whatever, why do I have to put it into context in order to express the gender of a person? Mi prima, mi maestra, mi amigo, mi abogado (my female cousin, my female teacher, my male friend, my male lawyer). The same goes for animals. As for inanimate objects, it's not about biological gender but usually about what gender sounds best with the word. 3. Language isn't all about convenience. Aesthetics is an important part of a language. Gender adds aesthetics. If all language were adherent to just what needs to be said we'd all sound like robots. Esa niña rubia es buena y honesta That blonde girl is good and honest. Notice how the endings all match up in Spanish, and gives the sentence more rythm/uniformity/consistency? I can only imagine what English sounds like to non-native speakers, with it's irregular pronunciations and lack of pattern that just mashes sounds together without much style. Not that I'm trying to bash English, It's my first native language. I'm just trying to give you a different perspective on things. There ARE things that are "easier" and more convenient to say in English, likewise there are many things that are more convenient in other languages. Edited by autodidactic on 27 November 2006 at 7:57am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| RogueRook Diglot Senior Member Germany N/A Joined 6843 days ago 174 posts - 177 votes 6 sounds Speaks: German*, English Studies: Hungarian, Turkish | Message 10 of 39 27 November 2006 at 9:38am | IP Logged | |||||
Cute. :)
You are the first to find the mistake I deliberately put in there. You qualify for 1st prize. PM me to learn what it is. Come on, mate. Relax and enjoy the show. Far better than playing chaperon to an old, cranky Rogue Rook. I never flamed that guy; I merely gave him a piece of my mind. Flaming wouldn't be possible anyway because we have a very fair and vigilant Admin here who is always on his toes. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| ColdBlue Groupie Angola Joined 6584 days ago 40 posts - 41 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Russian | Message 11 of 39 27 November 2006 at 10:05am | IP Logged | |||||
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I guess what I'm saying is this... my brother can speak fluent German, and he says that the "genders" are random for every word, and a lot of native speakers goof them up all the time. So it seems like they're "useless" and in the way. I also here that in French the genders are also random for most words. Some languages like Spanish you'll always know the genders so it's really no use in getting rid of them. So I'm just wondering, did the English and Afrikaners see it better and more convenient to drop genders and cases?
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| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6593 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 12 of 39 27 November 2006 at 10:34am | IP Logged | |||||
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If the native speakers of German often mix up the genders, then they might be "useless". In that case, they'll probably disappear with time. But it's really hard to talk about the English and the Afrikaaners "doing" anything with their language. Language doesn't change because of a willed effort. No matter how much the entire educated population of Sweden detest word-splitting, it's still happening, and in a hundred years it'll probably be considered correct.
I think this might not be the best forum to talk about these things, though. Since just about everyone here is learning languages, and most probably know or are trying to learn a language with genders, we will automatically jump at any suggestion that there might be something "wrong" with our languages. When you're serious about learning a language, you fall in love with it, and you're horrified at any thought to change it. "This language I'm learning is beautiful, don't come here and say it's stupid!" It really doesn't matter much that you don't mean any harm, it's still like coming up to us and saying "Your girlfriend would look better if she had a nose job." We'll rush to her defense whether or not she has a humongous bulb for a nose. "Her nose makes her special and gives her character!" In a linguistics forum, this could make for an interesting discussion. In here, you're just setting yourself up for nasty comments. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| SamD Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6670 days ago 823 posts - 987 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Portuguese, Norwegian | Message 13 of 39 27 November 2006 at 10:53am | IP Logged | |||||
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French was my first foreign language, and as far as I was (am) concerned, gender was just one of those things that made French not English.
I figure I might just as well ask why we call a hand a "hand" and why we call a foot a "foot." So much in language is arbitrary. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| CaitO'Ceallaigh Triglot Senior Member United States katiekelly.wordpress Joined 6868 days ago 795 posts - 829 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Russian Studies: Czech, German | Message 14 of 39 27 November 2006 at 12:31pm | IP Logged | |||||
I think these are totally good questions. I have no idea. Mark Twain wondered the same thing. Maybe the English and Afrikaaners were just lazy. :) Here's what Wikipedia says about grammatical gender. And here's the difference between Dutch and Afrikaans (the whole article is rather interesting). 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Ishikawa Minoru Diglot Newbie Portugal Joined 6772 days ago 31 posts - 33 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, EnglishC2 Studies: Japanese | Message 15 of 39 27 November 2006 at 12:44pm | IP Logged | |||||
That's interesting.I always thought Japanese didn't have neither gender nor number,as well as articles. Does this mean there are certain exceptions to this rule?Could you please use a sample sentence so I can try to get the gist of it? Thank you very much. Edited by Ishikawa Minoru on 27 November 2006 at 12:44pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Paul Tetraglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 7132 days ago 114 posts - 124 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, German Studies: Italian | Message 16 of 39 27 November 2006 at 1:28pm | IP Logged | |||||
That made me smile profusely! I think it is important to remember that it is the 'imperfections' that often make something beautiful. These 'useless features' of a language represent human creativity, and imagination, they give a language it's 'organic' feel. After all, who really wants to learn a perfectly logical, sterile, air-brushed language? 1 person has voted this message useful |
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