Masculine and feminine nouns in french, spanish, etc. Why?

[Harry H]

Also in Spanish, beer is feminine, dress is masculine. Work that one out,

David Walliams

 

[nwgull]

You forgot to make sure that you speak the English in a French/Spanish accent depending on where you are. It makes it easier for them to understand.

Not forgetting to revert to piss poor English grammar - they understand that better as well.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

It's difficult enough remembering the foreign word without ALSO having to remember whether it's "le" or "la".

Just remember it as part of the word. In German instead of remember auto is car, remember the "word" as Das auto. Simples.

 

[Comedy Steve]

We have, or at least had, it in English, I thought.

"God bless this ship, and all that sale in her*"

* not 'it'.

 

[Sweeney Todd]

In German, morning, afternoon and evening are masculine, but night is feminine; man and boy are masculine (obviously), woman is feminine (obviously), but girl is neuter (of a neutral gender).

Where is the logic in that?

 

[goldstone]

Speak slowly in English, point and make hand signals/gestures. No need to worry about all these other issues

(have to admit, languages are not my strongest point .. including English at times!!)

I do find this works fairly well, but my preferred solution is to avoid countries where English is not the principal language.

 

[goldstone]

Stork, walk, hawk. Who would have thought they had a common sound?

Goldstone, I'm amazed you have survived in the aviation industry for so long, considering your contempt for all things foreign.

I think "contempt" is too strong a word. It depends where the "foreign" is. I have no problem with the foreign things in North America, for example.

 

[RexCathedra]

Its all Greek to me, the entire world should speak only latin and dress the same too
​

Every educated Roman was bilingual -- in Greek.

 

[RexCathedra]

In German, morning, afternoon and evening are masculine, but night is feminine; man and boy are masculine (obviously), woman is feminine (obviously), but girl is neuter (of a neutral gender).

Where is the logic in that?

Girl is neuter because it's a diminutive built on -chen, (Mädchen), or -lein (Fräulein) and they're all neuter.
Logical enough -- if you know what's going on.

In my experience, noun gender in German is comparatively non-arbitrary,

 

[RexCathedra]

Surely the question should be "Why doesn't English have genders?

English does, for pronouns, so the idea of gender is well-established -- he, she, it. The gender-marking of most nouns died out during the process by which English lost its inflections generally, in the long march from Anglo-Saxon to Early Modern English.

Anglo-Saxon/Old English textbooks have full-blown noun declension charts instantly recognizable to anyone who did Latin or German or Russian.

 

[soistes]

"God bless this ship, and all that sale in her*"

Sail?

 

[fataddick]

Someone asked why modern English doesn't have genders. Simply put: because the English ruling class are as thick as pig-sh*t.

You have to remember that for over 300 years from 1066 the language of the English court, nobility and landowners etc was FRENCH.

Ordinary folk (peasants) continued to speak original English which DID have genders, the same three - male, female and neuter - as German, which English is a derivative of.

When the ruling class reverted from French to English at the end of the 14th Century, they were aghast at having to learn the complicated Old version of English, so ordered scribes/clerks to simplify it. The net result was Chancery English, the forerunner to modern English, and getting rid of the genders was one of the key changes.

The reason why English has some of the simplest grammar of any language is the same reason it has one of the largest vocabularies - and also most homonym racked, ie words with different meanings that are pronounced, and often even spelled, the same. Three centuries of speaking French resulted in huge swathes of French loan words in the new English (alongside all the previous Latin, Norse and Germanic root stems), so you have lots of words that sound the same that derive from words with different meanings from different languages.

Basically, it's all William the Conqueror's fault. But "rich people are thick" is the quicker explanation.

 

[Comedy Steve]

Sail?

Ouch. Yes. Deary me.

 

[RexCathedra]

Basically, it's all William the Conqueror's fault. But "rich people are thick" is the quicker explanation.

"Ruling classes" have little to do with it. The linguistics are right, but the cause is wrong... The three theories for English's loss of inflection summarised here.
The process of shedding inflection begins before the Norman conquest.

 

[Green Cross Code Man]

Someone asked why modern English doesn't have genders. Simply put: because the English ruling class are as thick as pig-sh*t.

You have to remember that for over 300 years from 1066 the language of the English court, nobility and landowners etc was FRENCH.

Ordinary folk (peasants) continued to speak original English which DID have genders, the same three - male, female and neuter - as German, which English is a derivative of.

When the ruling class reverted from French to English at the end of the 14th Century, they were aghast at having to learn the complicated Old version of English, so ordered scribes/clerks to simplify it. The net result was Chancery English, the forerunner to modern English, and getting rid of the genders was one of the key changes.

The reason why English has some of the simplest grammar of any language is the same reason it has one of the largest vocabularies - and also most homonym racked, ie words with different meanings that are pronounced, and often even spelled, the same. Three centuries of speaking French resulted in huge swathes of French loan words in the new English (alongside all the previous Latin, Norse and Germanic root stems), so you have lots of words that sound the same that derive from words with different meanings from different languages.

Basically, it's all William the Conqueror's fault. But "rich people are thick" is the quicker explanation.

I genuinely love this post. However one may take issue with your pronouncement that it proves that rich people are thick. Personally I am rather grateful to the Normans for this as it makes English more accessible as a second language and therefore has contributed somewhat to its modern ascendency. All in all it was rather a clever move.

 

[beorhthelm]

English is more difficult to learn than French

people always say this yet so many seem to pick it up. i'd say English is more difficult to master. but as its such a *******ised langauge you can get by without observing lots of grammer if you get roughly the right verb/noun somewhere in a sentance.

Someone asked why modern English doesn't have genders. Simply put: because the English ruling class are as thick as pig-sh*t.

whatever the validity of the explaination, seems its very sensible to drop genders with 3 or 4 langauges to merge together.

still we have moved away from the core question - whats the point of genders in the first place?