Comments on: Language and the problem of gender for all-feminine literature http://allgirlworlds.com/2010/07/language-and-the-problem-of-gender-for-all-feminine-literature/ Tales with no males Fri, 09 Dec 2011 04:31:35 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Minami Kohime http://allgirlworlds.com/2010/07/language-and-the-problem-of-gender-for-all-feminine-literature/comment-page-1/#comment-1194 Minami Kohime Thu, 22 Jul 2010 13:11:34 +0000 http://allgirlworlds.com/?p=668#comment-1194 This is indeed an interesting question. I am a native speaker of Brazilian Portuguese and the "genderization" of everything in my language is also present. Even native speakers sometimes have trouble with calling a given thing she or he - for example, lettuce (alface, in portuguese) has a natural tendency of being called "he", when grammatically it is correct to call the lettuce "she". But this is a very, very rare case - and, therefore, now broadly known. Even illiterate people in this country speak with "genderization" without making mistakes. I have seen books where authors resort to an explaining note at the beginning of a book when using different terms of having to use incorrect grammar for the sake of illustrating "regionalisms" and particular cultural aspects. But, overall, the elimination of the "he" and changing it into a pronoun unbeknownst to the native speakers of latin languages might do more harm than good, in my opinion. It is such a natural and intrinsic thing to genderize things in our language that having to suddenly use a new pronoun may cause a big discomfort to the reader. Readers don't even pay attention to the utilization of she or he in the language. We could add a note explaining this matter to the readers and saying that intermorphs have no indicative of "he" to anything, but we had to do so in the translation for the sake of a better understanding of the text. So, perhaps, making this linguistic concession might be better than changing the natural structure of latin language communication. This is indeed an interesting question. I am a native speaker of Brazilian Portuguese and the “genderization” of everything in my language is also present. Even native speakers sometimes have trouble with calling a given thing she or he – for example, lettuce (alface, in portuguese) has a natural tendency of being called “he”, when grammatically it is correct to call the lettuce “she”. But this is a very, very rare case – and, therefore, now broadly known. Even illiterate people in this country speak with “genderization” without making mistakes.

I have seen books where authors resort to an explaining note at the beginning of a book when using different terms of having to use incorrect grammar for the sake of illustrating “regionalisms” and particular cultural aspects. But, overall, the elimination of the “he” and changing it into a pronoun unbeknownst to the native speakers of latin languages might do more harm than good, in my opinion. It is such a natural and intrinsic thing to genderize things in our language that having to suddenly use a new pronoun may cause a big discomfort to the reader. Readers don’t even pay attention to the utilization of she or he in the language. We could add a note explaining this matter to the readers and saying that intermorphs have no indicative of “he” to anything, but we had to do so in the translation for the sake of a better understanding of the text. So, perhaps, making this linguistic concession might be better than changing the natural structure of latin language communication.

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