Thinking about leaving the UK

[themadhippy]

Over the past few years it has become rare to hear the word "actress", "actor" being used for each/all genders.

in 1 or 2 very pc locations they are refereed to as cast member MR smith or cast member Miss smith, and going very ot, traditionally in theater there are no married female cast members as all females were refereed to as Miss

[tggzzz]

English does have limited forms of gender for nouns. Refer to a ship as "he", and watch the looks you get.

When languages (and humans) were developing, there was a different relationship with everyday things. Given the importance attached to fertility and similar, it is not surprising if "irrational to modern minds" traits became associated with objects.

Many languages can be traced back to the various Tigris and Euphrates civilisations. No doubt someone has correlated object's genders over the millennia. Anyone here know the conclusions

[JohanH]

Perhaps, but I'm struggling to come up with any cases where Swedish would miss anything or become less clear if the definite form of all nouns used "en" or "ett". English works just fine with "a". It just seems so... pointless.

It depends if there are, or were, words that sound the same, but have different meanings (homophones), words like cannon and canon in English. If they had different genders, you could perhaps tell them apart more easily without context. But I agree it is a bit of a stretch, and English does OK without them.

In the past, Old English did of course have genders, and cases, and other such grammar features of Germanic languages. They got simplified out of the language a long time ago, perhaps due to the mixing of peoples with different dialects, and a desire for more convenient communication.

The odd thing is that ancient languages seemed to start out with complex grammars, and then got simplified. So there must have been some reason for the originators of the Indo-European family of languages to introduce such features, even if the precise reason is lost to time.

I happen to be a Swedish speaking Finn. Swedish is spoken in an area on the Finnish west coast and in the southern part of Finland and is actually an official language that you can use when communicating with authorities etc. The local Swedish dialects in rural areas are archaic and differ a lot from standard written and "standard" spoken Swedish. In my local dialect, we still use three genders like in old Norse. This has mostly disappeared from spoken Swedish in other areas, but you might find traces in rural areas like Dalecarlia in Sweden and in northern Sweden. It makes a bit easier to learn e.g. German, because many of the cognate words have the same gender. E.g. die Sonne (the sun) is also historically a feminine noun in Norse/Swedish and subsequently in my dialect. I have noticed that kids in the local community don't use three genders any more, but oddly leave out the feminine and resorts to a masculine/neuter combination instead. Compared to standard Swedish that has neuter/utrum. This is a feature of dialects simplifying and becoming closer to the standard language.

Btw, in these areas in Finland, you get by with Finnish, Swedish and English, at least in bigger companies. I work at an international industrial company and the official language is English. We have many expats that only speak English. At work I probably use the mentioned languages equally. I prefer to speak a variant of Swedish when talking to Norwegians (happens now and then at work), but with Danes, no way, we use English.

[pdenisowski]

One thing which bugs me about Swedish (and for that matter, most other languages) is nouns having gender.

 I find this aspect of languages utterly baffling. It conveys zero information and appears to be completely redundant.

First, it's helpful not to think of grammatical gender in the same way as biological gender - there's nothing about the sun that makes it masculine in French (le soleil), feminine in German (die Sonne) and neuter in Polish (słońce).

Polish is a good example of where "gender" is largely a function of noun endings: you can guess the gender of at least 95% of Polish words just by looking at their final consonant. As with most languages, exceptions to this rule are common usage words - mężczyzna is the Polish word for "man", but ends in -a, which would normally make it a feminine word.

There are many constructions in "foreign" languages that seem superfluous to non-native speakers: is gender any worse than having verb conjugations? or articles (a/the)?  or even a plural?  Lots of languages get along fine without them. 

There are also lots of things "missing" in English that drive me absolutely crazy sometimes -- for example, there's no inclusive vs. non-inclusive "we"  If I'm with one friend and I ask another friend "Should we go now?" does that include the friend I'm speaking to or just the friend I'm with?  This is crystal clear in some languages, but I doubt many native English speakers share my frustration when I hear sentences like that one

Edit:  Sorry, but here's another one:  John gave his father his book.  Whose book is it?  John's?  His father's?  This is perfectly clear in Polish

[IanB]

Many languages can be traced back to the various Tigris and Euphrates civilisations. No doubt someone has correlated object's genders over the millennia. Anyone here know the conclusions

There's no rhyme or reason to it. There are nouns which change gender between Latin, French and Spanish, for example, even though they share a common root. The best way to think of grammatical gender is as "kind", "type" or "category". Some languages have two, some three, some even more, I think.

Sorry, but here's another one:  John gave his father his book.  Whose book is it?  John's?  His father's?  This is perfectly clear in Polish

Well, it can be made clear in English too, if it is not understood from the context. You could say, "John gave his book to his father", for example.

[tggzzz]

Many languages can be traced back to the various Tigris and Euphrates civilisations. No doubt someone has correlated object's genders over the millennia. Anyone here know the conclusions

There's no rhyme or reason to it. There are nouns which change gender between Latin, French and Spanish, for example, even though they share a common root. The best way to think of grammatical gender is as "kind", "type" or "category". Some languages have two, some three, some even more, I think.

Sure, there will be examples every which way. But is there a bias, a preponderance?

[IanB]

Sure, there will be examples every which way. But is there a bias, a preponderance?

I don't know, but in early languages that have not morphed too much, the gender is often related to the sound and spelling of the word. For example, words ending in "-a" might typically be feminine, while words ending in "-on" might be masculine. This might still be observed in Spanish, but French bears so little relation to its origins that such connections have been lost over time.

[mengfei]

Re: Thinking about leaving the UK > LGBTQ++++++ > History of Language > ??

[Zero999]

Re: Thinking about leaving the UK > LGBTQ++++++ > History of Language > ??

It was fairly obvious this thread would have gone off topic. It could have been worse. I was expecting it to become very politcal, as many people would consider leaving because they don't like how the country is being run. I suspect there's been a lot of restraint exercised here. I'm sure lots of people are disatisified with the path taken by the UK recently.

[unseenninja]

Recently?!

The country has been going to the dogs for the last three decades and I'm very, very happy that I no longer live there.

[Alex Eisenhut]

I don't know what's going on in the UK but can someone in the UK give me their opinion on this video
https://youtu.be/b5aJ-57_YsQ

[IanB]

I don't know what's going on in the UK but can someone in the UK give me their opinion on this video
https://youtu.be/b5aJ-57_YsQ

It's 1h25m long. Who has time to watch it, let alone give an opinion on it?

[brucehoult]

Recently?!

The country has been going to the dogs for the last three decades and I'm very, very happy that I no longer live there.

Arguably, since WW2, with a brief respite due to Thatcher. (which of course ended a little over three decades ago)

[iMo]

The problem as of today is the traditional large pre-WWI/WWII imperial states like Britain, Russia, France, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Japan lost their territories (and "spheres of their influence") with all those cheapo resources which made them pretty happy at that time.
With today's globalization and liberalization they become only a "cog in the wheel" and they have to provide a significant effort and added value in order to excel (and thus provide a living standard much better than the others can do).
If you watch the global politics carefully you may see there is some tendency these days to revert the world-order back to those older times, however..

[unseenninja]

I don't know what's going on in the UK but can someone in the UK give me their opinion on this video
https://youtu.be/b5aJ-57_YsQ

I'd say the video is spot on.

[tggzzz]

Recently?!

The country has been going to the dogs for the last three decades and I'm very, very happy that I no longer live there.

Arguably, since WW2, with a brief respite due to Thatcher. (which of course ended a little over three decades ago)

"Milk snatcher" Thatcher's housing reforms set up the conditions which have lead to the recent riots here.

[tggzzz]

I don't know what's going on in the UK but can someone in the UK give me their opinion on this video
https://youtu.be/b5aJ-57_YsQ

It's 1h25m long. Who has time to watch it, let alone give an opinion on it?

My opinion: it is a talking head rant, with semi-random pictures grabbed from wherever.

If you have 85 minutes to watch it, you are in need of a life.

[Zero999]

Recently?!

The country has been going to the dogs for the last three decades and I'm very, very happy that I no longer live there.

Arguably, since WW2, with a brief respite due to Thatcher. (which of course ended a little over three decades ago)

"Milk snatcher" Thatcher's housing reforms set up the conditions which have lead to the recent riots here.

That isn't even true. Thatcher was against the abolition of free milk in school.

Thatcher the milk snatcher

The nickname was coined by Labour in opposition and the press after the government abolished free school milk for over-sevens in 1970 when Margaret Thatcher was education secretary.

But according to her memoirs and archives, Lady Thatcher herself had argued in cabinet against getting rid of free milk altogether. It was a policy driven by the Treasury, first under Iain Macleod, then Anthony Barber.

So in Barber’s first budget of October 1970, the policy was limited to children above the age of seven, and special schools and children with medical needs were excluded.

https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-the-thatcher-myths

Blair policy of mass immigration, which the recent Tory government continued, is also responsible for the riots. It turns out that people are tribal and introducing people with vastly different cultural values, at a rate, faster than they can assimilate, creates social tensions.

[tggzzz]

Recently?!

The country has been going to the dogs for the last three decades and I'm very, very happy that I no longer live there.

Arguably, since WW2, with a brief respite due to Thatcher. (which of course ended a little over three decades ago)

"Milk snatcher" Thatcher's housing reforms set up the conditions which have lead to the recent riots here.

That isn't even true. Thatcher was against the abolition of free milk in school.

Thatcher the milk snatcher

The nickname was coined by Labour in opposition and the press after the government abolished free school milk for over-sevens in 1970 when Margaret Thatcher was education secretary.

But according to her memoirs and archives, Lady Thatcher herself had argued in cabinet against getting rid of free milk altogether. It was a policy driven by the Treasury, first under Iain Macleod, then Anthony Barber.

So in Barber’s first budget of October 1970, the policy was limited to children above the age of seven, and special schools and children with medical needs were excluded.

https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-the-thatcher-myths

Nonetheless - as your reference and others state - she was the education secretary and she did remove free milk from schoolchildren.

Actions speak louder than words.

Blair policy of mass immigration, which the recent Tory government continued, is also responsible for the riots. It turns out that people are tribal and introducing people with vastly different cultural values, at a rate, faster than they can assimilate, creates social tensions.

That's merely another attempt to deflect attention from the points. That constitutes a strawman argument.

[IanB]

Nonetheless - as your reference and others state - she was the education secretary and she did remove free milk from schoolchildren.

I really didn't like that free milk very much. They would bring it to the classroom as a tray of small glass bottles with straws, after having sat out at room temperature for far too long. By the time we got to drink it, it was starting to turn, and didn't taste very nice. Milk time for me was one of the lowlights of the day.

[tggzzz]

Nonetheless - as your reference and others state - she was the education secretary and she did remove free milk from schoolchildren.

I really didn't like that free milk very much. They would bring it to the classroom as a tray of small glass bottles with straws, after having sat out at room temperature for far too long. By the time we got to drink it, it was starting to turn, and didn't taste very nice. Milk time for me was one of the lowlights of the day.

I agree entirely! I too hated it, and remember wishing I didn't have to drink it.

But I was lucky in that I was part of a relatively wealthy family with intelligent parents, so I didn't "go without" through ignorance/stupidity nor poverty.

In the UK we are, as Thatcher wished, returning to "good old Victorian values".
https://apnews.com/article/4cd3f752b4f747aaa21a14038b29302f
... and that could be construed as being back on the topic

[peter-h]

I started typing up a long list of things which are good in the UK but gave up because everybody is looking for something different, and everybody has different options in life. I come from Czechoslovakia. Been in own business since 1978.

But I do like the transparency in personal, corporate and govt dealings, and the well set up (tested over centuries) legal system where you know you won't get strung up for some piece of crap, and the lack of contextuality in just about everything.

I could write for hours about how hard it is to do business in the rest of Europe, for cultural, xenophobic, language, etc, reasons.

Only America is good or better than the UK in the transparency, lack of prejudice, etc.

[tszaboo]

One thing which bugs me about Swedish (and for that matter, most other languages) is nouns having gender.

 I find this aspect of languages utterly baffling. It conveys zero information and appears to be completely redundant.

First, it's helpful not to think of grammatical gender in the same way as biological gender - there's nothing about the sun that makes it masculine in French (le soleil), feminine in German (die Sonne) and neuter in Polish (słońce).

I find it quite interesting that those languages couldn't move past this archaic and weird fascination of gender of objects. Seems completely arbitrary, illogical. It makes learning the language more difficult and it has no purpose in understanding. And you end up with stupid rules, like das Madchen, which calls girls gender neutral, just because the word ends with something.
Hungarian doesn't even have genders for people. What it does have is 3-4 versions of "you" to express varying amount of formality. How come all the Mericans are all not upset about that, one single "you" to describe one or multiple people, that are either your friends or a well respected customer of your company. How can you just call both of these "you"?

[JohanH]

I find it quite interesting that those languages couldn't move past this archaic and weird fascination of gender of objects. Seems completely arbitrary, illogical.

There is nothing in it that "fascinates" speakers. It's just a syntax, a part of the grammar. You can just as well argue why a programming language uses tab instead of spaces, or whatever. What scares me is that humans are not capable of figuring out what could be the most efficient language and way of speaking and writing. And even when there is a written language to follow, we invent and change the spoken language to the extent that it's hard to write it down (just look at English). Maybe in a 100 000 years we will figure it out.

[pdenisowski]

How come all the Mericans are all not upset about that, one single "you" to describe one or multiple people, that are either your friends or a well respected customer of your company. How can you just call both of these "you"?

Well, where I live in the United States there are three forms of you:

you -singular
ya'll - plural
all ya'll - augmented plural

Hungarian doesn't even have genders for people. What it does have is 3-4 versions of "you" to express varying amount of formality.

You should learn Japanese, where there are (among other things) entirely different verbs, nouns, etc. for expressing degrees of formality.

Personally, I prefer a single word for "you" - it helps to avoid a lot of potentially awkward or even insulting situations.  It also doesn't require me to make all kinds of assumptions about someone's age, position, marital status*, etc. 

*Here in the South, even elderly married women are referred to as "Miss"