Proud EXPAT Posted October 15, 2006 Report Share Posted October 15, 2006 The Armenian language has an absence of grammatical category of gender, but I'm curious to know about the words "na" and "ne". "Na" is still used in Eastern Armenian for both sexes, yet at one point there was also the word "ne" in the Eastern Armenian dialect. "Na" basically meaning "he" and "ne" meaning "she". Don't know too much about this lost word but can anyone comment? I'd like to learn more about it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Madcat Posted October 18, 2006 Report Share Posted October 18, 2006 I can't say I have ever heard anyone use it, nor found it any books I've ever read, western or eastern dialects... this intrigues me... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arpa Posted October 18, 2006 Report Share Posted October 18, 2006 The Armenian language has an absence of grammatical category of gender, but I'm curious to know about the words "na" and "ne". "Na" is still used in Eastern Armenian for both sexes, yet at one point there was also the word "ne" in the Eastern Armenian dialect. "Na" basically meaning "he" and "ne" meaning "she". Don't know too much about this lost word but can anyone comment? I'd like to learn more about it. ՆԷ SHE Վարդը գարնայնի Թէ կոյսին տիպար Այտերուն չըլլար Ով կը յարգեր զանի ՆԵՐԱ ՀԵՏ WITH HER Համբոյ մառի ներանէ Համբոյր մանհուն գորվի Երբ կարմիր շողք մարւին Հորիզոնին վերեւի The above are from Petros Turian. We can see the full texts below in the Tagher section, that is if we can see the ArmText. Whatever font is used is incompatible with ours to copy and paste. Note also that in the below site NE is spelled ՆԵ not Նէ while the possessive form is correctly spelled as ՆԵՐԱ. We have spoken about this, and will keep speaking as to whatever happened to the seventh Mesropian letter Է. Is it because Lenin is spelled as Լենին and not as Լէնին? http://users.freenet.am/~tigran/ It seems like the gender specific pronoun has been in common use during classical times, more so by our hellenophile writers. Does Greek grammar have gender specific pronouns? The practice had been lost and abandoned for millennia until our literary renaissance during the 19th c. when it was rediscovered by the likes of our romantics, and desperately pursued by our realists. One will note that contemporaries of Turian, the likes of Raphael Patkanian and Mikael Nalpantian were still writing in a hybrid classical/grabar and vulgar/ashkharhabar vernaculars. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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