Mark Hovila | Re: [LFN] el
Paul,
But English does have a plural of "you." Y'all, youse, you-uns. :)
Mark
On Mar 19, 2013, at 5:53 AM, Paul Bartlett wrote:
> On Tue, 19 Mar 2013 03:37:07 -0400, mkhovila <alivoh@...> wrote:
>
> > Why is "el" used for both "he/him" and "she/her"? How do you translate a
> > sentence like:
> >
> > "El dona la gato a el."
> >
> > How do you know if it means "He gives the cat to her" or "She gives the
> > cat to him"?
>
> You might ask in Finland. To the best of my information, the Finns are a
> sophisticated, cultured, educated people, but the Finnish language does
> not have any he/she/it distinction. For that matter, many language users
> cannot understand how English has an indifferent "they" for third person
> plural pronouns. They males? They females? They neuters? They mixed sex?
> How can English possibly get along in the universe without making all
> these careful distinctions? How can English possibly get along without
> distinguishing between "we including you to whom I am speaking" and "we
> not including you to whom I am speaking," as do some languages? Ever since
> "thou" and "ye" dropped out, English has only the indifferent "you" for
> both singular and plural, a difference which users of some languages
> consider absolutely crucial, but we get along without it. What is familiar
> to us in our native language is not necessarily Writ Large In The Nature
> Of The Cosmos. Should we have the six verbal moods of ancient Greek?
>
> --
> Paul Bartlett
>