Re: gender in English

Am 09/06 21:42  Yoon Ha Lee yscrifef:
> On Wed, 6 Sep 2000, SMITH,MARCUS ANTHONY wrote:
>
>
> > Another point to think about: the gender we typically assign to
> > personifications and anthropomophisms often corresponds to the Old English
> > gender. For example, Death is a male; in children's stories dogs are
> > usually male, cats female. And the Moon has a man in it, not a woman.
> > Makes sense if English has gender for all its nouns, but is much more
> > lenient in enforcing them.
>
> <wry g>  I hadn't known that.  I tend to think of Death as female, but I
> can't tell you why.  In Korean folklore the moon has two rabbits in it.
> =^p  I'm not aware of any gender-associations for the rabbits, though.
>
The most popular concept of Death as a female currently would be Neil
Gaiman's Death of the Endless (Sandman and all that).

After the separation of the first ancestors, in Maori Mythology, the god
Tane fashioned the first woman from sand.  He made love to her and the
Woman of Sand gave birth to a daughter whom Tane took as his wife.  They
gave birth to humanity.  When she learnt that her husband was her
father, violating an incest taboo, she fled to the Night.  She became
known as Hinenui-te-Po, the Great Lady of the Night, the goddess of
death.  The trickster-hero Maui tried to break her power.  He took a
troop of birds with him and tried to enter her womb while she was
sleeping, thus entering humanity deathless.  One of the birds, the
fantail, could not keep silent and burst out laughing at the sight.  The
terrible goddess awoke and crushed Maui between her legs.  For that
reason we die and return to our first mother in the land of primeval
night, and she welcomes her children back.

What a mythology!

- andrew.
--
Andrew Smith, Intheologus                       hobbit@earthlight.co.nz

It hurts me to watch the snaring of the unicorn.