Registered: Apr 2001
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Why is Ivanova Ivanova if the rest of her family is Ivanov? Is it some Russian tradition?

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Registered: Dec 2001
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Yes. Ivanova is the feminine form of Ivanov. Her father and brother would be Ivanov, she is Ivanova.

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Registered: Apr 2001
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That's a strange thing to do with family names from my perspective. How many ethnicities do such things?

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Registered: Aug 2000
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It's more of languages, I'd believe. Spanish has the typical -o ending for masculine, the -a ending for feminine...I believe most Romance languages have something similar.

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Registered: Sep 2001
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allmost all the slavian languages have that in em (living near russia)

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Registered: Oct 2001
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quote:

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Originally posted by Alphakiller
It's more of languages, I'd believe. Spanish has the typical -o ending for masculine, the -a ending for feminine...I believe most Romance languages have something similar.

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Last edited by Ghost Rider on 01-22-2002 at 12:17 AM

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Registered: Aug 2000
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Ghost Rider; good point. I'd forgotten to mention it didn't apply to names, sorry. I was just drawing out more examples of changes in language based on gender, although an imperfect one.

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Registered: Feb 2001
Location: Lisbon, Portugal
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Its also present in my language. for example:

My real name João has a femail counterpart: Joana
its also true for my second name (wich can used for 1st as well)
Carlos, female version: Carla (also used in english names)
Furthermore we give a masculine or a female suffix to objetcs:

Table, door, tree, key (mesa, porta, ÃÂ_rvore, chave) are female names of things.

Car, plane, rugg (carro, Avião, tapete) are masculine names of things

there are no simultaneously masculine and female names for each object, that only applies for peoples names.

This is apliable to Portuguese, spanish, french, Italian, and probably more languages over the world.

The chinese have 2 different languages(and several other cultures and languages as well) in wich the words are written equal, if pronounced with different accentuation on the vogals change the meaning of the word completely, thats why they developed 6000 symbols instead an alphabet like us. We got "digital" languages they got "analogic" ones.

Want more? english build the sentences in the oposite order as the latin languages in europe. Thats probably the reason why they drive on the wrong side of the road... brits.. will you ever understand them????

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Last edited by haderak on 01-22-2002 at 11:20 PM

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Registered: Oct 2001
Location: Nottingham, England
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I understand Brits

However our language as a whole can be quite inconsistent to say the least.

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Registered: Jun 2001
Location: England
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Grammatical order isn't a case of who's right who's wrong.

I always wonder though, who decides whether a word's masculine of feminine? How did you ascertain that a table is feminine? Look between the legs?
And Key?? Female?? Think what you do with keys.. the word for key should be male.. now the word for keyhole...

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Registered: Feb 2001
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quote:

---

Originally posted by Xaphod_x
Grammatical order isn't a case of who's right who's wrong.

I always wonder though, who decides whether a word's masculine of feminine? How did you ascertain that a table is feminine? Look between the legs?
And Key?? Female?? Think what you do with keys.. the word for key should be male.. now the word for keyhole...

---

LOL

The sexual suffix for each word is there because for us the words " The " "in" "on" "off" have masculine and female versions, and are chosen in order of the words sex that is next in the setence.

One examaple:

A CHAVE está NA MESA.
Translation: The(female) key(female) is on(female) Table(female) - in this case the order of words is identical in either language, in english there should be an extra "the" before the table word, my language supresses that need since "in" and "on" can be given "sexual" suffix and continuity at the same time.

english spoken fail to understand the need for this, because they're cannnot picture the degree of precision, specification and calrity sexual suffixes give.

suppose your mother tells you the sentence above, if you missed the last word (table) 2 things could happen:
1)in english: could be anywhere in the house, a milion different words could be next.

2)In portuguese and other latin language: the last word MUST be female ("ON" is in female mode) so one can narrow down to fewer places: door (porta) Cómoda (comode) janela(window).

Also in longer setenses latin languages will give the ability to predict precisely whats next and/or have a much clear view of the hole picture than in inglish. English is a paked language designed for simplicity hence supplies less information.


XAPHOD if you look between the tables legs youll see theres nothing hanging in there!!!

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Last edited by haderak on 01-24-2002 at 12:12 AM

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Registered: Oct 2001
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The origins of Latin genders for objects were based upon the gender of the spirits that inhabit the objects were. In some cases these seem sensible to our modern conceptions and others may seem totally arbitrary.

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Registered: Jun 2001
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Hmm.. I think that your argument is a little tenuous -
"suppose your mother tells you the sentence above, if you missed the last word..." but as I have no experience with Portuguese, I'll take it as read you know what you're talking about.

It's french that annoys me - people talk about how it's such a romantic language, but it's got about 1/2 as many words as are needed, IMO, to be able to write what you mean.

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Registered: Apr 2001
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english is best european language. than comes spanish. then the other ones . Second last is french ( terrible ) and the worst of all is german. Damn , if it wasnt my native tongue I would NEVER think of learning it.

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Oooh...a language superiority debate. Thats going nowhere.

Alot of the time, superiority is only claimed by those who already speak that particular language...and thats because they are most confortable, most used to, and most ready to accept the bonuses that their language employs.

Its my feeling that most people don't know enough about other languages (lets not even look at just European languages, there are SO MANY OTHERS) to even try and make that judgement. Sure some French philosophers tried to proclaim their language the most eloquent but then I think someone laughed them out the door.

Oberservation is baised...the only unbaised action someone can take is to say nothing at all...and even thats a stretch if you really start to think about it.

My closing statment. I'm REALLY impressed with all of you who come to this forum or work on the team who know English as a second or third language. Sometimes I confuse the hell out of everyone with a expression or something, but most of the time I feel like you guys just normally speak English. Thats great!

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Registered: Aug 2000
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For example, we haven't even touched tonal languages - where your tone of voice can indicate a different meaning for a single word. I believe Chinese (Mandarin Chinese, I think) does this. It sounds SO cool ...

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[USER BANNED]

Last edited by Londo Molari on 01-24-2002 at 07:31 PM

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A BANN FOR LIFE MUAHAHAHAHAHA

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Registered: Jul 2000
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Make that two...

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Registered: Oct 2001
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Two bans or banned for two lives?

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