• TheGrandNagus@lemmy.worldEnglish
    973·
    9 months ago

    Just wait until you look into French numbers.

    How different languages say 97:

    🇬🇧: 90+7 (except 13-19 which are in line with the Germanic pronunciation, i.e. pronounced “right to left”, as a weird hold-over from the more Germanic Old English)

    🇪🇸: 90+7

    🇩🇪: 7+90

    🇫🇷: 4x20+10+7

    And if you think that’s bad, the Danes actually make the French look sane…

    🇩🇰: 7+(-½+5)x20

    Even Danes generally don’t really know why their numbers are like that, or why it makes sense, they just remember and go along with it.

  • mellowheat@suppo.fi
    91·
    9 months ago

    “Je voudrais un baguette” I once asked in a parisian boulangerie. I don’t think anyone has looked at me with the same level of disgust before as the older lady selling the breads.

    “Voilà, une baguette.”, the “une” flying through me like an icicle.

    • volvoxvsmarla @lemm.ee
      42·
      9 months ago

      I remember standing in line for crepes in Le Havre, I just had my first year of French in school and I was practicing how to order in my head, nervously repeating “un crepe avec sucre”, and killed myself over not remembering the gender of crepe. So it’s finally my turn in line and I order nervously (I am 13 years old) and they reply with “pancake with sugar, no problem” and I’m just like 😭

      Somehow people not even giving you a chance to practice your language skills is awful

      • AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world
        9·
        9 months ago

        “Jay parlay France-says tray bee-en! Jaytude France-says pour treys anss in laycole!”

        I was in Quebec, and the locals kept trying to talk to me in French. I can technically understand French, but not at those speeds. I only had to say that phrase once to anyone, and they immediately switched to English and begged me to not speak French again. If you sound like Peggy Hill attempting to speak French, then you’ve nailed this phrase.

      • Taniwha420@lemmy.world
        5·
        9 months ago

        Seriously. It’s pretty discouraging and off-putting. Although, when I was in the Aquitaine I don’t think I got any of that.

        … Maybe it’s because they remember being under English management and don’t want to give anyone an excuse?

        I do find the French have very little ability to understand their language if it’s getting mangled.

        • volvoxvsmarla @lemm.ee
          21·
          9 months ago

          I think it’s just taking the easy, accommodating and safe route mostly.

          A friend of mine taught himself German for years (he lives in Canada) and then, eager to put his knowledge into practice, went to Germany for three weeks. Whenever he attempted to speak German, people would reply in English - out of niceness.

          He was so depressed and discouraged, he went home, vowed to never speak German again, taught himself Russian, went to Russia for a semester, people there were happy to speak Russian with him. He even met his future wife there, so it’s a happy end I guess.

          I don’t remember if I ever heard him speak German (after all, he vowed and was still very hurt), but if his German was just half as good as his Russian, he should have had no problem with being understood.

          James, in case you read this, St. Petersburg was freaking awesome and you freaking rock.

    • Rodeo@lemmy.ca
      14·
      9 months ago

      Baguettes are distinctly penis shaped, so the French are just wrong about that.

      • azertyfun@sh.itjust.works
        2·
        9 months ago

        Just wait to learn how we gender “dick” and “cunt” in French (hint: it’s not the way you’d think).

        It’s the one thing people who aren’t fluent in a gendered language usually fail to grasp: Grammatical gender is in most situations completely separate from social gender. The grammatical gender in “une bite” has absolutely no social function and is not in any way contradictory to its traditionally opposite social gender.

        Ironically it’s also why using the wrong grammatical gender feels so wrong/unnatural to a native speaker (not that it’s an excuse to be a dick to non-native speakers ofc): gender is not just “a social concept attached to a word”, it is an inherent property of the word that matters fundamentally to sentence structure and so misusing it throws everything off-balance. Francophones will much sooner accept someone close to them being trans than baguettes being male, and this is not a hyperbole.

    • casmael@lemm.ee
      11·
      9 months ago

      Assigning gender to words is fucking stupid and adds unnecessary extra complexity to the language without any gaining any additional meaning. Personally I have no time for it.

    • GreatAlbatross@feddit.ukEnglish
      3·
      9 months ago

      My solution is replacing all les/la/l’ with a vaguely sounding “ll” sound.

      I get the odd scathing look.
      And occasionally someone will stop the conversation, and ask me to use the correct word, fully away of the shit I’m trying to pull.

  • Mr_Blott@lemmy.world
    643·
    9 months ago

    Me speaking to a French guy last week -

    “We’ve just been the the musée de l’automobile in Mulhouse”

    “Sorry, where?”

    “Mulhouse”

    “Where?”

    “Mulhouse”

    "Aaaaaah I see! It’s pronounced [pronounces Mulhouse *exactly the same FUCKING way I just pronounced it]

    😂 Happens very regularly

    • tiredofsametab@kbin.run
      422·
      9 months ago

      Just because your ears can’t hear a difference doesn’t mean that there is none. I deal with this a lot when Japanese ask me for help and can’t differentiate between certain sounds

      • force@lemmy.world
        71·
        9 months ago

        Yeah in Japanese a few consonant sounds like ‘r’ and ‘l’ sounds or ‘h’/‘f’ or ‘s’/‘th’ or ‘z’/‘ð’ are basically heard as the same (an American ‘r’ might even sound like a weird ‘w’ to Japanese), and English has around 17 to 24 distinctive vowel sounds generally (based on quality) while Japanese has 5 plus vowel length and tones (pitch accent). As a result of the phonetic differences between the languages, it can be hard to hear or recreate the differences in sound quality (especially when it’s Japanese on the speaking/listening end, but Americans also sure have a terrible time trying to make Japanese sounds like the “n” or “r” or “ch”/“j” or “sh”/“zh” or “f” or “u”. they just perceive it as the same as the closest sounds in English)

        In my experience, only God can hear the difference between Polish “dż” and “dź” / “cz” and “ć” (and the others)…

        • tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip
          1·
          9 months ago

          Wait, how does ch/j or sh differ from the English sounds? And what words use zh? I don’t think I’ve seen that romaji

          • force@lemmy.world
            1·
            9 months ago

            They are all palatal sibilants in Japanese, while in English they’re palato-alveolar sibilants. Very hard difference for English speakers to hear, but the distinction is common enough to exist in many languages. And the “ch”/“j”/“sh”/“zh” sounds I speak of are just common variations of “t”/“d”/“s”/“z” that occur before “i” (they are spelled si -> shi, zi -> zhi/ji, ti -> chi, di -> ji).

            Usually “zhi” isn’t spelled out in Rōmaji though, actually it’s often spelled “ji” even when they’re sometimes pronounced differently (so “zi” and “di” end up being spelled the same, perhaps confusingly, but most people pronounce them the same so it doesn’t really matter). But I think pronouncing them differently is more of an archaic, obsolete, ot dialectal thing anyways.

            The “h” in “hi” also sounds different.

            The spelling also changes in the same way before a syllable that starts with a “y” sound, e.g. syu -> shu or dyo -> jo.

            Before “u” some consonants also change (hu -> fu, tu -> tsu, du -> dzu).

            These sound changes don’t occur for all speakers/dialects, some don’t have a “shi” and just say “si” for example, but they are the most common and standard I believe.

        • orl0pl@lemmy.world
          1·
          9 months ago

          I’m speak some Polish and dż is like job, cz is like check, sz is like shop, idk how rest is pronounced in other words

        • tiredofsametab@kbin.run
          1·
          9 months ago

          English also doesn’t have gemination (small tsu) which does make a difference in Japanese as well. Hearing that in very quick Japanese for words I don’t know can still be different. Same with vowel length. Once you know the word, it doesn’t matter as much how someone says it, but when it’s new vocab and the speaker is very quick, it can be tough.

          • tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip
            2·
            9 months ago

            I didn’t know the technical term gemination for っ, appreciate it. Can’t it manifest somewhat similarly to stops/plosives though? English doesn’t generally use those followed by the same consonant within the same word, but the phrase “port ten” is almost like the t consonant in itte, but with less of a pause in the middle. Contrast it with the word “portend” and you can see that we have a little bit more of a pause in “port ten”.

            • tiredofsametab@kbin.run
              2·
              9 months ago

              When I say “port ten” and ポッテン (with or without the long ‘o’) it seems I’m doing something different. Maybe a glottal stop and hard attack? I’m not actually a linguist though, so I could be very wrong.

    • Ethalis@jlai.lu
      281·
      9 months ago

      No offense intended since I’m fully incapable of pronouncing tons of English words properly (fuck “squirrel” specifically), but as a Frenchman who has lived near Mulhouse for a few years and interacted with a lot of foreign students, what you said probably wasn’t close to being the exact same as that guy

    • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
      131·
      9 months ago

      To add to what that other person said, when you grow up your brain gets used to hearing the sounds common to your accent and you can even stop hearing the difference between certain sounds when someone speaks your language with a different accent!

      In Quebec french there’s a big difference between the sound of “pré” and “prè” that doesn’t exist with some of the french accents in France and they’re unable to recreate that difference and might even be unable to hear it!

      • Zink@programming.dev
        5·
        9 months ago

        Yep. I took a language psych class in college, and we saw some examples of this that were crazy, especially being one of the people that can’t hear the difference.

        I can’t remember the example, but just imagine somebody saying the same word to you twice and then a third party telling you the first person just said two different words.

      • force@lemmy.world
        4·
        9 months ago

        “Pré” and “prè” consistently sound distinctly different in most, dare I say almost all, accents in mainland France. The difference is the same with basically all words spelled with those vowels. “Ê” also sounds like a long “è” in most words for most people. “e” also sounds like “é” when before silent letters except for “t”, and sounds like “è” when before multiple letters or before “x” or before silent “t” or if it’s the last sound except for open monosyllabic words, and it sounds special or is silent elsewhere. “-ent” is always silent too. Obviously doesn’t apply to “en/em”, also special exception for “-er/-es”.

          • force@lemmy.world
            3·
            9 months ago

            The vowel sounds in “près” and “pré” are very clearly different, and the sound in “prêt” changes from “è” to “é” when in liaison because it always sounds like “è” at the end of words (and separately, in closed syllables) and always sounds like “é” in open syllables otherwise (liaison triggers a change in the syllable structure which changes the vowel here). This does not contradict what I said. You said “(pr)é” and “(pr)è” sound the same, nothing about “(pr)ê”.

          • SorryQuick@lemmy.ca
            3·
            9 months ago

            Maybe not in proper Quebecois, but I feel like most people here use the é/è sounds interchangably. Take “Il prétend” for example. It feels like that accent could be either é or è and people would still pronounce it the same.

    • zaphod@feddit.de
      6·
      9 months ago

      I’m countering with a lave-linge which is masculine, now where’s the boomer joke?

  • Crass Spektakel@lemmy.worldEnglish
    391·
    9 months ago

    Enter German and Gendering: You can not say Programmer to address all Programmers in the room. You have to call them Programmerin und Programmer or Programmer:in or Programmende. And yes, most of these words aren’t even German but if you don’t use them you are a Grammar Nazi.

    And btw, the fact that we address females with “die” does not mean we want them dead, thank you and have a good day.

    • RedstoneValley@sh.itjust.works
      122·
      9 months ago

      It’s a little bit worse than that in fact. “Programmiererinnen und Programmierer” or “Programmierer:innen” or “Programmierende”. And if you get it wrong you are not a grammar nazi but more of a regular nazi.

      /s just in case

      • pseudo@jlai.lu
        2·
        9 months ago

        Was ? L’écriture inclusive ist schwerer in deutsch als in französisch und es ist schwer genug in französisch (T_T)

      • freebee@sh.itjust.works
        121·
        9 months ago

        It is real. People have gotten mad at me for saying the 1 general (in my opinion in that case not-gendered) word instead of the slight pause and adding *innen. It’s quite difficult for non-native speakers to get used to it.

        Meanwhile, in Dutch language, many female doctors, bosses, directors etc all prefer to be spoken to with the general “male” word, because they prefer to be spoken to on an equal term as their male colleagues and for the difference not to be made. Witnessing Germanic languages growing apart a tad further I guess.

        • Pyr_Pressure@lemmy.ca
          7·
          9 months ago

          In English we have a few gendered professions (waiter/waitress, actor/actress) and I feel like most people.lean towards the “male” term as the general term as well. In general it’s fine to call anyone an actor or a waiter but it would be weird to call a male actor an actress.

          • freebee@sh.itjust.works
            1·
            9 months ago

            “actrice” is one the few in dutch where it does still seem to matter to use the female version! Calling a female actress the male “acteur” would weird out a room i think. But if it’s a group of both male and female people, and you use the general “acteurs” it would be fine i think and “actrices en acteurs” would be fine too. While in german, only the “schauspielerinnen und schauspieler” of “schauspieler*innen” would be okay and just saying “schauspieler” to a mixed group would be very frowned upon.

            I get the idea, i hate the implementation. I think it would be easier for everyone to just cancel one word and call everyone the same, instead of doubling down on everything, it’s doable in writing, but it’s a real hassle in talking.

        • The Menemen!@lemmy.world
          5·
          9 months ago

          It is also quite difficult for native speakers. I have nothing against the general idea, but the “:” solution is just shit. Destroys the whole flow of the language. Takes me out of a conversation/speech/whatever every time somebody uses it.

          • Firestorm Druid@lemmy.zipEnglish
            31·
            9 months ago

            Language is a tool and is shaped and molded to be used by its bearers. You’ll get used to it and it’ll come natural to you. If it’s important to you, you’ll get there.

            Btw: the slight pause you insert between the main noun and the gendered suffix is called a glottal stop. You do it without thinking about it for a bunch of words already. Consider “Spiegelei”. Notice the pause between “Spiegel” and “Ei”? Apply this same principle whenever you want to gender appropriately and you’re golden.

            • The Menemen!@lemmy.world
              31·
              9 months ago

              No one says Spiegel…Ei. if I say Kund:innen like that everyone will just hear Kundinnen.

              And I also don’t think people will get used to it. When something new gets introduced into a language, the first natural thing is to adjust it to the speaking pattern. Which is not possible here as it is an explicit and intentional break of the speaking pattern. It will stay alien as it pretty much intents to stay alien.

              Maybe children that are just learning to speak atm will, but current adults? Only those who want to really really convince themselves for ideological reasons.

              • Miphera@lemmy.world
                31·
                9 months ago

                As a German, I’m pretty sure they’re right. Look into glottal stop, it’s not really a long pause or anything. Think of the difference of the connection of “Spiegel” and “ei” in Spiegelei, and “Schreiner” and “ei” in Schreinerei. It’s this short contraction that stops airflow and then releases it again, and it’s present at the beginning of the “ei” in Spiegelei, but not in Schreinerei.

                Here’s also the IPA pronunciations from Wiktionary:

                Spiegelei: [ˈʃpiːɡl̩ˌʔaɪ̯]

                Schreinerei: [ʃʁaɪ̯nəˈʁaɪ̯]

                ʔ is the symbol for the glottal stop: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glottal_stop

              • Firestorm Druid@lemmy.zipEnglish
                1·
                9 months ago

                As I said, it’s barely noticeable but you do make a stop in between. You’re just used to using the word in your daily vocabulary that you don’t notice it. And as mentioned before, if you care enough, you’ll do it - if you don’t, you won’t. A little close-minded if you ask me but that’s just my two cents. :)

                • The Menemen!@lemmy.world
                  1·
                  9 months ago

                  Yeah, and as I said the whole point of the “:” is to make a explipcitly noticable stop. Thus breaking the flow of the language. Otherwise it will just sund like the female version. This is not comparable.

        • tobbue@discuss.tchncs.de
          4·
          9 months ago

          Sorry to hear that. For me it’s the other way round. While I nearly always use the generic masculine form when speaking directly to others that never happened to me. Then again at work it’s forbidden for me to gender in official postings since I did that once.

          What I totally get is that online it’s a totally different experience and no matter whether you gender or don’t you may as well drop yourself into a vet of acid.

          • freebee@sh.itjust.works
            2·
            9 months ago

            it was in real life and the person calling me out was a hardcore feminist. So yeah, the construction is being used to call out non-native speakers on their so-called ideological bias against feminists, or so it felt :s It weirded me out and continues to do so. To me it feels more inclusive to call everyone, male, female or non-binary, by one and the same word, instead of focussing on ones reproductive organs while talking about their profession or hobby or whatever.

        • neutron@thelemmy.club
          2·
          9 months ago

          Same in Spanish. We can say programadores (male gender plural form) to refer to a group of programmers, regardless of gender, as the standard says. However, in recent years it’s become common to say programadores y programadoras (male plural and female plural) or programadoras y programadores (female plural and male plural). Using only the male gender causes many people to complain, or so I’ve heard.

        • bier@feddit.nl
          1·
          9 months ago

          Is “dokter” even a male word? What’s the female version “dokterin”,“dokteres”?

          • InFerNo@lemmy.ml
            2·
            9 months ago

            Dokteres enkel in dialect hier, maar in lokaal dialect maken we de lidwoorden ook mannelijk/vrouwelijk.

            Groot verschil tussen “de die” (vrouwelijk) en “den die” (mannelijk) om iemand aan te wijzen bijvoorbeeld.

            • bier@feddit.nl
              1·
              9 months ago

              I’m dutch and didn’t even know this was a thing, is it something that is common in Belgium?

            • bier@feddit.nl
              2·
              9 months ago

              Bedankt ik kende de term niet, maar blijkbaar ben ik (in Nederland) in de meerderheid

              In onderzoek van het Centrum voor Leesonderzoek uit 2013 werd “dokteres” herkend door: 42 % van de Nederlanders; 85 % van de Vlamingen.[1]

  • Dasus@lemmy.world
    395·
    9 months ago

    Due to the increased acceptance of non-conforming identities, it’s become more prevalent to either ask for pronouns, tell them to a person you meet, or have them somewhere visible in things like gameshows.

    That’s quite as silly to me as this whole “what gender is this washing machine” nonsense is to English-speaking people.

    Here in Finland, we don’t have gendered language. Even with third person pronouns, we usually default to “it” instead of “him/her/they”. Except for pets. They always get the proper pronoun “hän”. It’s just respectful.

    So yeah, just like the English wonder why they have to learn different words for something needlessly gendered in France, I too, as a Finn, wonder why I have to learn different words for something needlessly gendered in English.

  • hOrni@lemmy.world
    32·
    9 months ago

    Polish speaker here. We not only have gendered nouns but also verbs and adjectives.

    • BambiDiego@lemmy.world
      18·
      9 months ago

      Spanish speaker here. For as chaotic and wild as English is, I’ve always appreciated that it has no gendered nouns. Why are chairs female? Makes no sense

        • pseudo@jlai.luEnglish
          9·
          9 months ago

          I’m sorry, French here, but a chair can be both. It depends of the type : Une chaise is obviously feminine while un siège or un fauteuil are definitely masculin. Also Germanic language like English and German mixing these two meaning are silly languages.

          • neutron@thelemmy.club
            2·
            9 months ago

            Why. Just why? It’s just you French and your obsession for…

            la silla vs el asiento (Spanish)

            Fuck.

            • pseudo@jlai.lu
              2·
              9 months ago

              I think we just spotted a cultural fracture btw people of Romance language and the one of Germanic language.

      • neutron@thelemmy.club
        2·
        9 months ago

        Grammatical genders are just that. Grammatical. It’s a classification scheme. Latin had neutral nouns and plenty of languages make grammatical differences between animate and inanimate nouns. That current romance languages make a deliberate division between “male” and “female” nouns does not mean they have to correspond to actual features of human beings.

        That being said. It’s ridiculous that agua is femenine but with the definite article it has to be el agua in singular but las aguas in plural. All the explanations by RAE simply amounts to “we like it this way, lolol”.

    • Valmond@lemmy.mindoki.com
      1·
      9 months ago

      How does that work out? I mean in french you’d gender it by what it is defining. A yellow car, the “A” is gendered the same as the cars gender.

      Oh.

      I think I get it. That must be confusing for foreigners!

      Cheers Polish brothers and sisters!

      • hOrni@lemmy.world
        5·
        9 months ago

        Nah. Having pronouns would be too easy. We are changing the end of the word. Yellow would be “żółty” if male, “żółta” if female and “żółte” if genderless or plural. Unless male plural, then it would be “żółci”.

  • merdaverse@lemmy.world
    32·
    9 months ago

    While gendered nouns are stupid, I at least appreciate Italian because you can just learn the word and get its gender from the end part of the word. In German, however, it’s completely random and you have to learn the gender with the word.

    • GargleBlaster@lemmy.world
      25·
      9 months ago

      I don’t know what you’re on about. It’s “die Waschmaschine” (washing machine, female), “das Waschmittel” (laundry detergent, neutral) and “der Trockner” (dryer, male).

      Pretty self explanatory /s

      • cygon@lemmy.world
        4·
        9 months ago

        And after going on Die Toilette (female toilet), you use Das Spulbecken (neutral washbasin) and stand in front of Der Spiegel (male mirror).

        Despite accepting this all as perfectly normal, conservatives still manage to make a stink when someone writes or speaks in a way that addresses two different genders :-S

        • Kühe sind toll@feddit.de
          21·
          9 months ago

          And then there’s also the fabolous gender swap in the kitchen:

          You walk into Die Küche(female kitchen) and after that you come out of Der Küche(male kitchen).

          • pseudo@jlai.luEnglish
            2·
            9 months ago

            TIL In french, we have un amour, single form masculin that turn feminin in the plural form.

        • Kühe sind toll@feddit.de
          5·
          9 months ago

          That’s because of the so called “Dimitutiv”. What it does is basically, it say that the object in queue is smaller version of it. Some examples:

          Der Baum - Das Bäumchen

          Der Junge - Das Jüngchen

          It’s always neutral. The original word is “Die Magd” and the Dimitutiv is Mädchen.

      • Obi@sopuli.xyz
        2·
        9 months ago

        It’s exactly the same in french, I wonder how closely the genders of random things align between the two languages.

    • I Cast Fist@programming.dev
      4·
      9 months ago

      Portuguese and Spanish also have that, to a certain degree, but there are some “trap words”, like mapa (map), which is masculine, and a number of words that don’t end with a/o to easily guess.

      • uzay@infosec.pub
        3·
        9 months ago

        And words that are feminine but are still used with ‘el’ and ‘un’ because they start with a stressed a

    • GregorGizeh@lemmy.zip
      19·
      9 months ago

      Disclaimer: this is terrible advice if you are trying to actually learn the proper grammar, don’t follow it.

      That being said, you can get by in everyday situations perfectly fine using “De” for anything, especially if you have a foreign accent people will forgive you.

      De junge, de Mädchen, de Baby, de Tisch, de Stuhl, de Feuerzeuggas-Nachfüllkartusche. People will understand.

      • volvoxvsmarla @lemm.ee
        13·
        9 months ago

        That’s so true. Or just guess. Like, for real, no one cares. Besides your Goethe Institute examiner. Das Tisch, die Mädchen, der Banane. Doesn’t matter. My father has awful, awful German, despite living here for 35ish years, and his whole job is communicating with people and he made a huge career despite having no clue of grammar and buying sweet red Erdbeben in the supermarket.

        I also adore foreigners from different countries speaking in completely broken German to one another and somehow being able to figure out what the other one was saying and having a blast. Admittedly, with the rise of English, this has become much rarer. But it just shows you that language is so much more than just grammar and vocabulary.

  • EunieIsTheBus@feddit.de
    3510·
    9 months ago

    A washing machine is obviously female because doing laundry is a thing for women.

    And now I will sit back and watch how many people get mad at me because they don’t understand sarcasm.

    • Goblin_Mode@ttrpg.network
      265·
      9 months ago

      And now I will sit back and watch how many people get mad at me because they don’t understand sarcasm.

      Really getting worked up over that imaginary person you created huh? Lol

    • Taniwha420@lemmy.world
      193·
      9 months ago

      No. It’s feminine because you put dirty things in it.

      EDIT: I’m going to get lynched by the hyper vigilant with you. We’re in this together now.

    • Obi@sopuli.xyz
      31·
      9 months ago

      I mean I’m pretty sure a lot of it comes from things like that, I also notice quite often the positive things are male while the negative opposite is female: le beau temps/le soleil, la pluie ; le plaisir, la douleur ; le jour, la nuit; etc etc.

      Edit: not sure why this comment is getting downvoted, do you think I’m saying it’s a good thing the language was built on sexist principles? Here’s an article that talks about how it wasn’t always like that and there was a campaign in the 17th century to masculinize the language, making the masculine the “noble” gender in grammatical rules. It’s not far fetched to think similar principles applied to gendering random things.

    • tjsauce@lemmy.world
      2·
      9 months ago

      You already stated sarcasm and this is Lemmy, so whatever popcorn you expect must come from the floor

    • jeremyparker@programming.dev
      11·
      9 months ago

      It’s not a coincidence, it’s systemic sexism. If you use sexism as your guiding principle when if comes to generated nouns, in almost every language that has them, you’ll be right most of the time.

    • uis@lemm.ee
      16·
      9 months ago

      Not sarcasm: washing machien is female in Russian.

  • Alien Nathan Edward@lemm.eeEnglish
    241·
    9 months ago

    intentionally misreading as wholesome - the idea is to subvert the concept of gender.

    “You’ll never be a real woman!”

    “Neither will the chair I’m sitting in but you keep calling it ‘her’ so maybe stfu.”

    • AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world
      3·
      9 months ago

      Technically so does did English, we just stopped using the male gendered pronoun sometime in the Renaissance, Early Modern Period, or Victorian Period, I don’t know when. a ton of freaking words that I got mixed up back in Old English

      Back in Shakespeare’s day, woman = female, man = gender neutral, (kinda like the word “Dude” it can be used for both women and wifmen,) and finally wifman = male.

      Still not sure why the male gendered pronoun fell out of common parlance.

      Haven’t read Shakespeare in 2 decades, sorry.

      • Drivebyhaiku@lemmy.world
        6·
        9 months ago

        Shakespeare was known to use archaic language for his plays but by his time this was largely codified into what we would recognize as modern usage. You are thinking of old English. It also goes beyond just man (used more or less like we would use the word human) , other gendered words originally had specific meaning independent of gender. You also got it a bit backwards. Wifman is female, wereman is male. Others include.

        Boy : knave or troublemaker

        Girl : Neutral word for young child. Basically like “kid”

        • AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world
          2·
          9 months ago

          Thanks! No wonder his plays were so hard to read. I haven’t read Shakespeare in a good 20 years so it’s no surprise that I’ve mixed up the words and usages.

          • Drivebyhaiku@lemmy.world
            2·
            9 months ago

            He is an interesting literary figure. And in personal opinion quite frankly kind of a hack. You got to appreciate the audacity of someone who tries to use “Dost” nearly two centuries out of date and then just out of the blue makes up wholesale complete words from scratch to fit iambic pentameter.

            I love his stuff don’t get me wrong but he wasn’t exactly highbrow entertainment of his day. Still his early modern English is easily legible. Chaucer’s middle english is distinctly more garbled and if you go back to your Old English where these terms originate it’s like trying to read another language entirely. Like this is technically English :

            Hwæt. We Gardena in geardagum, þeodcyninga, þrym gefrunon, hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon. Oft Scyld Scefing sceaþena þreatum, monegum mægþum, meodosetla ofteah, egsode eorlas. Syððan ærest wearð feasceaft funden, he þæs frofre gebad, weox under wolcnum, weorðmyndum þah, oðþæt him æghwylc þara ymbsittendra ofer hronrade hyran scolde, gomban gyldan. þæt wæs god cyning.

      • joel_feila@lemmy.world
        3·
        9 months ago

        Technically so does English, we just stopped using the male gendered pronoun sometime in the Renaissance, Early Modern Period, or Victorian Period, I don’t know when.

        around 900 ad.

      • Alien Nathan Edward@lemm.eeEnglish
        3·
        9 months ago

        wifman = male

        are you sure you’re not thinking of wǣpnedmann? everything I can find about wifman tells me that it means “woman” and the root derivation is “wife person”.

          • Alien Nathan Edward@lemm.eeEnglish
            4·
            9 months ago

            wer and wife

            TIL the etymology of how we talk about shapeshifters in folk myth. Dope, thank you!

            “Working late one night in the lab, Guy Fellows was bitten by a radioactive human being. Now he seems like an ordinary person, but under the full moon he undergoes a transformation and become a wereman! All the powers of an adult male human, trapped inside the frail shell of an adult male human, he is Wereman!”

      • gentooer@programming.dev
        2·
        9 months ago

        I call bullshit on this, e.g. “de aanrecht” sounds just plain wrong. I know that people in the Netherlands are often using the wrong gender, which always sounds weird to me.

        Words that change meaning with different genders (e.g. “de aas” and “het aas”) are kinda cool tho.

    • uis@lemm.ee
      1·
      9 months ago

      Most gendered languages I know about have three genders. Oh, wait. I got it. Ha!