>Yes, but my point is that as recently as Mark
>Twain's time the neuter gender got carried
>through to all pronouns in a German text
>(regardless of whether the neuter came form the
>diminutive or otherwise).

The key word here is 'text'. The only thing that you
can be sure has changed is how German is written;
not how it is spoken or what the 'natural feeling'
for pronouns is.

My personal guess is that the 'grammatical' usage
of 'es' to refer to a girl is not something that is part
of 'an old natural feeling for pronouns' but rather
that it is based on grammatical dogma and the
bookishness of the 19th century:)

>This is the case for "he or she" in English. It
>is politically correct (and I believe basically
>polite) to use "he or she" whenever you are
>talking about an unknown third person.
>Nevertheless, I catch myself and even confirmed
>feminists using the normalized "he" in such cases
>all the time.

This is one of the cases where grammatical genders
help a lot! When you are writing a text about, say 'teacher'
you have to refer to the teacher as 'he or she' throughout
the text in English but in Icelandic you can, without worry,
refer to the teacher as 'hann' because 'kennari' is a masculine word.

- - -

Here are some lines from Helgakviða:

...
þá varð hilmi
hugur á vífi.
Fyrr lést hún unna
af öllum hug
syni Sigmundar
en hún séð hafði.
...

Then the king's mind
was on the woman (víf!).
She (hún!) would love
the son of Sigmundr
with all her mind
before she had seen him.

Regards,
Haukur