Re: a question about names

Etak wrote:

<<Tarnese, my conlang, has no gender at all, which seems
to work quite well at first glance.  I've just realized
though, that there is no distinction between whether
something written, or said, in the third person refers to a
man or a woman.  Could you please give me some suggestions
as to how I might fix this problem?>>

I've never had gender in any of my conlangs.   [Well, I take that
back.   Kamakawi has some gender pronouns, but I don't like
them.]   It's never been a problem.   Finnish and Hawai'ian, to name
a couple amongst many, don't have a gender distinction in their
third person pronouns.   In Hawai'ian if it was *really* important
to know whether something was male or female, you'd use /kane/
"man" or /wahine/ "woman" rather than a pronoun, to say "the
male one" or "the female one".   I'm sure it's hardly ever important
enough to do this, though.   Coming from a language that distinguishes
gender in its pronouns, and from a culture where most of the
"usual" foreign languages do the same, it can seem like the
distinction is a vital one, but, when it comes right down to it,
it's really not that important.

Etak also wrote:

<<P.S.  My Latin-English dictionary has a grammar overveiw in
the back of it, and I noticed yesterday that there are no
third-person nominative personal pronouns.  Why is this?>>

I believe that Latin had no third person pronoun.   Am I right
on this?   And the third person pronouns of the various Romance
languages were derived from the words for "this" and "that"...?
A language can do without a third person pronoun.   My language
Zhyler lacks one, and...dang.   I'm trying to think of another
natlang that lacks a third person pronoun, but I'm coming up
blank.   I know they exist, though.

-David
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"sunly eleSkarez ygralleryf ydZZixelje je ox2mejze."
"No eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn."

-Jim Morrison

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