A Conversation for Gender-Free Pronouns - Moved
Spanish etc.
Nora - back from the Dublin meet! Started conversation Jun 27, 2002
Wow! I had no idea work in this area was so extensive and ongoing.
Spanish treats gender much as French does. It has feminine and masculine pronouns, and no neuter. Any male accidentally joining a crowd of females automatically turns the collective 'they' (las / los) to the masculine. Thankfully, verbs are not affected. Cats and dogs are masculine, and even if your dog is female it's best to refer to her as *el* perro, unless perhaps she's pupping.
Russian has neuter in addition to feminine and masculine.
For a Social Studies (read 'history') project in school several years ago, my classmates and I made up our own languages. Mine had a slightly cumbersome 'he/she/it': 'waalen'. My personal culture was fairly open-minded about these things, and waalen could refer to a person or an intelligent-looking rock. Any and all deities were always waalen, because it would be awful to make a mistake about a god's sex.
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Spanish etc.
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