Re: a question about names

On Wed, 29 Sep 2004 21:37:28 EDT, David Peterson <thatbluecat@...> wrote:

> Hawai'ian, to name
> a couple amongst many, don't have a gender distinction in their
> third person pronouns.
Likewise in Tagalog, which uses the same pronoun for both males and
females. Which is reflected in the English of some Tagalog (or
speakers of other Philippine languages) where he and she can be used
for both the same person.

> 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".
Tagalog will also frequently go this route, using lalaki (man) or
babae (woman) to distinguish between something male and something
female. But normally it's not necessary. The only time Tagalog really
uses a masculine or feminine adjective is when a Spanish adjective is
used (Filipino/Filipina)