pronouns | linguaphiles

Types of pronouns across languages

nyxelestia wrote in linguaphiles Oct 01, 2012 18:21

Long time lurker de-lurking for the first time in...quite a while.So, in many (West?) European languages, pronouns are usually broken down to gender (English's he/she for "male/female"). And many Asian language make distinctions based on age/respect (Bengali's apni/tumi/tui for "older and more respected/same age or my peer/someone younger than me ( Read more... )

pronouns, conlangs, gender

Question about 2nd Person Pronoun in Don't Cry for Me Argentina in Spanish & Portuguese

floodsofmemory wrote in linguaphiles Jul 05, 2012 21:30

So, I was listening to the versions of Don't Cry for Me, Argentina in Spanish & Portuguese and noticed that the second person personal pronoun varies throughout the song and, was hoping you could elucidate the reason why.

In Spanish it starts off with vosotros (debéis creerme, la fe que queráis conseguir, mi lugar vuestro es por vosotros luché) and ( Read more... )

pronouns, music, spanish, portuguese

Gendered first-person pronouns in Japanese?

pauamma wrote in linguaphiles Apr 15, 2012 01:13

In a recent IRC discussion, someone mentioned that Japanese first-person pronouns could be gendered in some contexts. That got my attention, because I remembered this as an uncommon language feature, and I found that according to WALS, Japanese doesn't have it. So I'm wondering whether WALS is wrong on that point, whether I'm looking at the wrong ( Read more... )

pronouns, sociolinguistics, grammar, japanese, gender

Old Norse gender-neutral pronoun?

transemacabre wrote in linguaphiles Jan 19, 2012 03:00

Did Old Norse or its parent Old North Germanic language have a gender-neutral pronoun equivalent to English's now-extinct ou? The older a form the better, in this case.

pronouns, germanic

Bullshit people claim about languages, part #94731

pauamma wrote in linguaphiles Dec 02, 2010 07:01

But the fact of the matter is that gender is a linguistic term with a hard meaning.
So is "etymological fallacy"For example, all languages have gender pronouns, [...]
Er, no. Not even most, and even of those who do, a large number don't use sex as a basis for assigning gender.

(Inspired by some statements in idiotolects, pronouns, gender, possessives

long personal pronouns

hector_von_kyiv wrote in linguaphiles Sep 23, 2009 18:05

In what other languages there are long personal pronouns (more that 1-2 syllables), like "wata(ku)shi" in Japanese or "жасасын" in Kazakh?

pronouns, personal

Japanese pronouns and verbs

naatz wrote in linguaphiles May 31, 2009 06:18

Hello all~

I wonder if anybody knows where I could find a linguistic discussion on Japanese verbs and pronouns in modern standard Japanese ( Read more... )

pronouns, linguistics, japanese

T and Y changing to CH sound

usagi_alchemist wrote in linguaphiles Feb 24, 2009 12:52

This may be a terribly stupid question, but what is the process called whereby t-sounds followed by y-sounds, and other similar consonants, change to a ch-sound? E.g., what you changing to whatchuI knew it a couple of months ago, but of course now I need it, I can't remember ( Read more... )

pronouns, english

The male default, and why this excludes women

feverladynippon wrote in linguaphiles Jun 05, 2008 14:05

Found an interesting blog entry from the F word blog. I for one wholeheartedly agree with the writer.

The male default, and why this excludes womenAny comments ( Read more... )

pronouns, english, gender