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Feminine Masculine what's the deal?
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Posts: 2800 		  Quote Bulldog Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: Feminine Masculine what's the deal?
    Posted: 16-Jan-2007 at 08:59
I've wanted to find the answer to this question since I first had French classes in school. The major obstacle I had was with "masculine" "feminine", like a table can be feminine and another object masculine. I was puzzled by it and the teacher's were no help, they just told me to stop asking questions and just accept it as that's how it is. This just put an achor in my learning of the language. I kept asking the teacher what the deal was with masculine femine after I while I was just asked to leave the class LOL 
 
 
Does anybody have the answer?


Edited by Bulldog - 16-Jan-2007 at 09:00
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Posts: 3387 		  Quote Aelfgifu Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16-Jan-2007 at 09:21
You were lucky it was a Latin language. Germanic languages have Masculine, Feminine and Neutreum as well...
 
They just are. Stop asking and accept...Tongue

Women hold their councils of war in kitchens: the knives are there, and the cups of coffee, and the towels to dry the tears.
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Posts: 1988 		  Quote TheDiplomat Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16-Jan-2007 at 09:34
Slavic  and Baltic languages also possess the same problem..It is the destiny of anyone trying to learn European languages, I guessWacko
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Posts: 1933 		  Quote Hellios Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16-Jan-2007 at 09:48
Bulldog, it's fun to spend a lot of time learning if an inanimate object is masculine or feminine. Wink
 
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Posts: 490 		  Quote Dan Carkner Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16-Jan-2007 at 10:01
Not only is it arbitrary, but it can change over the years or by region.. good luck ;)
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Posts: 2800 		  Quote Bulldog Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 17-Jan-2007 at 07:48
Is there really no logical explanation? there must be...
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Posts: 778 		  Quote Leonardo Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 17-Jan-2007 at 08:11
Originally posted by Aelfgifu

You were lucky it was a Latin language. Germanic languages have Masculine, Feminine and Neutreum as well...
 
They just are. Stop asking and accept...Tongue
 
 
Really Latin had three grammatical genders too
 
 
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Posts: 3387 		  Quote Aelfgifu Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 17-Jan-2007 at 08:30
Yes, but in modern Latin-based languages the neutrum has dissappeared...

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Posts: 6003 		  Quote Cywr Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 17-Jan-2007 at 08:44
Dutch effectivly has two genders, seeing as masculine and femminine are treated the same.
Arrrgh!!"
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Posts: 490 		  Quote Dan Carkner Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 17-Jan-2007 at 08:45
Originally posted by Bulldog

Is there really no logical explanation? there must be...


I'm sure there is some logic behind its use, otherwise it wouldn't exist.. but there is rational reason why a chair is a woman (and later a man somewhere) else ;)
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Posts: 3387 		  Quote Aelfgifu Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 17-Jan-2007 at 10:22
Originally posted by Cywr

Dutch effectivly has two genders, seeing as masculine and femminine are treated the same.
 
True.
 
Originally posted by Dan Carkner

I'm sure there is some logic behind its use, otherwise it wouldn't exist.. but there is rational reason why a chair is a woman (and later a man somewhere) else ;)
 
This is wrong. The Chair is not a woman of a man. It can be masculine or feminine, but those are just nominations for grammatical phenomena. They just as well could have been called left and right, or light and dark.
 
The grammatical gender has nothing to do with the gender of the subject: in German the word for Girl (madchen) is N because it is a diminiutive. This does not make the girl less female. And in Latin, all words ending on -a are feminine, including, for instance, Papa (Pope). This does not make the pope a woman.

Women hold their councils of war in kitchens: the knives are there, and the cups of coffee, and the towels to dry the tears.
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Posts: 778 		  Quote Leonardo Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 17-Jan-2007 at 13:03
Originally posted by Aelfgifu

And in Latin, all words ending on -a are feminine, including, for instance, Papa (Pope). This does not make the pope a woman.
 
 
Really most but not all words Smile 
A few examples: nauta (sailor) and poeta (poet) are masculine words. Papa was not in classical Latin, anyway it is a masculine word too Smile
 
 
 
 
 
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  Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 17-Jan-2007 at 13:26
Originally posted by Cywr

Dutch effectivly has two genders, seeing as masculine and femminine are treated the same.

The difference between masculine and feminine is still relevant (at least in theory) for relative pronouns. ("This is a table, he/she is blue"). In practice people always use he though, exept when it's clearly something feminine.

In Belgium it is apparently more common to use feminine relative pronouns, I once had a teacher from Belgium who corrected several relative pronouns which should have been feminine.

And then of course there are also people who start hypercorrecting and use feminine pronouns for everything which isn't specifically referring to something masculine, I believe it's called grammatical castration.
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Posts: 1919 		  Quote xi_tujue Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 17-Jan-2007 at 13:35
Yeah in dutch every thing is basicly "de" as in the
and you have "het" (how do you translate that not it)
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Posts: 128 		  Quote Lepidodendron Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 17-Jan-2007 at 13:50
Originally posted by Mixcoatl


And then of course there are also people who start hypercorrecting and use feminine pronouns for everything which isn't specifically referring to something masculine, I believe it's called grammatical castration.
 
Sounds more like grammatical transsexualism to me. Wink
 
I always wondered if the masculine Latin words of the first declension (in -a, which contains far more feminine words) correspond historically and functionally with the Greek class ending in -s. By this I mean original Latin compound nouns ending in -cola, -viva, -cida etc., like agricola, conviva and parricida, and not nauta, poeta and so forth, because these are merely borrowings from Greek nauts, poits. Has an original -s at the end gone missing here?
 
[edit: typo]


Edited by Lepidodendron - 17-Jan-2007 at 14:40
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Posts: 3387 		  Quote Aelfgifu Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 17-Jan-2007 at 14:31
Originally posted by Leonardo

Originally posted by Aelfgifu

And in Latin, all words ending on -a are feminine, including, for instance, Papa (Pope). This does not make the pope a woman.
 
 
Really most but not all words Smile 
A few examples: nauta (sailor) and poeta (poet) are masculine words. Papa was not in classical Latin, anyway it is a masculine word too Smile 
 
Really? In that case my teacher was wrong, she taught me that words like papa, nauta and poeta were feminine...
 
Good thing I never had to translate into Latin eh?LOL
 
 
Originally posted by xi_tujue

Yeah in dutch every thing is basicly "de" as in the
and you have "het" (how do you translate that not it)
You can't translate it because English does not have genders at all... or rather, you have to translate both 'de' and 'het' with 'the'.
 
Interesting though, that in English an animal for instance is called 'it' even when the gender is known, whereas in Dutch, an animal is always called 'he' or 'she'.


Edited by Aelfgifu - 17-Jan-2007 at 14:38

Women hold their councils of war in kitchens: the knives are there, and the cups of coffee, and the towels to dry the tears.
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Posts: 128 		  Quote Lepidodendron Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 17-Jan-2007 at 14:54
Originally posted by Aelfgifu

 
 
Really? In that case my teacher was wrong, she taught me that words like papa, nauta and poeta were feminine...
 
Good thing I never had to translate into Latin eh?LOL
 
 
I guess the legend of Pope Joan originated in a Medieval school class... Wink
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Posts: 490 		  Quote Dan Carkner Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18-Jan-2007 at 07:22
Also in French, in Canada it was gradually introduced to say "Madame la Prsidente, Madame la Directrice,etc." instead of "Madame le Prsident, le Directeur.."   But in France if I understand correctly they find it preposterous and refuse to do this.
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Posts: 2800 		  Quote Bulldog Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 19-Jan-2007 at 12:26
Really is there no explanation? there must be, doesn't it bother you not knowing? it immediately put a barrier in my path and held back learning the language, my French today is pretty poor LOL
 
Why does it exist? is it an Indo-European language characteristc, why doesn't English have it?
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Posts: 3387 		  Quote Aelfgifu Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 20-Jan-2007 at 09:54
I found you a nice wiki article:
 
There is a list of languages with genders at the bottom too... Smile
 
 
I'm especially intrigued by the piece about aboriginal languages:
 
Originally posted by Wiki

The Dyirbal language is well known for its system of four noun classes, which tend to be divided along the following semantic lines:

The class usually labeled "feminine", for instance, includes the word for fire and nouns relating to fire, as well as all dangerous creatures and phenomena. This inspired the title of the George Lakoff book Women, Fire and Dangerous Things (ISBN 0-226-46804-6).

The Ngangikurrunggurr language has noun classes reserved for canines, and hunting weapons, and the Anindilyakwa language has a noun class for things that reflect light. The Diyari language distinguishes only between female and other objects. Perhaps the most noun classes in any Australian language are found in Yanyuwa, which has 16 noun classes.

They have a special gender for edible fruits, how cool is that? LOL
 
Or this one:
Originally posted by Wiki

In Alamblak, a Sepik Hill language spoken in Papua New Guinea, the masculine gender includes males and things which are tall or long and slender, or narrow such as fish, crocodile, long snakes, arrows, spears and tall slender trees, and the feminine gender includes females and things which are short, squat or wide, such as turtles, frogs, houses, fighting shields, and trees that are typically more round and squat than others.

I like this one...LOL


Edited by Aelfgifu - 20-Jan-2007 at 10:00

Women hold their councils of war in kitchens: the knives are there, and the cups of coffee, and the towels to dry the tears.
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