Re: A break in the evils of English (or, Sturnan is beautiful)

> --- In conlang@y..., Balazs Sudar <conlang@P...> wrote:
>
> > > (hängt davon ab, ob "mailbox" weiblich oder männlich übersezt würde :-)
> >
> > Fremdwörter sind neutral in Deutsch, abgesehen von einigen Ausnahmen.
> In fact, if there is a clear German gloss for the imported word, the
> import often inherits the gender of the gloss.  Thus we get "das
> Skateboard" (das Rollbrett), "die Power" (die Macht/Kraft/Leistung),
> "der Printer" (der Drucker), "die Disc" (die Scheibe), "der Joystick"
> (der Steuerknüppel) etc...
> Can any German expert enlighten us about the workings behind the
> genderization of imported nouns?
Though I don't really feel to be an expert, I've been taught German for four years on
the unversity... but if I remember well, there was this rule long ago, that
imported nouns are neutral (how do you say it in English?) BUT people deciding
these rules when they are written down always forget, that people WON'T use
these rules in their speaking. So the official would be "das" for all imported
nouns, but people seem to be agreed to use the commonly used feminine or
masculine articles, not those decided by the "Wise" ;-) This means that for
most nouns there were/are more variants, but the most popular is used later by
(maybe) all.
        Balazs