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:
“Earth, receive an honoured guest:
William Yeats is laid to rest.
Let the Irish vessel lie
Emptied of its poetry.”
—W.H. (Wystan Hugh)
“I rather think the cinema will die. Look at the energy being exerted to revive it—yesterday it was color, today three dimensions. I don’t give it forty years more. Witness the decline of conversation. Only the Irish have remained incomparable conversationalists, maybe because technical progress has passed them by.”
—Orson Welles (1915–1984)
“For generations, a wide range of shooting in Northern Ireland has provided all sections of the population with a pastime which ... has occupied a great deal of leisure time. Unlike many other countries, the outstanding characteristic of the sport has been that it was not confined to any one class.”
—Northern Irish Tourist Board. quoted in New Statesman (London, Aug. 29, 1969)