From: Dan Jones (devobratus@myactiveware.com)
Date: Mon Apr 14 2003 - 05:06:39 EST
John Cowan wrote:
>However, I suspect the
>truth is that they might tend to say "she" for "it" (Gaelic has no
>neuter gender or pronoun, and English-speakers already use "she" for "it"
>in certain critical cases like ships), but I doubt that anyone ever said
>"she" for "he", since that distinction, applied to human beings, is
>exactly the same in the two languages.
This also happens in English as spoken by the "gwyndod"- the Welsh-speaking
population of Gwynedd. Most of them live in the mountains- the coast gets
progressively more Anglicised the further east you go. Personally, living
in a town where English and Welsh are used roughly equally (especially in
my generation), I often find myself referring to English nouns that are
feminine in Welsh as "her" or "she", especially pubs[1]. However, this
rarely happens when I'm speaking to my Sais boyfriend or other English
monoglots, only when talking to other Welsh speakers.
On a more romlang-relevant note, I've often noticed French (but never
Italian or Spanish) speakers misuse "it", especially whenb "it" is used as
an impersonal pronoun.
Dan
[1] although I've always referred to a pub that I work in or run as "she",
anyway. Pubs have souls too!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ath yw dyned can pob den o rydhad o voenyth, cynanaf â chraveth.
o Raeth 18 o Gorlavaraed Vethysadec an Dynedad Dyneth
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