[Lexicog] gendered language references

Thu Nov 23 22:00:21 UTC 2006

Grammatical gender is an insufficient explanation. I find it striking that in Spanish, the word for "fatherland" is grammatically feminine: la patria. Patria is a Latin word derived from pat(e)r 'father' + the feminine derivational suffix -ia.

--Ken

saghar sharifi <saghar_sharifi at yahoo.com> wrote:                                  
The answer to your question would be that in some languages, as in German, the word " language " is feminine.

   Leman <wayne_leman at sil.org> wrote:
      I'm wondering about English terms for kinds of languages:

Why do we speak of a mother tongue but not a father tongue?

Why do we speak of sister languages but not brother languages?

Why are there daughter languages but not son languages?

Why can we refer to both a motherland and a fatherland?

Do other languages  use kinship terms to refer to language relationships?

Wayne
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Wayne Leman
Cheyenne dictionary online:
http://www11.asphost4free.com/cheyennedictionary/default.htm

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