tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12546956.post4972861388028962994..comments2024-03-09T20:43:59.063-05:00Comments on The Language Lover's Blog: When gender mattersLanguage Loverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17095286029520305813noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12546956.post-78589543151404075752008-03-20T14:23:00.000-04:002008-03-20T14:23:00.000-04:00As you found in Hebrew, the speaker's gender also ...As you found in Hebrew, the speaker's gender also determines the form in Arabic.<BR/><BR/>My poor transliteration from memory: "Ana ahedbek" (I love you) would be the male speaker, while she would say "Ani ahedbek". And should he shift into Portuguese, he would have to refer to her as 'o meu amor' (the my love), article and all.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05118345703618977770noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12546956.post-37362489935461094832007-05-22T02:15:00.000-04:002007-05-22T02:15:00.000-04:00Hi Sarah, thanks for the comment. I really apprec...Hi Sarah, thanks for the comment. I really appreciate it when readers refer me to languages I'm not familiar with. I took a look at the Lakota Wikipedia entry, but the section on the differences in men's and women's speech isn't very long. Specifically, I'm wondering if the differences apply to all aspects of speech (e.g. would men and women say "The sky is blue" differently?) or only when the speaker is somehow involved (e.g. "I see the sky")? As I explained (poorly, I think) in the case of Hebrew, it's really just a matter of subject-verb agreement, but the gender is always contained in the subject whereas in English that's only true for the third person.<BR/><BR/>A larger question which I didn't dare explore at this point is the degree to which gender specificity affects or reflects the way the different genders are viewed in the culture. I don't see any obvious correlation based on the languages I know, but my sample size is pretty restricted.Language Loverhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03288480400454374958noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12546956.post-84475805949188538682007-05-21T18:06:00.000-04:002007-05-21T18:06:00.000-04:00Several Native North American languages, most nota...Several Native North American languages, most notably Lakota, require men and women to speak differently.Sarah Deerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04130715304612510730noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12546956.post-37877458232177308462007-05-09T02:49:00.000-04:002007-05-09T02:49:00.000-04:00Hello, and thanks for your comment! It seems that...Hello, and thanks for your comment! It seems that most if not all Romance languages have gender in adjectives like caro/cara. In Spanish "thank you very much" is just "muchas gracias", but that's because it's literally "many thanks (to you)", i.e. "gracias" is a plural noun. I guess in Portuguese "muito obrigado" means something literally like "(I am) very obligated", which is an adjective that must agree with its speaker. Interesting!Language Loverhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03288480400454374958noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12546956.post-13276745060901952502007-05-06T11:01:00.000-04:002007-05-06T11:01:00.000-04:00Greetings from Portugal. Regarding this subject I ...Greetings from Portugal. Regarding this subject I can say this: the Portuguese language also have male and female forms like the Italian language. “Meu caro amigo” and “minha cara amiga” are male and female forms for the English expression “my dear friend”. Also when you say “thank you” I say “muito obrigado” but if I were a woman I would say “muito obrigada”.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com