Irish
In Irish, the masculine singular pronoun sé is used when referring to masculine nouns, and the feminine when referring to feminine nouns; however, when referring to persons, the masculine or feminine pronoun is normally used for male or female persons respectively, regardless of grammatical gender. There is no gender-neutral pronoun, and official usage varies between systematically using sé nó sí or using the pronoun of the appropriate gender for the noun referred to. However, the third-person masculine plural disappeared from Irish, and the (originally) feminine siad is now used for all instances of "they".
Read more about this topic: Gender-neutral Pronoun
Famous quotes containing the word irish:
“The Irish ... are the damnedest race. They put so much emphasis on so many wrong things.”
—Margaret Mitchell (1900–1949)
“Louise, something in me tightens when an American intellectual’s eyes shine, and they start to talk to me about the Russian people. Something in me says, Watch it, a new version of Irish Catholicism is being offered for your faith.”
—Warren Beatty (b. 1937)
“Of all the characters I have known, perhaps Walden wears best, and best preserves its purity. Many men have been likened to it, but few deserve that honor. Though the woodchoppers have laid bare first this shore and then that, and the Irish have built their sties by it, and the railroad has infringed on its border, and the ice-men have skimmed it once, it is itself unchanged, the same water which my youthful eyes fell on; all the change is in me.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)