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Subject:Japanese pronouns From:Karen Kay <karenk -at- NETCOM -dot- COM> Date:Thu, 1 Dec 1994 13:38:27 -0800
Jan Boomsliter said:
Actually, Jan was merely quoting the text below, from whom I'm not sure.
> The lack of a gendered pronoun in
> Japanese, for example, doesn't appear to have had profound effects
> on the role of women in Japanese culture."
> Say what?
The last sentence is what Jan said, and I echo it. Maybe for different
reasons, though.:) Japanese doesn't have gender for nouns, but there
is *NO gender-neutral* third-person sg. pronoun. There are pronouns
for he 'kare' and she 'kanojo'. The fact is that most Japanese
speech/writing is gender-neutral because pronouns are used less
frequently.
I doubt that this furthers our discussion of gender-neutral English
writing, but I thought I should correct the fact.
