Re: OT Re: Linguistics
From: Efrain Ramirez (eramirezt@coqui.net)
Sun Jun 29 21:32:38 2008
Spain 1-0 !! celebrating here...
el is masculine - we don't say la agua because it does not sound right
..
Felicidades..
Ef
At Sun, 29 Jun 2008, Laureano Folgar wrote:
>
>In these cases, "el" is feminine, it is used because the word begins
>with a strong a, like "el aguila, el hacha, etc". The feminine article
>"la" have his origin in the Latin demonstrative "illa", who become "ela"
>at old Spanish. Years ago, it loose the e at the beginning converting in
>la, but with words beginning with a, it loose the final a becoming "el"
>(feminine).
>
>OT: Republicans, invite Zapatero to visit Obama, he is a jinx,
>politician he visit, politician who loose. Democrat avoid him.:-) All
>Spain ask him not to go to the final Eurocup 2008, Germany-Spain, it
>will begin in seconds.
>
>Good luck el.
>
>L. Folgar
>
>Efrain Ramirez escribió:
>> Gender in Spanish is not always defined by the article - "agua" is
>> feminine but the article used is "el" - el agua está fría (feminine) the
>> water is cold.. but when you switch to plural... you have to say "las
>> aguas" not "los aguas"?? BTW Laureano - read this moments ago..
>>
>> http://au.news.yahoo.com/080629/2/17hkz.html...
>>
>> Ef
>>
>> At Fri, 27 Jun 2008, Laureano Folgar wrote:
>>
>>> Gender of nouns normally have no rules, so everyone thinks theirs are
>>> the right ones. For example, German-Spanish dictionaries usually
>>> includes articles to define gender, for a Spaniard "Das Kinder" have no
>>> sense at all.
>>> We think English is a confusing language because we have minimal words
>>> with some difference between writing and spelling, quite different to
>>> English.
>>>
>>> As curiosity, in Spain, we can´t say we speak Spanish, it´s not
>>> political correct. Spanish are the idioms of Spain (Castilian, Basque,
>>> Catalan, Galician, etc), so call Spanish to Spanish is considered as if
>>> you say the others languages are not of Spain, so you always see
>>> Castilian when referred to Spanish. No comment.
>>>
>>> Best regards
>>> L. Folgar
>>>
>>> Meenan, Anna L. escribió:
>>>
>>>> And they say English is a confusing language.
>>>>
>>>> Anna Meenan, MD
>>>>
>>>> On Thu, June 26, 2008 9:46 am, Gerald P. Rodríguez wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Ef would probably give a better reason, Ann. But best I can tell the
>>>>> anatomic words in Spanish have been assigned either masculine or feminine
>>>>> without regard to the gender to which they belong. Thus it's masculine
>>>>> "el
>>>>> utero" for uterus, but it's "la prostata" for prostate. And it's "el pie"
>>>>> (foot), but it's "la cabeza" (head). Just to throw a curve into the mix,
>>>>> it's "la mano" (hand). Then there is, as in English often more than one
>>>>> label for a body part, so "matriz" is perfectly understood by Spanish
>>>>> speakers as meaning uterus and it's "la matriz," not "el matriz."
>>>>> Perhaps,
>>>>> though I speculate, gender assignment flows from the original derivation
>>>>> of
>>>>> the word--Latin vs. Greek?
>>>>>
>>>>> Gerald P. Rodriguez, M.D., FACOG
>>>>> Santa Fe
>>>>>
>>>>>>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>>>>>
>> --
>> "I can accept failure, but I can't accept not trying." - Michael Jordan
>>
--
"I can accept failure, but I can't accept not trying." - Michael Jordan
