----- Original Message -----
From: Barry Garcia <barry_garcia@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Saturday, December 08, 2001 12:20 AM
Subject: Re: The pitfall of Chinese/Mandarin
> Yoon Ha Lee writes:
>
> >I can attest that my dad, a native Korean speaker who has been "fluent"
in
> >English for many years and has almost no discernible accent, *still*
> >sometimes refers to me and my sister as "he" by accident. <G> He'll
also
> >otherwise confuse "he" and she," "him" and "her." I have other Korean
> >relatives who make the same mistake occasionally when they attempt
> >English.
>
> Filipinos who are native speakers of Tagalog or other PI languages will
> often transpose he and she in speech. There've been countless times i've
> heard my grandmother say things like "Eric went to the store today? What
> did she buy?", or "Ask Myra what he wants". Obviously it's because
Tagalog
> and other PI languages have the same word for he and she ;).
>
I heard the same from Georgian and Armenian speakers - their langs lack
he/she distinction too.
Yitzik