Thank you! as a linguist and historian, I fully appreciate and deeply love this. I always remember that King Alfred's daughter, Aethelflaed, was recorded as being ' first man' (i.e.human being) to own a piece of virgin land. I particularly never want to be known as a 'womb-owner', or 'person with breasts', which seems like a cartoon description coined by aliens. Respectful address to plants, rocks and animals is wonderful, and I like 'kin.' Shakespearean English gives us 'coz' which I used to use with my actual cousin. Alas, since his death, I have no-one to employ this term with.
Thank you! Very interesting - I want to push forward tho' about finno-ugric languages and especially Finnish, from Finland. We have: "hän" = can be male or female, he/she; "se" = objects - and usually refers to animals also, trees, etc. There is discussion about this "se". We have -"tar/tär = adding to an ending makes it female identified; we have "-ini" ending for making something an endearment.... well, "he"= they; "sinä"= you singular; "te"= you plural; "me"= we...... There is a movement to increase the use of "hän" and "he" for all beings - trees, rocks, pets, cows, reindeer... and then get into reindeer husbandry and Saame languages one finds many new words.....
Super interesting, Christiana, thanks for sharing.
I studied about a semester's worth of Hungarian, which uses a gender-neutral pronoun for people (ő), but either I didn't advance enough to find out about it, or perhaps the language doesn't distinguish between animate and nonanimate categories.
How closely related are Saami languages to Finnish?
Isn’t it we, as a species, who have decided that words like ‘man’ and ‘woman’ are somehow pejorative? They are just words ( and I do not mean words are unimportant, far from it) ; it’s the way we apply them that brings in the issues. Of course language has to evolve , as it always has, but if we can just stop seeing everything gender based in language as a kind of insult, this frees us to be who we are and what we want to be? It’s our focus on these things which are causing so many problems everywhere.
John, I wouldn't talk about this at the species level, but there is definitely a trend in the English-speaking world, and in some other languages, to degender our thinking and speech.
I bristle at the notion that the entire effort is Progress with a capital 'P,' because there are so many languages that couldn't be degendered even if someone really wanted to, and attempts to impose this worldview on those languages (as in the case of the English word "Latinx") are terribly arrogant and smack of colonialism and the "white man's burden."
I welcome some of the changes in English (e.g. women no longer being called Mrs. Husband's Name, and the reintroduction of the distinction between "a man" and "human beings" as a category, because the older usages represented the suppression of women as subjects fully endowed with legal rights and social privileges.
In Czech, there is a feminine suffix added to surnames: -ová. Sometimes, Czech feminists complain that because this is a possessive form it indicates that they belong to the family of their father or husband. Most Czech women don't find it objectionable, and say that they aren't chattel, and if they were, it would be written slightly differently. Therefore, no mass movement has arisen to abolish the suffix. Legally, they have the right to change their names and eliminate it, so they pursue it as an individual solution rather than a language-wide or political one.
As for man/woman, and boy/girl, the rubber hits the road when these categories are used to determine funding for sports, education, and other activities. If the distinctions are abolished (because they are, ultimately, arbitrary, and not every individual fits a given set of criteria), it will become difficult or impossible to maintain separate funding. This then necessitates determinations on a case-by-case basis, and there will always be a few who are dissatisfied with the decisions.
Fantastic and truly well-researched post! I am an Indo-Europeanist researching the animacy of rivers in the ancient world so I know what you speak of. Also, as a native speaker of Slavonic I completely agree with what you say about recent moves to eradicate gender from English.
So interesting. …. How different languages express and delineate gender in so many ways. In Ireland Lads is used for any group of people of either or both sexes ….. like guys .
I think the words folk and kin are beautiful and wish they were more in use .
It gets under my skin, but I try to distinguish my dislike for the usage from the people using it. Some are trend-hoppers; some are virtue signalers; but some are using it in good faith because they believe it's helpful.
I think that talking about where words come from and what impacts their use has is the best way - after getting out there and speaking the way we want our languages spoken - to participate in shaping the living culture of the language.
Thank you! as a linguist and historian, I fully appreciate and deeply love this. I always remember that King Alfred's daughter, Aethelflaed, was recorded as being ' first man' (i.e.human being) to own a piece of virgin land. I particularly never want to be known as a 'womb-owner', or 'person with breasts', which seems like a cartoon description coined by aliens. Respectful address to plants, rocks and animals is wonderful, and I like 'kin.' Shakespearean English gives us 'coz' which I used to use with my actual cousin. Alas, since his death, I have no-one to employ this term with.
Thank you! Very interesting - I want to push forward tho' about finno-ugric languages and especially Finnish, from Finland. We have: "hän" = can be male or female, he/she; "se" = objects - and usually refers to animals also, trees, etc. There is discussion about this "se". We have -"tar/tär = adding to an ending makes it female identified; we have "-ini" ending for making something an endearment.... well, "he"= they; "sinä"= you singular; "te"= you plural; "me"= we...... There is a movement to increase the use of "hän" and "he" for all beings - trees, rocks, pets, cows, reindeer... and then get into reindeer husbandry and Saame languages one finds many new words.....
Super interesting, Christiana, thanks for sharing.
I studied about a semester's worth of Hungarian, which uses a gender-neutral pronoun for people (ő), but either I didn't advance enough to find out about it, or perhaps the language doesn't distinguish between animate and nonanimate categories.
How closely related are Saami languages to Finnish?
So refreshing! Thank you
Isn’t it we, as a species, who have decided that words like ‘man’ and ‘woman’ are somehow pejorative? They are just words ( and I do not mean words are unimportant, far from it) ; it’s the way we apply them that brings in the issues. Of course language has to evolve , as it always has, but if we can just stop seeing everything gender based in language as a kind of insult, this frees us to be who we are and what we want to be? It’s our focus on these things which are causing so many problems everywhere.
John, I wouldn't talk about this at the species level, but there is definitely a trend in the English-speaking world, and in some other languages, to degender our thinking and speech.
I bristle at the notion that the entire effort is Progress with a capital 'P,' because there are so many languages that couldn't be degendered even if someone really wanted to, and attempts to impose this worldview on those languages (as in the case of the English word "Latinx") are terribly arrogant and smack of colonialism and the "white man's burden."
I welcome some of the changes in English (e.g. women no longer being called Mrs. Husband's Name, and the reintroduction of the distinction between "a man" and "human beings" as a category, because the older usages represented the suppression of women as subjects fully endowed with legal rights and social privileges.
In Czech, there is a feminine suffix added to surnames: -ová. Sometimes, Czech feminists complain that because this is a possessive form it indicates that they belong to the family of their father or husband. Most Czech women don't find it objectionable, and say that they aren't chattel, and if they were, it would be written slightly differently. Therefore, no mass movement has arisen to abolish the suffix. Legally, they have the right to change their names and eliminate it, so they pursue it as an individual solution rather than a language-wide or political one.
As for man/woman, and boy/girl, the rubber hits the road when these categories are used to determine funding for sports, education, and other activities. If the distinctions are abolished (because they are, ultimately, arbitrary, and not every individual fits a given set of criteria), it will become difficult or impossible to maintain separate funding. This then necessitates determinations on a case-by-case basis, and there will always be a few who are dissatisfied with the decisions.
Fantastic and truly well-researched post! I am an Indo-Europeanist researching the animacy of rivers in the ancient world so I know what you speak of. Also, as a native speaker of Slavonic I completely agree with what you say about recent moves to eradicate gender from English.
So interesting. …. How different languages express and delineate gender in so many ways. In Ireland Lads is used for any group of people of either or both sexes ….. like guys .
I think the words folk and kin are beautiful and wish they were more in use .
I hate the world "folx" with a passion.
It gets under my skin, but I try to distinguish my dislike for the usage from the people using it. Some are trend-hoppers; some are virtue signalers; but some are using it in good faith because they believe it's helpful.
I think that talking about where words come from and what impacts their use has is the best way - after getting out there and speaking the way we want our languages spoken - to participate in shaping the living culture of the language.