LINGUIST List 5.1290

Sun 13 Nov 1994

Sum: Who animal

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1. , Summary: Who animal

I would like to thank all those who wrote in concerning the question
of whether 'who' or 'what' is used to ask about species of animals
in various languages (I am sorry but at the moment I cannot locate
the file with the names of all those who I need to thank, but
I am really grateful). The only language so far identified which
uses the equivalent of 'who' in this situation in Russian, while
German, Danish, French, Dutch, and I am pretty sure (although my
judgements are somewhat rusty here) Polish all use 'what', as
does English obviously. I should add that I have seen many Russian
linguists' dxescriptions of other languages in which they note that
whatever the language is, that it uses 'what' rather than than 'who'
for animals. Most recently, I saw this in an Eskimo-Russain dictionary.

I would be interested in hearing about any more examples of a language
that uses 'who' to ask for the species of an animal, as in 'What/Who
is that', when looking at an animal in a zoo, or 'What/Who bit you?',
looking at a someone's swollen arm.