On the antiquity of "they/them/their" as common gender

[Charles Wells]

Except Iranian, I think.

>I assume that when you say "most," you're excluding the Indo-European
>family, right?  Every Germanic, Romance or Slavic language I have at least
>a nodding acquaintance with maintains at least a masc./fem. distinction in
>its singular pronouns.
>
>Peter Mc.
>
>--On Saturday, May 19, 2001 9:38 PM -0700 Rudolph C Troike
><rtroike at U.ARIZONA.EDU> wrote:
>
>> It has always amused me that we hang on so tenaciously to the
>> archaic masc/fem/neut distinction in singular pronouns (not distinguished
>> in most other languages)
>
>
>
>****************************************************************************
>                               Peter A. McGraw
>                   Linfield College   *   McMinnville, OR
>                            pmcgraw at linfield.edu



Charles Wells,
Emeritus Professor of Mathematics, Case Western Reserve University
Affiliate Scholar, Oberlin College
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