Re: Gender in Pronouns
Martina Luise Pachali 
Wed, 14 Oct 1998 15:03:36 -0400


Saul Epstein wrote
>>I know several Terran languages (e,g. Finnish
>>or Japanese) that do very well without. And  distinguishing between
>>sentient and non-sentient would make much more sense. Finnish does it
>>this way, and it works fine. If for some reason you need to be
>>offensive, you just use the non-sentient pronons for a person...
>
>Ooh, that does sound effective. Especially for so intellectual a
>people as Vulcans...

In fact, it is a very polite way of showing displeasure. In Japanese, too=
,
you can either say very rude things while using extremely polite verbal
forms, or say outwardly polite things in conjunction with impolite verbal=

forms or suffixes. Thus, you can either thoroughly criticize a superior o=
r
show your disapproval of someone. I think this is exactly the way the
Vulcan language would do such things; or can you imagine any one follower=

of Surak being actually *rude*? Still, it is sometimes neccessary to
critcize or show disapproval on a level beyond saying so in so many words=
=2E-

T'Pel