24 ms·
Latin has grammatical genres, "Sol, Solis" is masculine and "Luna, Lunae" is female. It seems more likely to me that people just kept using the latin genres si
by riffraff 7y ago
Latin has grammatical genres, "Sol, Solis" is masculine and "Luna, Lunae" is female.
It seems more likely to me that people just kept using the latin genres since old scientific literature was in latin.
- guerrilla 7y agoGermanic languages, of which English was one, have this too and "sun" is Germanic in etymology. Most PIE-derived languages had this at one point but some, including English, lost it.
- flohofwoe 7y agoIn German the sun is female though (and the moon male). In French the sun seems to be male and the moon female (I don't know the language though, just looked it up), so maybe these are traces of the French influence into the English language?
- ghaff 7y agoOld English, i.e. the language of Beowulf, is a Germanic language. With the Norman invasion, English became heavily influenced by the Romance languages. So English has roots in both both old German and old French. One place you see this is in terms relating to food. Words relating to rustic activities like agriculture and raising animals such as "cow" tend to have German roots. While culinary words like beef and veal tend to have french roots.