Williston graphic. (Williston, Williams County, N.D.) 1895-1919, 1899-06-01
HUMORS OF GENDER.
A. Exemplified in Various Languages
Queer Australian
Tongues.

rOpean tongues, SprlnSlnS from Lhe
same root, except Basque and Magyar
and Turkish, have been drilled into
uniformity of structure. They give no
notion of the tricks and complications
which savage men devise to express
their simple thoughts. But the reader
must not suppose am more learned
than himself in this science; it is only
in miscellaneous skimming of books
that few odd little examples have i'm
pressed themselves upon my memory.
Observe the detail of gender. 1t
seems to us that nature iself has regu-
lated that matter once for all. In most
languages, of course, inanimate things
are treated as masculine or feminine;
everybody knows that our 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, for the sexes must be dis
tinguished. So it appears to the civil
lied mortal. But an Australian OF DAILY
river contrives to recognize four, while
an Algonquin of North America and a
Dravidian of India have two, indeed,
but they are not male and female. For
the Daily river person insists that plants
shall have gender of their own; the
Algonquin and Dravidian agree that it
is the distinction of living and dead, not
that of sex, which should be main
tanned. The great Fulah nation also
ignores male and female, making one
comprehensive gender for human be-
ings and everything that relates there
to, and another for all creatures and
things outside. Thus, tame cattle are
distinguished from wild, and 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.
Humane persons would not credit such
an outrage upon lower authority than
that of Rev. D. McKillop, in charge of a
Roman Catholic mission there. Only to
think of learning such language gives
one SILVER. We do not hear how many
moods go to verb, but the lenses are
vaguely and awfully described as lend
less;" perhaps the reverend gentleman
had not yet succeeded in counting
them. Thirty-fve are reckoned in the
speech of the Basuto Kaffirs.-no less do
those interesting barbarians require
for conversation. But they do not call
upon them to agree with the noun in
gender as well as in number and person.
Thas is the exclusive demand of the
Mullok- Mulloks, Cherries and Ponga-
Pongas, among whom Mr.. McIillop
and his brethren spend their days, des-
perately wrestling with the parts Of
speech. Another contrival.ce, not ex-
elusive, but more highly developed on
the DAILY river, apparently, than in any
other land of the age, is the infection of
the adjective. Besides singular and
plural they have, as we should expect,
the dual, land 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 interposi-
ton 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 perplex-
ing rule that language is more COM
plicated, and more scrupulous to inter-
pref the speakers meaning, in proper
ton to the barbarism of those who use
it. There are exceptions enough, of
course.-Pall Mall Gazette.