# He and She



## TimLA

Halo,
For many years I've worked in an environment of native Tagalog speakers,
and have noted on many occasions that when talking about a woman,
they will say "he", and when talking about a man, they often say "she".

I recently asked a person from the Philippines whether their first language
was Tagalog, and they said "yes".
I then asked "In Tagalog, how do you express 'he" and....".
Before I could finish the question, he smiled, immediately knowing
the purpose of my question, and said:
"We don't have "he" or "she" in Tagalog".

He explained to me that they don't have any formal way of thinking about
male and female, and it's always "That person named Jane" or "That person named Jim",
but never "he" or "she".

I'd like to ask our Tagolog speakers a simple linguistic question.

If you have no "he" or "she", when you are thinking about a person,
('John owns a brown dog' or 'Jane owns a brown dog') are there
any other ways that you distinguish gender?
What pictures do you have in your mind when you are thinking about
"mother" "father" "aunt" "uncle", etc?

When you are speaking English, what do you think about our use of
"he" and "she"?

Salamat, in advance.


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## DotterKat

Simply stated, there is no way of specifying gender by a one-word pronoun as in English. You have to specify gender by a proper name (Tim vs. Timotea) or adjectives or other modifiers that are more or less gender specific (Maganda siya: She is beautiful. vs. Gwapo siya: He is handsome).
Mother (nanay), father (tatay/itay), aunt (tita) and uncle (tito) are all gender specific in Tagalog so there is no confusion in that respect.
It does require a couple more sentences to clarify who you are talking about sometimes. If you work with a lot of Tagalog speakers, you may have noticed this other linguistic quirk, which is related to but is the reverse of this gender non-specificity you mentioned: when Tagalog speakers say "He will come here," or "He will do it," sometimes the interlocutor will have to clarify "Who will come here?/Who will do it?" In the Tagalog speaker's mind, it is clear who "he" is ---- paradoxically, "siya" (the he/she of Tagalog) is very specific in the speaker's mind. The image of that one person apart from all other people is pictured in the speaker's mind, so if asked to say it in Tagalog the result might be an insistent "Siya, siya siya nga!" (He, he and only he! --- but it could also mean "She, she, she and only she!") In other words, to the Tagalog speaker, the image of who "siya" is is very specific and when translated to English as "he/she", specifying gender almost becomes irrelevant because it is assumed you know who "siya" is. As I said, a few questions will clarify things quickly as in "Sino sa kanila ang darating dito?" (Who among them will come here?) "Sino sa kanila ang gagawa nito?" (Who among them will do this?).
It is just one of the joys of Tagalog that you have to spend a few more moments talking to understand exactly what is being said. I think it contributes to the perceived warmth and closeness one gets when speaking to Tagalog speakers --- you just have to keep talking to understand each other clearly!
My guess is you work in a hospital too.

Gary


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## niernier

I admit that english has an advantage in terms of the use of "he" and "she".

Yes, the tagalog counterpart of "he" and "she" ("siya\niya" depending on context) does not reveal the gender of a person. But this is something unique in the Filipino language. In the back of our minds, there is a specific picture of the person we are talking about. You can even use "siya" from out of nowhere,  even if you do not mention a name, and still the person you are talking to can guess who you are talking about. Though sometimes, you need to say more to clarify who you are talking about.



> For many years I've worked in an environment of native Tagalog speakers,
> and have noted on many occasions that when talking about a woman,
> they will say "he", and when talking about a man, they often say "she".


Where is that place where Filipinos say "he" when referring to a woman and "she" when referring to a man?


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## TimLA

Thank you all for the excellent and exhaustive comments!!
I'll try to remember siya/niya next time I see him, and he'll get a kick out of it!



DotterKat said:


> My guess is you work in a hospital too.
> Gary






niernier said:


> Where is that place where Filipinos say "he" when referring to a woman and "she" when referring to a man?


See above...



What a great forum!!!!


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## niernier

This is a surprise to me. Why is that these Tagalog speakers in a working environment such as the hospital will reverse the gender specifiers "he" and "she"? Are they speaking in complete English when doing so? Do they know they had reversed the usage?


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## Chriszinho85

niernier said:


> This is a surprise to me. Why is that these Tagalog speakers in a working environment such as the hospital will reverse the gender specifiers "he" and "she"? Are they speaking in complete English when doing so? Do they know they had reversed the usage?


I'm sure that they are not mixing up "he" and "she" on purpose.  It just slips out subconsciously because of the lack of distinction between _he/she_ in Tagalog.  I've come across so many Filipinos who do this and even my mom and other relatives do it sometimes.


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## TimLA

niernier said:


> This is a surprise to me. Why is that these Tagalog speakers in a working environment such as the hospital will reverse the gender specifiers "he" and "she"? Are they speaking in complete English when doing so? Do they know they had reversed the usage?


 
As mentioned by Chris, I think it's just an accident of language.
It just sounds odd when I'm talking about "John Smith" and the person says "she".
I'm sure there are many analogs in other languages.
Latin languages are very gender intensive, so I'm sure native speakers are perplexed when I say "el mano" or "il torre".



Chriszinho85 said:


> I'm sure that they are not mixing up "he" and "she" on purpose. It just slips out subconsciously because of the lack of distinction between _he/she_ in Tagalog. I've come across so many Filipinos who do this and even my mom and other relatives do it sometimes.


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## rockjon

They don't intend to mix up the he and she when they speak English. Like others say, it is an accident of language. Technically, there is no gender in tagalog except for words like tita and tito. However, words like anak (child) and pamamkin (niece/nephew) do not have gender. I think you can make some clarifications like anak ng lalaki (son) or anak ng babae (daughter.This is completely different compared to Spanish which is I think is heavily gender based. So, its easy to understand why native tagalog speakers get confused sometimes when using gender in English.


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## niernier

rockjon said:


> They don't intend to mix up the he and she when they speak English. Like others say, it is an accident of language. Technically, there is no gender in tagalog except for words like tita and tito. However, words like anak (child) and pamamkin (niece/nephew) do not have gender. I think you can make some clarifications like anak ng lalaki (son) or anak ng babae (daughter.This is completely different compared to Spanish which is I think is heavily gender based. So, its easy to understand why native tagalog speakers get confused sometimes when using gender in English.




It's "anak _na_ lalaki"(son), and  "anak _na_ babae"(daughter) 

 Even if we don't have this gender specifiers, rest assured this does not influence our ability to distinguish gender in the real world.


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## rockjon

Oops, I think you're right, niernier. Most of the results of my google search show that it is anak na lalaki/babae. I guess I just learned it wrong. Would it still have the same meaning if I reversed the position between the two words and attached the ligature (na or ng) to the end? For example, would it mean the same if I said lalaking anak or babaeng anak?http://forum.wordreference.com/member.php?u=278832


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## niernier

rockjon said:


> Oops, I think you're right, niernier. Most of the results of my google search show that it is anak na lalaki/babae. I guess I just learned it wrong. Would it still have the same meaning if I reversed the position between the two words and attached the ligature (na or ng) to the end? For example, would it mean the same if I said lalaking anak or babaeng anak?




Yes that's possible, they mean the same, and is more or less said than the other.


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## TimLA

niernier said:


> It's "anak _na_ lalaki"(son), and "anak _na_ babae"(daughter)
> 
> Even if we don't have this gender specifiers, rest assured this does not influence our ability to distinguish gender in the real world.


 
I have no doubts!

anak na lalaki
anak na babae

Between these two, can you tell me what the literal translations would be?
What are the lalaki and babae?
Thanks!


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## niernier

anak = child
babae = girl/female/woman
lalaki = boy/male/man

On his previous post, he said, "anak ng lalaki" which in English roughly means
"child of a man" where the correct phrase should be "anak na lalaki"(male child or in correct English "son") Also take note this phrase is not limited to a child or kid. It also applies to grownups.


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## TimLA

niernier said:


> anak = child
> babae = girl/female/woman
> lalaki = boy/male/man
> 
> On his previous post, he said, "anak ng lalaki" which in English roughly means
> "child of a man" where the correct phrase should be "anak na lalaki"(male child or in correct English "son") Also take note this phrase is not limited to a child or kid. It also applies to grownups.


 
Excellent! Thank you!


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## MarX

Hi! I was just talking about this with a couple of friends of mine.
I'd like to inform you that Tagalog is not unique in its not distinguishing *she *and *he*.
Some languages that don't distinguish them:
Indonesian/Malay
Persian
Turkish
Hungarian
Finnish
Estonian

I honestly don't have any problem with the lack of distinction between *she* and *he*.

Salam


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## Xpydder

For 20 years, I have known many Filipinos here in the US, I have traveled to the Philippines more times than I can count and I married a Filipina a few years ago. Although it may be true that there is also no specific he/ she gender specifier in Persian, Turkish, Hungarian, Finnish, or Estonian, none of the people from these countries have earned the reputation for getting he and she confused so consistently.  My wife has been living in the US for over ten years, she gets he / she confused 100 percent of the time and so do many of her friends from various Philippine provincial areas.  Yes, I can understand how it might be a little confusing when you are beginning to learn the basics of English.  When compared to the above countries, however, the Philippines is very unique in the fact that they have very early exposure to English and they are taught English in the public schools.  Filipinos from the more expensive and private schools in Manila don't seem to have the habit of confusing he / she.  Yet, other people from the Philippines, who are often taught to speak quite fluently, seem to reverse he / she at least 90 percent of the time.  I have not been able to confirm this with any of my Filipino friends, but I have become convinced that it is often taught in reverse when they learn English as children.  I'm sorry but there seems to be no other logical explanation.


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## Outsider

Could there be phonetic reasons behind this confusion between "he" and "she" by Tagalog speakers?


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## Xpydder

Interesting hypothesis, but the two words seem to be transcribed rather often.  If it were a sound not being interpreted then the two words would be confused only occasionally.  From my own observation I see the confusion taking place closer to 100 percent of the time.  But I don't have the Tagalog knowledge or the phonetics knowledge to be sure that these words contain a sound that are allophones of each other in the Tagalog language.  Nevertheless, I am not going to dismiss this possibility and I think it deserves further thought.  This is something that has perplexed me for too long not to consider every possibility


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## mataripis

There is no gender in Tagalog for "He/She". It is simply " Siya" , the name of individual will help you determine what gender it belong.


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## Xpydder

Thanks Mataripis.  We have already covered this earlier in the thread.  I made mention to an observation that native Tagalog speakers will transcribe the English he / she too often to suggest a mere mix up due to learning a new language. In fact, many Filipinos have the benefit of learning English in the public school system and they are well known for their English skills - hence the reason why the English call center business is booming in the Philippines.  Outsider suggested that the reversing of he / she may, therefore, be due to phonetics.  

My son is five years old and he transcribes he / she nearly all the time because he has learned this from his Filipina mother.  Could this serve as an explanation for why so many other Filipinos transcribe he / she?


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