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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 5/28/2019 5:13 PM, Will Martin
wrote:<br>
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<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:63220BB2-AE3E-47F6-B5D8-C7E86FD71527@mac.com">
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<div class="">On May 28, 2019, at 3:17 PM, SuStel <<a
href="mailto:sustel@trimboli.name" class=""
moz-do-not-send="true">sustel@trimboli.name</a>> wrote:</div>
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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 5/28/2019 2:52 PM, Will
Martin wrote:<br class="">
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:DFBE3D6E-7D75-4BCE-8A3B-EE83CE6A7364@mac.com"
class="">A person using English to talk about an entity
needs to know whether that entity is a “he”, a “she”, or
an “it”, or you can’t replace the noun with a pronoun,
and talking about the entity gets awkward.</blockquote>
<p class="">Style guides have begun recommending the
gender-indeterminate <i class="">they</i> for these
situations.</p>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<div>This points out the arbitrary nature of gender, since
English could just as easily have come up with masculine,
feminine, and mixed versions of plural pronouns, but instead
arbitrarily decided that while singular had to indicate
whether singular entities were insees or outsees, but plural
ones didn’t have to.</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<p>English didn't <i>decide</i> anything. Its speakers did, slowly,
due to changing social pressures. This is not arbitrary. It may
look arbitrary to someone examining it without any historical
context, but that's their lack of perspective, not the language
itself.<br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:63220BB2-AE3E-47F6-B5D8-C7E86FD71527@mac.com">
<div><br class="">
<blockquote type="cite" class="">
<div class="">
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<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:DFBE3D6E-7D75-4BCE-8A3B-EE83CE6A7364@mac.com"
class="">You gave no indication what the relevance is of
the alien being male or female or not.</blockquote>
<p class="">No, he didn't, and he doesn't have to. He just
asked if there is a way to say someone is of neutral
gender. This is a perfectly reasonable and complete
question. It doesn't require special context to answer.</p>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<div>Okay. Of course, the less context a person provides, the
easier it is to be misunderstood. Communication is always
incomplete. Context makes it more complete.</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<p>This question needs to further context. How do you say that
someone is of a neuter sex? You STILL haven't offered an answer.<br>
</p>
<br class="">
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:63220BB2-AE3E-47F6-B5D8-C7E86FD71527@mac.com">
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<blockquote type="cite" class="">
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<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:DFBE3D6E-7D75-4BCE-8A3B-EE83CE6A7364@mac.com"
class="">I’m not saying that the Klingon language lacks
sex-based grammatical gender for a reason. It’s completely
arbitrary, as is the case in every language.</blockquote>
<p class="">Not the case. Languages develop the way they do
for reasons, not arbitrarily. "Singular <i class="">they,</i>"
for example, is becoming common as a reaction to the
perceived sexism of using "impersonal <i class="">he.</i>"
<i class="">Thou</i> and <i class="">thee</i> disappeared
in part due to social classes becoming more equal.</p>
</div>
</blockquote>
<div>Not really. Thee and thou disappeared during the
Restoration period because English people were falling all
over themselves trying to be more French.</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<p>And why was that? Because after the Norman-French conquered,
French was the upper-class language and English was the
lower-class language. What do you do when you want to appear
higher-class? One inexpensive thing to do is to adopt the speech
of the higher class.<br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:63220BB2-AE3E-47F6-B5D8-C7E86FD71527@mac.com">
<div>There’s also the other way to fix the “you” plural/singular
problem with the northern “youse guys” or the southern “y’all”.
Likely, we’ll never get everyone to agree on either. If we did,
then the old plural would be the new singular and we’d have a
new plural.</div>
</blockquote>
<p><i>You</i> as both singular and plural is not a problem. <i>We</i>
as both inclusive-<i>we</i> and exclusive-<i>we</i> is not a
problem. <i>They</i> being sex-inclusive<i> </i>but <i>he, she,<b>
</b></i>and <i>it</i> not being sex-inclusive is not a problem.
These are simply the features of Modern English pronouns.<br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:63220BB2-AE3E-47F6-B5D8-C7E86FD71527@mac.com">
<div>
<div>It really is arbitrary, and since nobody controls the
language, it just depends on whatever trend catches on and
sticks. “Cool” still works. “Groovy”? Not so much.</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<p>That's not arbitrary. Arbitrary would be without reason or
system. Language change is very systematic.<br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:63220BB2-AE3E-47F6-B5D8-C7E86FD71527@mac.com">
<div>
<div>Language isn’t particularly reasonable. Efforts to find the
reasons for language stuff happening are driven by the desire
to have reasons for things. It’s a strong human desire, even
when an effect has no single, determinable cause.</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<p>If you have access to good enough sources, you can usually find
the reason for any given change in language. Do you know about the
field of philology?<br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:63220BB2-AE3E-47F6-B5D8-C7E86FD71527@mac.com">
<div>
<blockquote type="cite" class="">
<div text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" class="">
<p class="">I said earlier that English effectively has no
gender, but it actually does have some, also based on
biological sex: <i class="">widow/widower;</i> <i
class="">steward/stewardess; waiter/waitress</i> (a
whole bunch of <i class="">-ess</i> endings in fact) and
so on. And the female forms of these are starting to
disappear as reactions to the perceived sexism of the
language.</p>
<p class="">This stuff isn't arbitrary.</p>
</div>
</blockquote>
<div>Again, you are confusing linguistic gender for sex.</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<p>No I am not, though you would dearly like to find fault with me,
so you imagine I am doing this.<br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:63220BB2-AE3E-47F6-B5D8-C7E86FD71527@mac.com">
<div>
<div> There are a lot of languages with linguistic gender drawn
on boundaries other than sex and plenty of languages with no
gender. English has lots of gender stuff based on masculine,
feminine and neuter.</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<p>English gender, such as it is, is based on a real-world mapping
of the biological sex of what a noun represents. What is male is
given a masculine gender, what is female is given a feminine
gender, and what is sexless is given a neuter gender. However,
English gender, for the most part, doesn't extend beyond its
pronouns.</p>
<p>Yes, there are other languages with masculine, feminine, and/or
neuter genders that aren't determined by real-world biological
sex. I'm not talking about those, I'm talking about English.<br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:63220BB2-AE3E-47F6-B5D8-C7E86FD71527@mac.com">
<div>
<div>Getting back to the original question about an alien that
isn’t male or female, how would one handle that in French?</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<p>Who frikkin' cares? This is the Klingon list; how would you say
it in Klingon?!<br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:63220BB2-AE3E-47F6-B5D8-C7E86FD71527@mac.com">
<div>The original post seemed to be in a huff about how incomplete
Klingon is because it doesn’t work like English to describe a
neuter alien.</div>
</blockquote>
<p>No, the original post was in a huff because mayqel was trying to
head off exactly this argument. He didn't want people telling him
whether he's allowed to talk about neuter; he wanted to set up a
situation in which one would WANT to talk about neuter, and how
would it be done?</p>
<p>He KNEW you guys were going to tell him that he shouldn't WANT to
talk about neuter. And you did.<br>
</p>
<br class="">
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:63220BB2-AE3E-47F6-B5D8-C7E86FD71527@mac.com">
<div>
<blockquote type="cite" class="">
<div text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" class="">
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:DFBE3D6E-7D75-4BCE-8A3B-EE83CE6A7364@mac.com"
class="">Do you care if a chair is a boy chair or a girl
chair?</blockquote>
<p class="">No, he cares if an alien is neuter. How do you
translate <i class="">The alien is neuter</i>?</p>
</div>
</blockquote>
<div><br class="">
</div>
<div>loD be’ ghap rurbe’ nov.</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<p>THANK YOU FOR FINALLY ANSWERING THE QUESTION! Couldn't you have
just done that to begin with?<br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:63220BB2-AE3E-47F6-B5D8-C7E86FD71527@mac.com">
<div>
<div>Or I’d just point and say, {nov ‘oH} or {nov ghaH}
depending on whether I considered it to be capable of using
language, and if someone wanted to read maleness or femaleness
or the need to be one or the other, that would be on them and
not on me, unless someone explained a context about why I’d
care whether it was male, female, or neuter.</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<p>The context is "I care whether that alien is neuter." Why isn't
that clear? Why does a speaker have to justify the things they
care about before you'll translate it?"<br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:63220BB2-AE3E-47F6-B5D8-C7E86FD71527@mac.com">
<div>
<div>Alien means “Not like me.” So, if it’s not like me, and I
don’t want to mate with it, why even feel curious as to
whether it’s male or female or neither? It’s not part of my
culture, human or Klingon. It’s alien. What it does when it
has sex IF it has sex is none of my business or concern. This
is the extreme of sexism: Caring about whether an alien is
male or female or neuter.</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<p>This is warped.</p>
<p>Suppose you want to have sex with an alien that speaks Klingon.
How do you ask if they're neuter?</p>
<p>Having answered the question, is the answer only correct when
proposing sex?</p>
<p>---<br>
</p>
<p>"How do I say that I am hungry in Klingon?"</p>
<p>"Well, without further context, unless you've invited me to
dinner, why should I care about the biological processes your body
uses to acquire nourishment? The details of your intestinal track
are nobody's business but your own. In some cultures it is very
rude to eat in front of others. Expressing your hunger would be
the extreme of cultural effrontery to them."</p>
<p>"<b>jIghung!</b> The answer is <b>jIghung!</b>"</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
SuStel
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://trimboli.name">http://trimboli.name</a></pre>
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