Comment on PSA

• birdwing@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  That’s actually a modern invention. Originally, 他 (they, sg.) was the only one used, but then someone added 她 for the literal sole purpose of translating western European works – as in many of those languages there, it’s all gendered.

  Try to translate this for example: “He wants a cookie, and she wants a mango.”

  If translated literally-ish, you’d write: 他有饼干和他有芒果, which yields “They want a cookie, and they want a mango”. It’s ambiguous.

  So if one really wanted that, why (in my view) not do it as: “他有饼干和那女的有芒果”? That meaning, “They want a cookie, and that gal wants a mango.”

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  • sukhmel@programming.dev ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Thanks for sharing, that was interesting to learn, also yeah they really missed a chance to make a separate 男也 character

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    • birdwing@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Actually, now that I recall, there’s actually one.

      It’s U+323BF, looks like 馳.

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      • sukhmel@programming.dev ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        It doesn’t render in the font I’m using, seems to be too far into extended unicode, but that’s still cool, thanks

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