The Saint Paul globe., 1899-03-20
GENDER.
Its Humors, as ExempIiRed In Va
riOus Languages.

It's HumOrs, as ExempIifed In Va
riOus Languages.
Pail Mall Gazette.
There is fun which the VULGAR do NOT
suspect In the study of languages Eu-
ropean tongues springing from the same
root, except Basque and Magyar and
turkish, have been drilled into uniform
ity of structure. They give no notion of
the tricks and complications which saw
age men devise to express their simple
thoughts But the reader must not sup
pose L am more learned than himself in
this science; it is only in miscellaneous
skimming of books that few odd little
examples have impressed themselves
upon my memory.
observe the detail of gender. 1t seems
to us that nature itself has regulated
that matter. once for all. In most Ian
guages, OF course, inanimate things are
treated as masculine or feminine; every
body knows that our own forefathers did
the same long ago. But, in any case
male, female and neuter genders exhaust
the possibilities. You cannot have more
than three genders, or less than two.
Tor the sexes must be distinguished So
1t appears to the civilized mortal But
an Australian of Daily River contrives
to recognize four, while an Algonquin of
North America and a Dravidian of India
nave lWo, lHuceu, DuC tney are not male
and female. For the Daily River person
insists that plants shall have a gender
of their own; the Algonquin and the
DraVidian agree that 1t is the distinction
OF living and dead, not that of sex, which
should be maintained. The great Fulah
nation also ignores male and female
making one comprehensive gender for
human beings and everything that re-
lates thereto, and another for all crea-
nd CT
cattle are distinguished from wild, and
a tree planted with intention from one
that springs naturally. Upon the other
hand, those poor Armenians have not
even one gender to bless themselves with.
But the Australians of the DAILY River
actually put gender into their verbs. HUI
name persons would not credit such an
outrage upon lower authority than that
of the Rev. D. McKillop, in charge Of a
Roman Catholic mission there Only to
think of learning such a language gives
one a shiver. We do not hear how many
moods go to a verb, but the lenses are
vaguely and awfully described as "end-
less" perhaps the reverend gentleman
had not yet succeeded in counting them.
Thirty-f1ve are reckoned in the speech of
the Basuto Kaffirs-no less do those in
teresting barbarians require for CONVEX
sation. But they do not call upon them
as in number and person. That is the ex-
elusive demand of the Mullok- Mulloks,
Cherries and Ponga-Pongas. among whom
Mr.. McKillop and his brethren spend their
days, desperately wrestling with the
parts of speech. Another contrivance, not
exclusive, but more highly developed on
the Daily River, apparently, than In any
other land or age, is the infection of the
adjective. Besides singular and plural
they have, as we should expect, the dual.
''and they are very strict about the use
Of it." One would say that the resources
Of human speech do not allow the plural
number to be formed unless by change in
the first or the last syllable of the noun
or the interposition of one midway, as in
Turkish. But Antipodean ingenuity is
equal to the task. These black fellows
express the plural by change, not in
the noun, but in the verb. Upon the
whole, there is no such lively example of
the perplexing rule that language is more
complicated, and more scrupulous to in
terpret the speakers meaning, in pro-
portion to the barbarism of those vino
| use it. There are exceptions enough, OF
course.