As Birmingham (1970: 52f) points out, postposing hòmber 'man' or muhé 'woman' allows Papiamentu to make gender distinctions in the designation of human relations as well as animals. Thus, mucha muhé [child woman] 'girl' and mucha hómber [child man] 'boy', ruman muhé [sibling woman] 'sister' and ruman hòmber [sibling man] 'brother'.