OF LANGUAGES. 



91 



recognises two or three distinct genders. The third personal 

 pronoun is de facto the abstract representative of the various 

 persons and objects ; it describes their principal qualities by 

 imparting to them in gender- denoting languages a certain sex. 

 The superiority of the trigeneous system over the digeneous is 

 not only one in theory, but also one in practice. The existence 

 of three kinds of genders is based on natural founda- 

 tions ; the application of the trigeneous system facilitates the 

 classification. "When every trace of gender is effaced in the 

 external form of gender- expressing languages, especially in 

 the latter period of their existence, the third personal pronoun 

 stands out to the last with its unfurled banner of gender. Thus 

 appears in modern English, from which all other external signs 

 of gender may be said to have vanished, the third personal 

 pronoun " he, she, it." 



The personal pronoun of the second person may either 

 drop or retain gender. It is not essential. The speaker knows 

 as a rule the sex of the person whom he addresses, and may 

 or may not advert to it. The- Semitic second pronoun 

 indicates the sex of the person addressed, while the Aryan 

 pronoun does not indicate it. But both, Semitic and Aryan 

 languages, agree in omitting to express gender in the first 

 personal pronoun, for here it is really superfluous. Ego 

 is in his own estimation one and indivisible, and though he 

 observes the difference of sex in others, all distinctions merge 

 in his own personality. 



This remark applies naturally to spoken language alone, for 

 it is quite evident that a written language, e.g., hierogly- 



Reise in Sibirien flinf noch lebende Individuen dieses Volkes auf {e.g., der 

 Kotten), welche unter dem Namen des agulschen Ulusses unter den soge- 

 nannten Kamassinzen am Agul, einem Nebenflusse des Kan, lebten. Diese 

 funf Personen waren ubereingekommen ein kleines Dorf am Agul anzulegen, 

 wo sie ihre Nationalist aufrecht erhalten wollen. An diese Colonisten haben 

 sich spater einige von den Kotten herstammende Familien angeschlossen, 

 welche bereits ihre Muttersprache vergessen haben und Eussen geworden 

 sind;" compare above, page 81. 



The difference made in English between who and which, the former apply- 

 ing to persons, the latter to objects, is only artificial and of recent origin, as 

 proves the passage in the Lord's Prayer, Our Father, which art in heaven, 



