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In Slavic languages (i.e half Europe) the choice of past tense forms depends on the gender: "I said" is translated differently depending on whether "I" is male
by kgeist 5y ago
In Slavic languages (i.e half Europe) the choice of past tense forms depends on the gender: "I said" is translated differently depending on whether "I" is male or female. I wouldn't say it's a totally different language, but translators often have to assume the gender when translating from a language which doesn't have such a feature.
- Muromec 5y agoIt's not even unique to Slavic languages -- past tense is also formed through an adjective (and is subject to all gender agreement things) in French, so it may be something from PIE.
- selimthegrim 5y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dative_construction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dative_construction
- Muromec 5y agoI'm not sure it's that one. There isn't anything going on with the subject, it's still in nominative case, while the verb is doing funny things.
- lloda 5y agoBut those forms depend on the gender of the subject, not on the gender of the speaker. It's just grammatical gender.
- xdennis 5y ago> In Slavic languages (i.e half Europe) I'm not sure that's quite right. Europe is typically divided in 3: Slavic, Germanic and Romance. By my count the population of Slavic countries adds up to 280 million of Europe's 750 million people.
- yosito 5y agoHey, don't leave out the Uralic languages. Hungary and Finland would not be pleased.