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Nowadays, people will feel offended when men is used inclusively. My question is, why do people think that "men" doesn't include them to the point that they insist on having a separate word just to indicate femininity? I mean, in Mandarin Chinese, no one feels offended when Tā is used. In fact, it is normal for a speaker to ask, "So, is this person you're talking about male or female?" because in spoken Chinese and historical written Chinese, the pronouns are all identical. And no one feels offended when they use the exact same pronoun Tā for men and women. Instead, the common way to express gender in Chinese is to add 男 or 女 characters or use relational terms (大哥 for oldest brother). To circumvent the traditional pecking order, sometimes English nicknames will be used like "Maria" or something strange like "Tomato" or "Young Boy". Somehow, for English speakers, the given name is most important, because that signifies the person's identity, and gender is part of that. For Chinese, it seems the reverse is true. That relationship (including gender) is priority, while given names are different and changeable depending on the situation. So, anyway, how did "men" become exclusively male? How come gender for English speakers is so intertwined with personal identity than one's relationship to other people? 64.134.39.74 ( talk) 14:36, 26 October 2017 (UTC)
64.134.39.74 -- if you want to go back to the origins, then Old English had three separate words: wer with exclusively male reference, wīf with exclusively female reference, and mann, which basically meant "human, person" (a meaning reinforced by its similarity to the impersonal or indefinite pronoun man, which meant "one" or unspecified "they" as verb subject). AnonMoos ( talk) 00:03, 27 October 2017 (UTC)
Language desk | ||
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< October 25 | << Sep | October | Nov >> | October 27 > |
Welcome to the Wikipedia Language Reference Desk Archives |
---|
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages. |
Nowadays, people will feel offended when men is used inclusively. My question is, why do people think that "men" doesn't include them to the point that they insist on having a separate word just to indicate femininity? I mean, in Mandarin Chinese, no one feels offended when Tā is used. In fact, it is normal for a speaker to ask, "So, is this person you're talking about male or female?" because in spoken Chinese and historical written Chinese, the pronouns are all identical. And no one feels offended when they use the exact same pronoun Tā for men and women. Instead, the common way to express gender in Chinese is to add 男 or 女 characters or use relational terms (大哥 for oldest brother). To circumvent the traditional pecking order, sometimes English nicknames will be used like "Maria" or something strange like "Tomato" or "Young Boy". Somehow, for English speakers, the given name is most important, because that signifies the person's identity, and gender is part of that. For Chinese, it seems the reverse is true. That relationship (including gender) is priority, while given names are different and changeable depending on the situation. So, anyway, how did "men" become exclusively male? How come gender for English speakers is so intertwined with personal identity than one's relationship to other people? 64.134.39.74 ( talk) 14:36, 26 October 2017 (UTC)
64.134.39.74 -- if you want to go back to the origins, then Old English had three separate words: wer with exclusively male reference, wīf with exclusively female reference, and mann, which basically meant "human, person" (a meaning reinforced by its similarity to the impersonal or indefinite pronoun man, which meant "one" or unspecified "they" as verb subject). AnonMoos ( talk) 00:03, 27 October 2017 (UTC)