How the brain processes German and Arabic
en.qantara.de
en.qantara.de
More fundamentally, what makes them think the results have anything to do with language other than culture and life experience? If they did this in Germany, native Arabic speakers will have (mostly) moved during their lives, presumably traversing a bilingual and bicultural life (that might demand more bicameral connections) relative to the German subjects.
What is needed in the area is something more similar to EPFL's in silico rat cortex reconstruction, only for humans. I haven't seen a single reference (ever) for single cell resolution information on connectivity in Wernicke's area (arguably the absolute most important and distinguishing cortex in human brain vs non-human primate).
This is what is needed now, rather than extremely ham handed or crude, low resolution correlations across brain structures which are well established in many contexts.
And I don't know how much diffusion MRI has improved, but around 2010 (when I left this field) it wasn't considered reliable.
"observe how far that verb is from the reader's base of operations; well, in a German newspaper they put their verb away over on the next page; and I have heard that sometimes after stringing along the exciting preliminaries and parentheses for a column or two, they get in a hurry and have to go to press without getting to the verb at all. Of course, then, the reader is left in a very exhausted and ignorant state."
German is one of those languages where the spoken and written languages are incredibly distinct. I've felt that the written language requires massive intellect to pull apart as a non-native speaker, in comparison to the spoken language (once you adjust for pronunciation, etc.).
The formalities of proper written German are inscrutable, this does a great job of laying the most painful aspects out.
Written German of the times of Mark Twain is also quite different from today's. Of course the actual context dictates formality as well. Personally I can't understand Shakespeare era English nor German. It's just gibberish to me. With lots of concentration maybe but not just reading or listening to it.
Also, the whole Dative and Genetive thing is not just a formality/written vs spoken thing but more a generational and societal one. Using Dative for things where the rules actually prescribe Genetive is a class thing. Working class usually means everything is just Dative. And if you're not good at learning languages. Even as a German native speaker. If you are trying to sound high society and snobbish you'll use a lot of Genetive in the proper way. Or if you simply learned it that way and it became second nature to do it correctly. A lot has changed that way since Twain.
The German language mutated less over the centuries than the English language. An educated native German speaker should be able to mostly understand the "Nibelungenlied" (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nibelungenlied), a text written down in the mid 13th century, which is thus nearly 800 years old.
Uns ist in alten mæren wunders vil geseit
von helden lobebæren, von grôzer arebeit,
von freuden, hôchgezîten, von weinen und von klagen,
von küener recken strîten muget ír nu wunder hœren sagen
"lobebæren". No damn idea whatsoever. Now "grôzer arebeit", sure that's "grosser Arbeit" but when I look at the "translation to German" (from the middle high German the original apparently is written in) it says it's "groesse Muehsahl". Close enough of course. Kind of like translating French word for word into German. It sort of makes sense but is just hopelessly old and weirdly structured but you can understand a lot of it. But it requires lots of brain power. Nothing that I can do while listening/talking, only while reading.
"hôchgezîten": Hochzeiten? Like weddings? Makes no sense. Maybe "Hochzeiten" as in 'high times'? Funnily same word different pronunciation depending on context :)
"recken" very old word. Again something kids these days probably have no idea about. I do but it's been a while I learned it all. "strîten" means streiten I guess which makes sense given the Recken, but without knowing what those are, not sure. "muget" Sounds like "muggle" but maybe "moeget"? So "moegte ihr". "nu wunder hœren sagen": "jetzt wunder hoeren sagen"? But what does that mean?
Some of this may not be a problem of "Shakespeare's times" vs. today but also "poem language" vs. "regular people language". I have trouble with poems.
I'd write it as this basically:
Uns ist in alten Maeren viel Wunder <no idea what geseit is>
von Helden <somethingwhatever>, von grosser Arbeit
von Freuden, Hochzeiten, von Weinen und von Klagen,
von kuehner Recken streiten moeget ihr Wunder hoeren sagen
On the other hand, here's a recipe for strengthening a wooden shield with leather in old English:
take lether that ys half tannyd and drye hym and shave the flesshe syd
and take glwu wt water and set yt over the fyere
and melte yt wt water and then al hote ly yt a pone the leder on the flesshe syde
and strawe ther on the powder of glasce bete yn a brasene morter ...
take leather that is half tanned and dry him and shave the flesh side
and take glue with water and set it over the fire
and melt it with water and then while hot lie it upon the leather on the flesh side
and strew thereon the powder of glass beaten in a <brasene I had to look up but also makes sense: brass-en> mortar
Because it used to be pronounced with the e, not unlike Seite, but has long since been dropped. In the 1300s, in the time of Chaucer and The Canterbury Tales, this would've been pronounced with the trailing e.
Do you know if this is more of an exceptional case or was it common for many words?
But the spelling became exceptionally bad after the printing press with movable type (i.e. Gutenberg's printing press). The printers decided for themselves on certain spellings and the spellings really froze in place based on the choices the printers made. This was also the period of rapid changes in pronunciation, particularly vowels. But English never really had a spelling reform except Webster's small one in early USA. And yet the spelling was locked in place. Whoops!
The word [die] Mär/die Märe [the lore, myth] (in modern German one would rather use "die Kunde" (not to be confused with "der Kunde" [the customer])) is used regularly in modern German in the diminutive form: "das Märchen" (the fairly tale). So, a Märchen [fairy tale] is a small lore.
> "wunders"
die Wunder [the wonders].
> "geseit"
In modern German, you would say "gesagt", which is actually rather similar, but you might indeed have some difficulties finding this relationship on your own.
> lobebæren
You can immediately see the relationship to the noun "[das] Lob". So you can guess that in modern German you would use "gelobt" (I agree that using "gelobt" sounds a little bit stilted in modern German, but this shall not matter here).
> sure that's "grosser Arbeit" but when I look at the "translation to German" (from the middle high German the original apparently is written in) it says it's "groesse Muehsahl".
Your guess is perfectly correct: the meaning of "Arbeit" has shifted over time, so in modern German, you would rather use the word "Mühsal".
> "hôchgezîten": Hochzeiten? Like weddings?
A wedding is actually a "high time" (Hoch-Zeit). This relationship is slightly obscured in modern German in that if you mean "wedding" the initial "o" in Hochzeit is pronounced differently when meaning "wedding". If you pronounce "Hochzeit" as "Hoch-Zeit", the meaning becomes very clear ("Hochzeit" as in "Hochphase" ["high phase" -> heyday]).
> "recken" very old word.
The word "der Recke" [valiant] is a (slightly old-fashioned) word that does exist in modern German.
> "strîten" means streiten
In this case: [die] Streite (plural of [der] Streit) in the today less commonly used (but perfectly understandable) meaning "die Kämpfe" [the combats]. If you are used to the lyrics of the Lohengrin opera
> http://www.wagneroperas.com/indexlohengrinlibretto.html
"streiten"/[der] Streit/[der] Streiter is used all the time in this older meaning, for example:
Friedrich:
[...]
Hier steh' ich, hier mein Schwert! Wer wagt von euch,
zu streiten wider meiner Ehre Preis!
Die Brabanter:
Keiner von uns! Wir streiten nur für dich!
Der König
[...]
Heil deinem Kommen, teurer Held!
Die du so treulich riefst ins Feld,
die harren dein in Streites Lust,
von dir geführt, des Siegs bewußt.
Die Männer
Wir harren dein in Streites Lust,
von dir geführt, des Siegs bewußt.
Lohengrin
Mein Herr und König, laß dir melden:
Die ich berief, die kühnen Helden,
zum Streit sie führen darf ich nicht! used regularly in modern German in the diminutive form: "das Märchen"
lobebæren
You can immediately see the relationship to the noun "[das] Lob"
The word "der Recke" [valiant] is a (slightly old-fashioned) word that does exist in modern German.
If you are used to the lyrics of the Lohengrin opera
As for using Streit as a noun, yes, no problem there, though the fact that there's no proper capitalization in the Niebelungenlied text does not help to figure that out. I immediately read it as "streiten" the verb only.
> I've felt that the written language requires massive intellect to pull apart as a non-native speaker, in comparison to the spoken language (once you adjust for pronunciation, etc.).
I rather think that the people who you spoke with used a simpler structure of sentences than is common in educated circles because you would otherwise have difficulties understanding them.
You should actually rather feel spoiled: in older German texts, it can actually easily happen that a whole paragraph consists of one single sentence (this rarely occurs in contemporary texts). Just to give one single arbitrary example:
"Wenn es die Verwirklichung von Urträumen ist, fliegen zu können und mit den Fischen zu reisen, sich unter den Leibern von Bergriesen durchzubohren, mit göttlichen Geschwindigkeiten Botschaften zu senden, das Unsichtbare und Ferne zu sehen und sprechen zu hören, Tote sprechen zu hören, sich in wundertätigen Genesungsschlaf versenken zu lassen, mit lebenden Augen erblicken zu können, wie man zwanzig Jahre nach seinem Tode aussehen wird, in flimmernden Nächten tausend Dinge über und unter dieser Welt zu wissen, die früher niemand gewußt hat, wenn Licht, Wärme, Kraft, Genuß, Bequemlichkeit Urträume der Menschheit sind, – dann ist die heutige Forschung nicht nur Wissenschaft, sondern ein Zauber, eine Zeremonie von höchster Herzens- und Hirnkraft, vor der Gott eine Falte seines Mantels nach der anderen öffnet, eine Religion, deren Dogmatik von der harten, mutigen, beweglichen, messerkühlen und -scharfen Denklehre der Mathematik durchdrungen und getragen wird."
(https://www.projekt-gutenberg.org/musil/mannohne/chap011.htm...)
And no, I have no difficulties understanding this sentence.
This is what calls my attention most. During your language acquisition process, your brains may develop some specialized connections to handle such sentences. In Portuguese (and probably in most languages) it is possible to build such monstrosities -- and there are concrete examples which I won't recall now. However, one does that for literaly reasons, to sound overly sophisticated or intentionally difficult etc. It's definitely not a natural way to write, and it probably never happens spontaneously on spoken language. I can, very sporadically, grasp such long sentences in my language at the first pass, but it's always difficult and, even then, I usually reread just to make sure I really understood it.
That said, personally I'm prone to this when writing. Even in English.
You've also tried. With this sentence, haven't you ;)
I can, very sporadically, grasp such long sentences in my language at the first pass, but it's always difficult and, even then, I usually reread just to make sure I really understood it.
I think this is probably true. I mean, it's natural to have a more waxing structure and decorative diction when attempting to express oneself poetically.
I guess it just feels like the ceiling of "acceptably waxing" in German poetic discourse is stratospheric in comparison.
I think the lengthy prepositions on their own would be more tolerable – but when you toss in various obscure inflections on adjectives and nouns, the split verbs, overloaded words like `sie`, it feels like a system that was designed to confound! Or, conversely, to signal intelligence.
It reminds me of the idea that the rules of proper dining etiquette were invented arbitrarily at the court of Louis XIV, mainly as an improvised mechanism for dunking on the aristocrats they didn't like. :)
I imagine it must make for wonderful poetry and literature, though. I'm imagining some young up-and-comer confidently promising "he'll take care of the patrician's daughter while in the palace". But he accidentally uses the wrong "the" for "palace" because it's a word he's not accustomed to using or hearing, forming an ironic double-entendre that he doesn't understand, that makes him look foolish to the patrician and foreshadows some misbehavior to the reader.
On the one hand, it's beautiful that the inflection of one word, can totally invert the meaning of a sentence. But on the other hand you have to be so knowledgeable about the minutiae of the language itself to even catch it when it happens! And in the end, it could have been a typo of the author. Argh :D German.
Very often I heard (and applied) the rule for "everyday" communication to keep the sentences short and to split longer ones if possible.
This is no contradiction. In particular in formal public speaks in German it is not uncommon to use complicated sentence constructions - and the audience is expected to understand it.
In other words: the difference is rather in the mentality.
- The English mentality rather seems to be to avoid complicated constructions. This might be explainable by the melting pot of the United States, where you could not rely on that everybody is very knowledgeable in English.
- The German-speaking world was historically much more culturally homogeneous. So you could rely on the fact that the conversational partner is pretty confident in the German language; so you could use sophisticated language constructions.
To your point, both the UK and US had melting pot scenarios. The former is where the vast majority of the language was defined.
You may have guessed correctly that I’m American, but I speak nearly identically to my ancestors in 1776. Likely only losing some colloquialisms and picking up others. Perhaps losing Scottish, Dutch, French, German and Swiss accents.
In my family, my g-great grandfather from Munich or Mecklenburg (both apply but I don’t recall which ancestor this was offhand), forbade children from speaking English at the dinner table. He thought they were making fun of him. Sometimes language is less melted and simply dies off.
A: To give the speaker some time to remember what verb they had in mind 90 seconds ago when they started the sentence.
That reminds me of a german friend listening to an announcement in a train station. He raised his hand signing he couldn't be disturbed and seemed to hold his breath during that fairly long speech. And at the end he told me "this language is so messed up, I had to listen it all up to the end to figure out whether we should wait some more minutes or leave and take a bus".
Seriously, which part here is language related vs. just structuring your announcements in a way where all information you need is presented in the way it makes sense? If you don't announce which train this is about first, then lots of people will have to listen to lots of announcements even though they're not meant for them. If you know your train number you can stop listening at "123". If you just know your destination and the trains origin/where you are you can stop listening right there etc.
Unlike the numbers below 100, e.g. 24 = "Vierundzwanzig" and not "Zwanzigvier" like in English.
There are some folks (like in Generative Grammar) arguing that it has an underlying SOV layer which makes kind of sense because it gets processed like half of the time essentially like pure SOV languages. But alas sometimes one size doesn't fit all. In English you have to go through the extraordinary effort of a wedding ceremony in order to utter the words in SOV order: "With this ring I thee wed." That is some pure SVO energy right here, only broken by love ;)
[0]https://linguistics.stackexchange.com/questions/1057/german-...
I'm used to simply read a verb and start picturing the sentence meaning in my mind, immediately. Whereas in Portuguese there's this need to keep the whole conjugation table in working memory so you can figure out the meaning.
Also in Portuguese verb forms are really important to understand and communicate meaning whereas split verbs are just fancy dressing even Germans get wrong sometimes.
I forget the term, but there's a concept where a word's distinct parts become merged in the mind of a native speaker. A simplistic example would be "breakfast". I was surprised as a kid to learn that it means "break fast" because I thought of it as an indivisible thing. Maybe that's obvious to Germans.
Verb conjugations can be similarly decomposed, as long as you learn the conceptual "regular" form and the pronunciation "value system" that creates all the variety and irregular forms. It doesn't work for everything, but I think it's useful. It's more of a stretch for Portuguese, but the etymology is still there.
That’s also why I guess learning a language with a lot of input goes a long way to absorb the structure of a language, because at some point you‘ve seen everything and only the important bits (the real information) remain if you look at a sentence.
In this essay, he makes some interesting remarks on how propositions uttered are only the tip of the iceberg of the meaning intended.
What you say is of course true, in the same extent that you already have an idea about what someone is most likely going to say even before they open their mouth. It doesn’t invalidate that in German you might put a twist in the very end of your sentence, something that will be harder in a language structured differently, to the point that most attempt to do so will feel convoluted enough that you will probably spot it far before the end of the sentence.
Well, I guess the better you get, the earlier you can deduct what this is about and I also guess that my analogy of "buffering" is not how it actually works but it feels like it.
As someone who speaks several languages it is also very apparent that somehow the infrastructure in the brain must be slightly different for different languages. For instance, to pick German again, when "caching" certain parts of sentences for later processing, which does not exist in other languages.
The brain being a muscle, it is only natural that this would translate in more developed cognitive abilities for those language speakers.
I've heard several takes on Asian students being better than others in maths: one of those argued that both the languages themselves, plus the way they are taught to young kids, could, on the long term, make brains better suited to maths. Would be curious to see such studies on that.
Perhaps related observation, though npt directly addressing the OP topic: STEM programs, as well as medicine - and from personal experience I would argue especially medicine (vs. STEM proper) - rely on curricula that tend to favor humans who are better than most at mimicking computers. Rote memorization (relatively necessary for ideogram-centric writing systems) is rewarded, excursive analysis is not.
I wonder if the reverse is just as true in other contexts. How do you say "Let's think this through step by step" in German?
Let us this step by step through think.
In the english version the verb "think through" comes directly after the "let's", so there's no need to cache anything; it seems that is clearer and more direct.
Example: https://youtu.be/a5zRik-6eVI
Even without understanding the language, you can recognize the structure. Every sentence is split into short sections, and the end of the sentence is clearly recognizable by the voice finally lowering. You do need some knowledge of German to see that the very important verb is only revealed in this very last part, only then do you know what that entire looong sentence was actually about.
Mach das Fenster *auf*. vs. Mach das Fenster *zu*. (Open/close the window). The verbs here are "aufmachen" and "zumachen".
You will need to wait for the (sometimes long) sentence to finish to understand what is being asked for.
In French, you basically listen to 3/4 of the sentence, can guess the end, not wait for it and answer. This makes very "compact" discussing from the "sound" point of view. In German, you mostly need to wait before you answer. So, you have maybe more pauses in between, but then the sentences can have these "composed" words which pack at the word level a lot of meaning in little "sound".
This is the joy of speaking different languages, like the different computer languages, each one brings us diversity. For that, I am happy we do not have a single language on Earth.
Not necessarily: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0956797620903113
Previously discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35681824
Do you have an example for this?
Literal translation: Yesterday, was I with the friend of my mother, who in the big red house on The Valley of the mountain lives, playing football.
So you get a lot of context before you actually get what happened.
On the other side, I was convinced by the research and statements of Andrea Moro (see e.g. https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/noam-chomsky-and-andrea-m...) that anti-universalist claims about language should be taken with more than a grain of salt.
Oh, that word! Even in slow motion I couldn’t spell it :)
I hope this doesn't get auto corrected but how about Donaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaftskapitaen (sorry no umlauts here and no fff from me :)).
For the uninitiated: Schiff has 2 f. Fahrt has an f. But there a rule that if you combine words to make a new one you can't have a letter repeat more than twice.
Papplakate? Pappe and Plakate.
Schlaemmkreide? (again no umlaut but you get it thats an a umlaut and not just an e). Coz it's from Schlamm not schlemmen.
This is a rule of the old spelling; it does not hold with respect to the new spelling rules.
Of particular importance is because of this rule change, for some words many native speakers actually became aware that they pronounced some words wrongly.
Old spelling: Stilleben [still life]
Many native speaker pronounced wrongly this word as Stil-Leben [long i; style life], but actually correct is Still-Leben [short i; still life]. The new spelling removes this potential source of confusion.
Next thing you tell me the new rules for "das" vs "dasz" (sorry no umlauts here but I guess you get what I mean) after a comma make sense. The reasoning was that the new rules will finally make it easier for people to know when to write "das" after a comma vs. "dasz" which you now write "dass". No they don't, they just make the exact same mistake! It was never about the szett. It's all about the "das" vs "dass", which given I have no umlauts here I always wrote as "dass" anyway, since you can replace an szett with a double s.
Ich dachte mir schon, dass das Auto neu ist.
Das Auto, das ich meine, ist neu.
Now I will give you the Stillleben and the Pappplakate and Schifffahrt make sense in a way. But they went all out, didn't they? Let's just allow Schiff-Fahrt and Papp-Plakate and Still-Leben as well. Donau-Dampf-Schiff-Fahrts-Gesellschafts-Kapitaen FTW! :P
The goal was to somewhat codify the idea that a single consonant (e.g. the "l" at the end of "Tal") implies that the previous vowel should be long (t-ah-l) while a double consonant (the "ll" at the end of "Ball") implies that the previous vowel should be long (b-a-l). (This was already true most of the time for other consonants, but "s/as/ß" remained an exception.)
Therefore similarly, by analogy, "Fass" has a double consonant at the end of the word, so we know that it is a short vowel (f-a-ss), and "Maß" has a single consonant at the end, so we know it must be long (m-ah-ss).
As an aside, this doesn't explain why we still need ß in the first place - if it's just there to indicate long and short vowels, why not just use a single "s" like with the other consonants? The answer is in pluralisation rules: when you pluralise "Maß -> Maße", you still say a hard "s" sound (m-ah-ss-uh). But if you pluralise, say, "Los -> Lose", the "s" becomes a "z" sound (l-oh-z-uh). In German orthography, it's generally the case that you need to know both the single and plural of a word to be able to spell it correctly.
Even under this new scheme, a lot of short, very common words retain their original spelling, which is why "das", which was an irregular, common word under the old scheme, remains an irregular, common word under the new scheme. So yes, you still need to understand the difference between "das" and "dass", in the same way you need to understand the different between "there" and "they're" in english.
I get the actual szett. That's not the point of dass vs das after the comma. That's exactly my point. It never was about the szett vs. double s for that rule. The thing that trips people up about that rule wasn't the szett. It's the "can you replace the dass/dasz with 'welche(s)' or not". And they did not make that part easier. But that's what the reform was about. Everything was supposed to make more sense and be easier. Except kids that had learned for 12 years suddenly were supposed to use arbitrary new rules in year 13 which would be their final school year exams (replace with 11/12 in states with 12 instead of 13 years).
Like you say "das" and "dass" really make the same sound. As did "dasz" (instead of making a "dahs" sound).
Side note: just like people not getting das vs dass irks me in German the there and they're really irks me in English. Is it really that hard? (tho on the interwebs we gotta discount half the misspellings nowadays to autocorrect I would presume).
Under the new rules, shouldn't we be allowed to write it as Lieblings-Schrift-Steller then? :P
I'm still laughing!
I live in Germany as a foreigner, so I'm a bit biased of course. But my observation is that the German culture and language are a bit of a reflection of each other. Formal German use long, complicated sentences with long compound words and complex grammatical sentence. This somehow translates into a love/appreciation of neat, complex processes. There's more than a bit of cultural bias towards that. Kind of funny if you are aware and see somebody going a bit OCD on that.
Eminently parsable for me. But then, I'm Danish and used to this kind of bolt-on word construction, or wordconstruction as I should far prefer it.
It roughly translates to "fresh steam fast shutting pusher". It's a part that cuts off steam to the generator turbines.
That's quite the mouthful even for native Germans, and became a meme in our small family.
Also, the last I heard, hn didn't have a CEO whose actions were reminiscent of a certain bodily orifice.
I'll leave it at that :)
In fact these are the main reasons why I start learning different languages without needing them - they make you think differently and give you new perspectives. I’d assume it’s the same with programming languages actually.
Yeah apparently this is a two years auto renewing contract, cancellation only by registered letter 3 months in advance by the end of the contract duration. Payment is 180 EUR monthly. You actually said clearly you don't want it but didn't do it in writing so now you can watch monthly Lastschrift on the bank statements (yup, statements arriving by fucking letter as well). Two exact copies of full terms and conditions are on their way in two separate letters because fuck you. Don't even try asking for help, it's all your fault.
If that had good classification results, we could be very confident that it's a real difference.
Disclaimer: not a neuroscientist, maybe it's convincing for neuroscientists already as is.
("The verb is the master and the other words are the slaves.")
An personal observation I've noticed from living in Berlin: My German friends over a certain age (roughly 40), who are very liberal, tolerant, totally fluent English speakers, completely refuse to adopt "they/them" pronouns for their non-binary friends and insist until they're blue in the face that there's no reason not to mis-gender them. This still stumps me, because they are otherwise completely polite, elegant, and accommodating. A journalist friend of mine, when I asked him, says it's because German is so highly gendered as a language.
Now - English is for us a very different language that does not have declination so whatever construct there is inside is taken at face value. This is maybe why there are no particular problems using they/them for a single person.
Maybe that the closer distance between German and English is one of the reasons for what you described? (wildly guessing)
I don't know whether there's anything like that for French.
In both languages there's a lot more to it than just personal pronouns: there are also other gendered pronouns (relative, demonstrative, interogative, ...), nouns and adjectives.
At least in German the endings on adjectives and nouns are fairly distinct so you can specify them separately. In French the ending can be fused with the root, so you have, for example:
* Je suis nouveau (I am new; masculine speaker)
* Je suis nouvelle (I am new; feminine speaker)
The first-person pronoun "je" is the same for both genders, but the adjective is modified in a semi-regular way. What does a non-binary speaker say? If someone can point me at a fully specified proposal I'll have something to read this weekend! (Just joking: I already have lots to read.)
In French we indeed have "je" (I) and "tu" (you) that is non-gendered but as you noted the sentence still holds the genre.
The idea to introduce "iel" (and contraction of "il" (he) and "elle" (she)) did not catch and I think I never saw it being used in practice. Now, your last point is very interesting - there is no way to say "I am new" in a non-gendered way in French (I have not seen anyone discussing this, actually)
* Mench (masculine): human being
* Person (feminine): person
* Geisel (feminine): hostage
* Mädchen (neuter): girl
The pronoun used to refer back to a noun is often the one that matches the gender of the noun rather than the gender of the person that the noun refers to.
(French also has the feminine noun "personne", which I think you can refer back to with the feminine pronoun "elle".)