Re: Father/Motherland

At 19:11 23/05/00 -0300, you wrote:
>Carlos Eugenio Thompson (EDC) <EDCCET@...> wrote:
>
>>In Spanish the word is _patria_ with shows it relationship with _padre_
>>(father).  Then I thing it could count as a fatherland language.
>
>Yes, but _patria_ is feminine, and it's also common to say
>_la madre patria_. There's no masculine equivalent (_país
>natal_ could be, but it's much weaker).
>
It's exactly the same in French, we have the word "patrie" which clearly
related to "père" but is feminine. Moreover, the equivalent of 'motherland'
is 'mère-patrie' which would make French more a motherland language. Things
get really strange when you look at the symbols of France. One of the
symbols of France is the cock (the animal of course :)) ) which is clearly
male, while the second (more related to the Republic but still very
important) is Marianne, a woman. Well, let's say we're in between :) .

                                                Christophe Grandsire
                                                |Sela Jemufan Atlinan C.G.

"Reality is just another point of view."

homepage : http://rainbow.conlang.org
(ou : http://www.bde.espci.fr/homepages/Christophe.Grandsire/index.html)