Cross-language gender assignment issues

[alice]

If you're speaking in a language which makes gender distinctions about objects or places in a different language which also makes gender distinctions, do you use the same genders in both languages? Assuming that "el Alhambra" is feminine, for example, do you say "die Alhambra" in German, or "l'Alhambra" in Italian?

If the answer is "yes", what do you do in Romance languages when talking about things of neuter gender in Germanic?

[mèþru]

I find retaining gender depends on the circumstances of borrowing. If the speaker understands the source language, the borrowing might actually be altered to fit the gender patterns of the target language so as to retain an obvious relation to the gender. If a speaker doesn't know the source language, the borrowing will probably be sorted by native declensions with no regard to its gender in the source language.

[cedh]

German typically uses the same gender as the local language (die Alhambra (f.sg.), die Akropolis (f.sg.), der Louvre (m.sg.)), and also the same number for placenames that are morphologically plural (die Uffizien (m.pl.)). This sometimes even applies when there's an obvious mismatch with the gender and/or number of the corresponding German word (der Ponte Vecchio (m.sg.) but die Brücke (f.sg.)). However, words with a gender mismatch are also often assigned a German gender according to the usual German word (names including Museum or Theater are always neuter, even if it's a famous museum or theatre in a country whose native language uses a different gender). There are also some true exceptions, e.g. les Champs-Élysées are masculine plural in French, but die Champs-Élysées are feminine plural in German, and il Colosseo is masculine singular in Italian, but das Kolosseum is neuter singular in German. And there is some regional or individual variation too, e.g. the German Wikipedia article about Barcelona talks about der Casa Milà (m.sg.), but I'd personally always say die Casa Milà (f.sg.).

[Linguoboy]

German typically uses the same gender as the local language (die Alhambra (f.sg.), die Akropolis (f.sg.), der Louvre (m.sg.)), and also the same number for placenames that are morphologically plural (die Uffizien (m.pl.)). This sometimes even applies when there's an obvious mismatch with the gender and/or number of the corresponding German word (der Ponte Vecchio (m.sg.) but die Brücke (f.sg.)). However, words with a gender mismatch are also often assigned a German gender according to the usual German word (names including Museum or Theater are always neuter, even if it's a famous museum or theatre in a country whose native language uses a different gender). There are also some true exceptions, e.g. les Champs-Élysées are masculine plural in French, but die Champs-Élysées are feminine plural in German, and il Colosseo is masculine singular in Italian, but das Kolosseum is neuter singular in German. And there is some regional or individual variation too, e.g. the German Wikipedia article about Barcelona talks about der Casa Milà (m.sg.), but I'd personally always say die Casa Milà (f.sg.).

IME, this really only applies to Romance and other Germanic languages. For instance, it's der Moel Hebog even though moel is a feminine noun in Welsh, and der Rysy, though this is a feminine plural in both Polish and Slovak. IME, the assignment really works the other way round: that is, the gender is usually determined by the German generic equivalent but this can be overridden in cases of obvious conflict. So Moel Hebog and Rysy are treated as singular masculines on the basis of der Berg but enough Swiss-Germans know that dent is feminine in French to make it die Dent Blanche.

So is Alhambra feminine because it's feminine in Spanish or because the Alhambra is considered a Stadtburg and Burg is feminine? I think the jury's out on that. But consider that it's der Torre Ladrones even though torre is feminine but Turm is masculine and das Castillo de La Calahorra even though there's no neuter gender for proper nouns in contemporary Spanish.

Das Castillo points to another interesting aspect of gender assignment in German: where the Latin etymon of a borrowed word is well-known, the neuter is occasionally preserved. Castillo can be explained on the basis of das Kastell (which owes its neuterness to castellum), but why is it das Tempo when tempo is masculine in Italian and analogous words like Zeit and Takt are, respectively, feminine and masculine? Because Latin tempus is neuter and it existed in German as a loanword at the time that Tempo was borrowed.

[anteallach]

der Moel Hebog

Not an example I was expecting to see!

Anyway, how much of this is to do with familiarity with the languages? I wouldn't have thought that that many Germans, even those who visit Snowdonia, know how to tell the gender of a Welsh noun. (I'm entirely confident that most English people who visit Snowdonia don't.)

[Linguoboy]

Anyway, how much of this is to do with familiarity with the languages?

A lot, but that's kind of my point. Germans are not educating themselves on the original gender of words when they make their assignations; they're assigning genders based on existing analogies within the language. Only when one of these "rules" conflicts with some explicit knowledge about a particular language do they override it. Naturally, the list of particular languages that the average speaker has some knowledge about is rather short.

ETA: I finally found a good example of conflict within Germanic. Sund is masculine in German but neuter in the Nordic languages. So it's der Raftsund, der Gisund, der Öresund, etc. even though the native names are neuter.

[Salmoneus]

So is Alhambra feminine because it's feminine in Spanish or because the Alhambra is considered a Stadtburg and Burg is feminine? I think the jury's out on that.

It could be both. If gender is assigned by membership in a class, knowledge of a noun's gender in another language may actively guide the associations speakers make with words in their own language. That is, perhaps if German speakers know that a body of water has a feminine name in another language, it might encourage them to think of it as a See, and if they know it's neuter in another language they might be encouraged to think of it as though it were a Meer?

they're assigning genders based on existing analogies within the language. Only when one of these "rules" conflicts with some explicit knowledge about a particular language do they override it.

Perhaps one way to look at it might be to NOT see other languages as being involved here, but ONLY internal rules in the language... but with a set of rules relating to loanwords. For instance, a rule like "Romance loanwords in -a are feminine" is an easy rule to learn, and could be one of several competing gender-assignment rules Germans could use to assign gender to little-known words. They wouldn't necessarily have to have any active knowledge of another language themselves.


A test case for this theory would be situations where gender was assigned to loanwords based on mistaken overgeneralisation about loanwords. For instance, might there be loanwords in -a that LOOK Romance, but aren't, that receive feminine gender mistakenly, when they're non-feminine in their actual original language?

This would pattern the way English speakers appear to have rules about the pronunciation of foreign placenames that often result in hypercorrection based on faulty generalisation from French (or sometimes German).

[Linguoboy]

A test case for this theory would be situations where gender was assigned to loanwords based on mistaken overgeneralisation about loanwords. For instance, might there be loanwords in -a that LOOK Romance, but aren't, that receive feminine gender mistakenly, when they're non-feminine in their actual original language?

I was looking for an example of this and actually found what appears to be a counterexample: das Sofa. The source language could be either French or Italian (or both). You'd expect the gender to be either masculine (as it is in Romance and in Alemannic) or feminine (based on such an overgeneralisation). The only reason I can come up with for it being neuter is an analogy with das Sitzmöbel or das Gestell.

[Alon]

In Hebrew, names get the gender of the corresponding Hebrew class name. The Hebrew words for state and country are both feminine, so every country is feminine; the Hebrew word for river is masculine, so every river is masculine; etc.

Common nouns are gendered by morphology. If they're not shoehorned into the native morphology, like the zillions of -ion borrowings, then they're feminine if they end in -a and masculine otherwise; of note, -ion words get borrowed as -ia (televizya, tsivilizatsya, etc.) and are thus feminine. If they are shoehorned into the native morphology, they get the gender the weight gets, so a verbal noun in pe'ila, haf'ala, or hitpa'alut is feminine and one in pi'ul is masculine.

[hwhatting]

In general, when speaking a language other than German I try to use the gender that is appropriate in that language, as long as I know it. Still, interference from German sometimes happens, e.g. I sometimes catch my self using female pronouns for Russian maslo "butter" and moloko "milk" (both neuter in Russian), because German Butter and Milch are female.

[Ares Land]

If you're speaking in a language which makes gender distinctions about objects or places in a different language which also makes gender distinctions, do you use the same genders in both languages? Assuming that "el Alhambra" is feminine, for example, do you say "die Alhambra" in German, or "l'Alhambra" in Italian?

If the answer is "yes", what do you do in Romance languages when talking about things of neuter gender in Germanic?

There doesn't seem to be a very clear cut rule in French. But mostly we seem to be using the same gender as the closest French equivalent.

L'Alhambra is masculine because it's un palais. It's le Deutsche Oper, because the French equivalent is feminine. But both le or la Blitzkrieg are used (though the feminine is more common).

[Qwynegold]

Everything seems to get the common gender in Swedish. There are a couple of country names that are neuter though. I have no idea why. I don't know if there are other exceptional words than these country names.

[Kuchigakatai]

So, alice, as you can see in this discussion so far, gender assignment from a gendered language is complicated...

- Sometimes, the original gender is respected, even if it clashes with the morphological patterns of the language borrowing the word (German masculine der Louvre, in spite of the feminine-looking -e and the neuter gender of das Museum).
- Sometimes, the gender is assigned based on the morphological patterns of the language, even though that changes the gender of the word (French la planète due to the feminine -e even though it comes from Latin masculine planēta, cf. masculine Spanish el planeta, Italian il pianeta; the TLF reports that centuries ago French planète used to have ambiguous gender, i.e. it was either masculine or feminine, and Old Spanish actually used to have la planeta most of the time).
- Sometimes, the gender of a semantically related noun is transferred onto the borrowed word (German das Castillo, due to das Kastell).

And finally, something that has not been mentioned so far:

- Sometimes, a whole semantic field gets associated with a particular word gender. Sanskrit terms borrowed into Spanish (typically assuming -a as the ending and having to do with Hinduism or Buddhism) are assumed to be masculine, regardless of whether the original gender in Sanskrit is in fact masculine (el veda, el yoga), or actually neuter (el nirvana, el karma), or even feminine (el mudra, los gathas, el Bhagavad Gita, los Upanishads). Similarly, international organizations tend to be feminine, in spite of (sometimes) having masculine-looking morphology: la UNESCO 'UNESCO', la OTÁN 'NATO', la CONMEBOL 'CONMEBOL', la ONU 'the UN'.

Spanish also has an instance of a word that split into two along gender assignment: Latin masculine comēta > Spanish masculine el cometa 'comet', feminine la cometa 'kite'.

[zompist]

- Sometimes, a whole semantic field gets associated with a particular word gender. Sanskrit terms borrowed into Spanish (typically assuming -a as the ending and having to do with Hinduism or Buddhism) are assumed to be masculine, regardless of whether the original gender in Sanskrit is in fact masculine (el veda, el yoga), or actually neuter (el nirvana, el karma), or even feminine (el mudra, los gathas, el Bhagavad Gita, los Upanishads).

Interesting! I can't help thinking that this is an extension of the fact that Greek words in -a are borrowed as masculine: el drama, el planeta, el problema, el poeta, etc.

[Richard W]

I can't help thinking that this is an extension of the fact that Greek words in -a are borrowed as masculine: el drama, el planeta, el problema, el poeta, etc.

You mean 'words in -a from Greek' - only half those words end in -a in Greek!

[MacAnDàil]

The German Kolosseum would come from the Latin Colosseum, wouldn't it?

[Linguoboy]

The German Kolosseum would come from the Latin Colosseum, wouldn't it?

Also, how do you know that die Champs-Élysées is feminine plural given that there's only one declension for determiners and adjectives in the plural regardless of gender?

[Owain]

der Moel Hebog

Not an example I was expecting to see!

Anyway, how much of this is to do with familiarity with the languages? I wouldn't have thought that that many Germans, even those who visit Snowdonia, know how to tell the gender of a Welsh noun. (I'm entirely confident that most English people who visit Snowdonia don't.)

How many native Welsh speakers know how to identify the gender of a Welsh noun? Most of the ones I know are barely aware Welsh has grammatical gender and just vaguely know there are some contexts where you soft mutate for some nouns but not others.

[Linguoboy]

How many native Welsh speakers know how to identify the gender of a Welsh noun? Most of the ones I know are barely aware Welsh has grammatical gender and just vaguely know there are some contexts where you soft mutate for some nouns but not others.

How do they manage anaphora then?

[anteallach]

der Moel Hebog

Not an example I was expecting to see!

Anyway, how much of this is to do with familiarity with the languages? I wouldn't have thought that that many Germans, even those who visit Snowdonia, know how to tell the gender of a Welsh noun. (I'm entirely confident that most English people who visit Snowdonia don't.)

How many native Welsh speakers know how to identify the gender of a Welsh noun? Most of the ones I know are barely aware Welsh has grammatical gender and just vaguely know there are some contexts where you soft mutate for some nouns but not others.

In the sense that the distinction is being lost, or that they don't know the terminology?