Talk:Grammatical gender/Archive 4

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Conjugation vs. declension
At Grammatical conjugation we read the following: "The term conjugation is applied only to the inflection of verbs, and not of other parts of speech (inflection of nouns and adjectives is known as declension)." Since, currently, this article "conjugates" nouns in several places related to Danish and Norewegian, unless there are objections, I would propose to modify these occurrences to respect the correct differentiation between conjugation and declension. CharlesSpencer (talk) 06:27, 5 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Sure, that ought to be uncontroverial; go for it.—Odysseus 1 4 7  9  07:12, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

Article in general and section "Genderless nouns" in particular
1. Why does this article use so many examples of languages which are likely neither spoken nor understood as well as likely not readable for a general native English speaking audience? The English WP is for such an audience and I highly doubt that this audience is in majority capable of reading and understanding comparisions using words in cyrillic and other non latin alphabets. I suggest to lessen the amount of those examples and replace the chosen examples, or max out the amount of examples with languages which use the latin alphabet. I also would like to suggest, to look for those languages which are learned by most English native speakers as a second language and choose examples from them to max out the possibility and probability that the general audience will understand and add other languages not as prominant or first examples, but as nice to know examples.

2. In the section "Genderless nouns" you read this: ''In some languages the gender is distinguished only in singular number but not in plural. In terms of linguistic markedness, these languages neutralize the gender opposition in the plural, itself a marked category. So adjectives and pronouns have three forms in singular (e.g. Bulgarian червен, червена, червено or German roter, rote, rotes) but only one in plural (Bulgarian червени, German rote) [all examples mean "red"]. As a consequence pluralia tantum nouns (lacking a singular form) cannot be assigned a gender. Example with Bulgarian: клещи (kleshti, "pincers"), гащи (gashti, "pants"), очила (ochila, "spectacles"), хриле (hrile, "gills"). The characteristic ending -а of очила suggests a neuter noun, but there is no way to cross-check it and there are indeed a few masculine nouns using the same ending in their plural (крака and рога are plurals of masculine крак "leg" and рог "horn"). However, the endings -и and -е do not make any such indications because they are ambiguous themselves: although -и is the regular ending for masculine and feminine nouns, both are in fact used to form plurals of nouns of all three genders (e.g. заводи, жени, насекоми from masculine завод "factory", feminine жена "woman" and neuter насекомо "insect" or крале, ръце, колене from masculine крал "king", feminine ръка "hand" and neuter коляно "knee").''

What this is basically stating is, that in some languages the plural has one declension pattern and in singular three patterns. This leads to the question - Is plural with only one declension pattern a gender or a non-gender? Why isn't that addressed? Secondly, I find this section title somewhat misleading. Genderless nouns implies to me that there are nouns which have no gender and this section is about the declension pattern of the plural in some languages. I would like to suggest to find another title, because every noun has a gender in languages with gender system and the questions is only if you take plural with one declension pattern as gender or non-gender. If it's non-gender, this has to be addressed at least.

Other than that, good article. -92.77.63.190 (talk) 02:18, 24 April 2018 (UTC)
 * That section was probably written by a Bulgian speaker. Feel free to improve upon it. In my experience almost all languages have a genderless plural, only Icelandic is special in having kept gendered plurals, but I am not a linguist, so I could have biased set of languages I know. Carewolf (talk) 14:36, 24 April 2018 (UTC)

Influence on culture
The section on the influence of grammatical gender on culture is not well sourced, especially the part referring to a study by Boroditsky. This doesn't appear to actually be from any published research by Boroditsky, it instead seems to be from a text where Boroditsky talks about (unpublished) research (see: https://www.edge.org/conversation/lera_boroditsky-how-does-our-language-shape-the-way-we-think). As currently presented the claims are simply unsubstantiated, even if they appear to be from a researcher who has published related research. I think this section should be rewritten completely, or even removed if no better sources can be found. Nakuram (talk) 11:17, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

Regarding cite-note 8, a list of words meaning "manliness"
Summary: (1) I replaced "it is" with something less confusing, I hope that's okay. (2) Can we find an example that is not an Indo-European language? This may be literally impossible. (3) Can I add the French masculinité? I do not speak French, this is not home-team pride. I think French may be the most valuable teaching example for English-speakers because the cognation is even more obvious than Spanish, Latin, or German.

I am aware that cite-note 8 is liable to change to cite-note 9 if a citation gets added ahead of it, but it is not actually a citation so I cannot use the author's name. Here is the full text:


 * "(ref) The word for "manliness" has feminine grammatical gender in Spanish (hombría, virilidad, masculinidad), Latin (virtūs), German (Männlichkeit, Virilität), Polish (męskość), Russian (мужественность – muzhestvennost') and Hindi (मर्दानगी – mardânegi), among others. (/ref)"

As of 10 minutes ago, the citation started with "it is", and I happened to see it at the bottom (not in the second paragraph), so my immediate questions were "what is it and how is it?" So I changed "it is" to "the word for "manliness" has feminine grammatical gender", because that was fairly jarring where it actually appears in the rendered page - in a list of citations, 10 paragraphs below the parenthetical statement that explains the subject of the sentence.

The list is already a bit long, and I think that is totally fine, because this is a good example. I like the diversity, it has two Romance languages (assuming Latin itself counts), a Germanic language, two Slavic languages, and a less-recently-related Indo-European language. I have two questions:

First, can we find an example that is not an Indo-European language? That might actually not be possible. I think the tendency to make abstract qualitative nouns into feminine gender may have been an innovation in Proto-Indo-European that was often conserved even as many other aspects of the language diverged, such as how nouns are inflected for gender, and the suffices that these quality nouns tend to take (-ity, -idad, -idade, -ité, in English, Spanish, Portuguese, and French, for example).

Second, I know it would make the list even longer without adding much diversity, but can I add two more languages with a huge number of L1 speakers and a fairly large number of L2 speakers who might be reading English Wikipedia? My proposed additions would be Portuguese (masculinidade) and French (masculinité). Portuguese is a more widely spoken language (I think, off the top of my head), but I suspect it is the less valuable of the two, for educational purposes, for the audience reading English Wikipedia. In contrast, French is very commonly studied as a foreign language among native English speakers, and I think it might be even more impactful for native English speakers who are not very good at seeing the cognation in the currently-given Spanish, Latin, and German examples. The French masculinité is literally only one letter off from English masculinity. For people who speak none of these languages, I think giving a really obvious cognate might be a lightbulb moment, so to speak.Fluoborate (talk) 19:13, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

Mixed and indeterminate gender
The section needs updating, citation is lacking. On the Icelandic part — I'm not native, but I know a bit about it — the real situation is not exactly as it is described. While neuter plural is used for groups of people of mixed or unknown gender (e.g. the pronoun þau 'they') in other cases masculine plural is used (e.g. allir 'all'). I suspect this has to do with reference: þau either has an antecedent earlier in the discourse or a real-world referent (e.g. by pointing). Allir on the is generic and doesn't refer to anyone in particular. Neuter plural öll would only be used if a particular group, of mixed or unknown gender, is being referred to. I don't know this for sure though and it should be researched in more detail.

The example of velkominn etc. is misleading at any rate. Firstly the endings -inn and -in sound identical and secondly this form velkomin(n) is the only form that is used as a greeting in practice. The other forms are used when they agree with antecedents in sentences. (This is from my own experience and from the people I've asked.) Caoimhin ceallach (talk) 00:06, 6 July 2019 (UTC)

Gato/Gata illustration does not serve the reader well
My compliments to whoever put together the Gato/Gata illustration—it's far nicer than anything I'm capable of producing—but I strongly urge that it either be supplemented with another illustration or better yet, just deleted altogether. A reader coming here to learn about grammatical gender will not be helped to understand the concept of gender by this illustration, and in all likelihood, will come away with an incorrect impression.

As a rule, grammatical gender has nothing to do with the sex of an object. The rule has exceptions, such as people and — sometimes — biological beings. However, close 99% of the nouns in the language are not animals with sexual distinctions, and yet they are assigned gender as well, a gender that does NOT change. The Spanish words for roof, ruler, star, paper, grass, rocket, and everything else, all are assigned gender.

What is more, these words often do not follow the pattern that most English-speakers would presume. For example, the words for brassiere, dress, and even breast are all "masculine". This does not mean they are "masculine" in characteristics, only that they are assigned the masculine gender as a grammatical construct. The gato lesson on how the gender can change is about an extremely limited category of words. Yet it is the most visually prominent part of the article, and will likely leave the reader reading about gender for the first time with the impression that gender is based upon sex, which it only rarely is. Unschool 00:02, 8 June 2019 (UTC)


 * The illustration is still useful for explaining how agreement works, although I agree that readers might come to the wrong conclusions about the relation of grammatical gender and biologic sex. Maybe a less extreme option would suffice: just stress that most grammatical genders are (mostly) assigned arbitrarily in the image's caption.--Megaman en m (talk) 07:51, 8 June 2019 (UTC)

Perhaps it would be better to replace "gata" with a different animal that is typically assigned to the feminine gender, such as "la cabra", thus avoiding any comparison to biological sex. Secondus2 (talk) 15:56, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

Who on Earth is Ibrahim?
The mysterious Ibrahim appears out of nowhere in the section "Gender in words borrowed from one language by another", where his / her / its words are cited as it he / she / it was an authority in the matter of grammatical gender of loanwords. A short introduction would be in order, and an indication showing on what occasion / in what famous book Mr. / Mrs. Ibrahim wrote those words. (And he / she / it is speaking rubbish, because he / she / it does not distinguish between loans between related languages, when grammatical gender is generally preserved; loans from languages which lack grammatical gender, when everything is possible; etc.) Imerologul Valah (talk) 17:15, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the. —Community Tech bot (talk) 21:37, 11 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Gender in Pronouns.png

Sie is not sie, Sie is courtesy personal pronouns.
•''Das Mädchen (n.) ist aus der Schule gekommen. Es (n.) macht jetzt seine (n.) Hausaufgaben.''

•''Das Mädchen (n.) ist aus der Schule gekommen. Sie (f.) macht jetzt ihre (f.) Hausaufgaben.'' ... this is confusing because the pronouns are capitalized for another reason.

•Das Mädchen (n) ist aus der Schule gekommen, es (n) macht jetzt seine (n) Hausaufgaben.

•Das Mädchen (n) ist aus der Schule gekommen, sie (f) macht jetzt ihre (f) Hausaufgaben. ... Written like this the statement is still the same, but not confusing for translations!

2A02:120B:C3C2:4F80:5DB2:32FF:7490:ED2C (talk) 14:09, 11 April 2020 (UTC)


 * Collapsed per WP:NOTFORUM. If you'd like to add this information, you could try WT:TRANSLATION. Mathglot (talk) 19:25, 31 October 2020 (UTC)
 * OP is wrong. As a native speaker I can say no such ambiguity exists between sie (she) and Sie (formal you). In German, lower-case sie (=she) is followed by a verb in 3rd person singular, capital Sie (=formal you) by a verb in 3rd person plural.
 * However, since lower-case sie (=they, not gendered) followed by 3rd person plural also exists, a different form of ambiguity may occur at the beginning of a sentence where Sie is always capitalized.
 * Basically there is: sie + 3rd P Sg meaning "she", sie + 3rd P Pl meaning "they", and Sie + 3rd P Pl being the formal you. Ambiguity is not with "she" and "formal you", but instead with "they" and "formal you". 190.100.175.35 (talk) 07:08, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

Common systems of gender contrast
Bari has a masculine-feminine-common contrast. Wondering if there are others. la gaie (talk) 12:01, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

"largely disregarded by modern linguistics"?
Article says: "the idea that language can constrain or significantly impact thought has been largely disregarded by modern linguistics". Do we really mean "disregarded" (overlooked, ignored), or should it say "discredited"? 2A00:23C5:FE0C:2100:F449:1D38:5394:BAA8 (talk) 21:51, 28 February 2021 (UTC)


 * It could be clarified. The meaning is in the second part of the definition of disregard as a verb in Merriam-Webster "to pay no attention to; treat as unworthy of regard or notice," which is how it's typically used as a noun: "the strong/weak version of the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis is held in disregard by modern linguistics." The article should link to one of the Wikipedia articles, Linguistic relativity or Linguistic determinism. I'd guess a linguist prof. would mention it when teaching a class, but not pay it regard in current research? Wikipedia should be more like the class. Colfer2 (talk) 22:22, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

grammatical gender forms in portuguese
any expert could explain the real difference between Q18478758 and Q1305037? Are they both common genders/utrums? I'm not really sure if that's a grammatical gender in .pt., that's why I used "...gender form". And I see some sources citing vacillant as a grammatical gender for nouns changing the genders. What about epicene, is it a gender too? Also, is there a gender class unleashed from "natural gender" and "grammatical gender"? Likely epicene. Kautr (talk) 05:10, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

gender in Icelandic
I've replaced the section about Icelandic. The example given was inaccurate. velkomið (n.sg) is not commonly used as a greeting (except perhaps in newer language, eg if a transgender person requests it). The distinction between velkominn (m.sg) and velkomin (f.sg) is not made in spoken Icelandic (long /n:/ only occurs in stressed syllables). velkomin (n.pl) is used, especially with specific or previously mentioned people, but usually not generically. The reference to Kramer is useful, it lead me to the chapter by Grönberg, but in my view both authors ignore the aspect of specificity. Neuter plural is used with specific reference, that is when referring to a subset of a previously mentioned or contextually evident group of people. Caoimhin ceallach (talk) 02:28, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

Neuter gender in Albanian
Though limited, neuter gender (gjinija asnjanëse) does exist in the Albanian language (e.g., të qenët, të ecurit, të ftohtët, të folurit). Nouns in the neuter gender have their own declension patterns (Akademia e shkencave e Shqipërisë, Gramatika e gjuhës shqipe Vol.1, Tiranë: Botimi i Akademisë së shkencave, 2002, pp.117–118). The map of Europe should be changed to reflect this. SlapdashOrPersnickety (talk) 17:42, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

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Map showing gender of countries in French
On the map showing the gender of countries in French, Great Britain is green and thus masculine. This is an error. The French term for Great Britain, Grande-Bretagne, is feminine and it should hence be purple. Great Britain comprises three countries, England (Angleterre, fem.), Scotland (Écosse, fem.) and Wales (pays de Galles, masc.). Either 1. each of these 3 countries is colored by gender, i.e. Wales green and the rest purple, or else 2. the whole of Great Britain (Grande-Bretagne, fem.) should be colored purple. 190.225.20.49 (talk) 12:50, 27 February 2022 (UTC)
 * You might want to visit the talk page of the image since that's really where this discussion ought to take place. I see that the map used to follow option 2.  the whole of the U.K. was purple, but User:Fibonacci changed it to green with the description "Fixed United Kingdom".  Reading the talk page it is apparent that this is because Royaume-Uni is masculine and the color was chosen based on that. AquitaneHungerForce (talk) 14:21, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Multilingualism and Language contact
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"Gendered" is not an attributive verb -- it's no different from e. g., "I subwayed to the store".
Nobody has ever "gendered" a language. They named things and ascribed qualities to them. You can't just add -ed to render "gender" an attributive verb. I suggest replacing all instances of "gendered" with phrases that express the same meaning, e. g., "a language with grammatical gender" instead of "gendered language". 185.205.225.132 (talk) 12:39, 1 June 2023 (UTC)


 * It is a word in the dictionary and this usage is explicitly supported. We can use it. --DanielRigal (talk) 14:54, 3 June 2023 (UTC)