Talk:Gender in Dutch grammar

The label mergeto has just been added to the article. However, I moved this quite extensive list of rules from Dutch grammar to here on purpose. Dutch grammar is an overview of all Dutch grammar, and an extensive list like this doesn't fit there. Therefore i removed the label. Thijs! 17:54, 19 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Ok, that's fine. It was me who added the tag. I thought that it had been purposely created. Oh well. --Kilo-Lima 20:17, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

What is Indepently?
What is the meaning of "Indepently" ???

masculine/feminine
In this aricle it is mentioned that in some parts of the country the awareness of the distinction between masculine and masculine gender is disappearing. Being Dutch, I would say that in large parts of the country the awareness of this distinction has disappeared. I know very few people that are aware of this distinction, and I lived in both the northern and the middle part of the country. To be honest, I don't have an intuition for this distinction myself either. Shouldn't this be changed? Grunnen (talk) 15:02, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

I have to agree with the above comment. In everyday use, there is no distinction between 'masculine' and 'feminine' any more, both are simply regarded as being 'common' gender. This can be seen by looking at current Dutch language-learning material, for example the [|New Routledge Dutch Dictionary]. This dictionary (like all other dictionaries I've used personally) only makes the distinction between 'de' and 'het' in its listings for nouns.

Another example: the online version of the authoritative Van Dale dictionary has [|this entry for 'liefde'], which this article states is a feminine word:

lief·de de; v -s, -n 1 warme genegenheid: ...

As you can see, there is no mention of the word's feminine gender - simply that it has common gender (de) as opposed to neuter (het).

Do any modern dictionaries / grammars still make the distinction between masculine and feminine?

211.26.80.90 (talk) 22:03, 18 February 2010 (UTC)


 * The "v" in the Van Dale entry of liefde indicates feminine gender. CapnPrep (talk) 17:32, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
 * To Grunnen: the gender-awareness has not disappeared entirely in the Netherlands. Dialect speakers from Dutch-Limburg for instance still know by heart whether a noun is masculine or feminine. In Belgium the distinction is very much alive in spoken speech and does not seem to be disappearing at all. To 211.26.80.90: The Dutch language was standardised in Holland, a province where at that time the difference between masculine and feminine nouns was already lost. They therefore assigned a gender to words as they thought it ought to be (eg. nouns usually associated with strength ought to be masculine, nouns usually associated with beauty feminine) even when it was not in accordance with the gender used in everyday language elsewhere. To resolve word gender disputes between North and South, both genders were considered correct in the standardized Dutch, giving rise to words which have officially a "common gender" in the dictionary. Morgengave (talk) 20:52, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

-schap
A great amount of nouns with this ending is neuter: het houderschap, agentschap, assistentschap, bedrijfschap, berglandschap, heerschap, gezelschap, graafschap, gereedschap, landschap, docentschap, ouderschap etc. They might also be more than a half. That's why I wouldn't put it into any section, or refer to it separately. --David.s.kats (talk) 02:00, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

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Roermond
Mond in Roermond is actually an abbreviation of monding ("rivermouth", the city is named after the place where the river Roer flows into the river Maas), which is feminine. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.120.181.116 (talk) 15:43, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

When did the difference between the gender of the nouns has to disappear?
Did it happens 20 years ago, 200 or 1000 years ago? Please add this rather important in the article if you know it (it doesn't have to be precise, it's just to have a rough idea). Bonus: and how, why did it happens? User67QH (talk) 06:59, 28 January 2021 (UTC)


 * It must have happened after the diasppearance of the cases that has occured in spoken Early Modern Dutch. In Genitive, Dative and Accusative were the feminine and masculine forms very differentiated as they are in German until today. Even the strong adjective declension in the Nominative did have different forms for the masculine and feminine gender in Middle Dutch. -- Universal-Interessierter de (talk (de)) 17:16, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

Eastern dialects
The Eastern Dutch dialects (grouped as Nedersaksisch) also have a 3-way gender distinction. This should get a paragraph of its own. Jalwikip (talk) 19:29, 28 March 2024 (UTC)