The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-05-08
THE MATTER OF GENDER.
Its Humors as Exemplified i'll Various
Curious Languages.


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
uniformity of structure. They give no
notion of the tricks and complications
Which savage men devise 4to express
their simple thoughts But the reader
must not suppose I am more learned
than himself in this science; it is only
in miscellaneous skimming of books
that a few odd little examples have
impressed themselves upon my mem
Dry.
Observe the detail of gender. 1t
seems to us that nature itself has reg
ulated 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
distinguished. So it appears to the civ
ilized mortal. But an Australian of
DAILY River contrlves to recognize four,
while an Algonquin of North America
and a DraVi6ian agree that it 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 compre-
hensive gender for human beings and
everything that relates thereto and an
other for all creatures and things out
side. Thus, tame cattle are distin-
guished from wild, and a tree planted!
with intention from one that springs
naturally. Upon the other hand, those
poor Armenians have not 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 the Rev. D. McKillop, in charge
of Roman Catholic mission there.
Only to think of learning such lam
guage gives one a shiyer. We do not
hear how many moods go to a verb
but the lenses are vaguely and awfully
described as endless" perhaps the
reverend gentleman has not yet sue
ceeded in counting them. Thirty-five
are reckoned in the speech Of the Bas-
uto 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. That is the
exclusive demand of the Mullok- Null
loks, Cherries and Ponga- Pongas,
among whom Mr.. McKillop and his
brethren spend their days. desperately
wrestling with the parts of speech. An
other contrivance, not exclusive, but
more highly developed on the DAILY
river, apparently, than in any other
land or age, is the infection of the adj
jective. 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 al
low 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 a change, not in the noun.
but in the verb. Upon the whole, there
Is no such lively example Of the per-
picking rule that language is more
complicated, and more scrupulous to
interpret the speakers meaning, in
proportion to the barbarism of those
who use 1t. There are, exceptions,
enough, of course.-Pall Mall Gazette