We are independent & ad-supported. We may earn a commission for purchases made through our links.
Advertiser Disclosure
Our website is an independent, advertising-supported platform. We provide our content free of charge to our readers, and to keep it that way, we rely on revenue generated through advertisements and affiliate partnerships. This means that when you click on certain links on our site and make a purchase, we may earn a commission. Learn more.
How We Make Money
We sustain our operations through affiliate commissions and advertising. If you click on an affiliate link and make a purchase, we may receive a commission from the merchant at no additional cost to you. We also display advertisements on our website, which help generate revenue to support our work and keep our content free for readers. Our editorial team operates independently of our advertising and affiliate partnerships to ensure that our content remains unbiased and focused on providing you with the best information and recommendations based on thorough research and honest evaluations. To remain transparent, we’ve provided a list of our current affiliate partners here.
Linguistics

Our Promise to you

Founded in 2002, our company has been a trusted resource for readers seeking informative and engaging content. Our dedication to quality remains unwavering—and will never change. We follow a strict editorial policy, ensuring that our content is authored by highly qualified professionals and edited by subject matter experts. This guarantees that everything we publish is objective, accurate, and trustworthy.

Over the years, we've refined our approach to cover a wide range of topics, providing readers with reliable and practical advice to enhance their knowledge and skills. That's why millions of readers turn to us each year. Join us in celebrating the joy of learning, guided by standards you can trust.

What is Grammatical Gender?

Niki Acker
By
Updated: May 23, 2024
Views: 36,296
Share

Grammatical gender is a system in the grammar of some languages in which nouns are classified as belonging to a certain gender — often masculine, feminine, or neuter — and other parts of speech connected to the noun, such as adjectives or articles, must agree. For example, in English, nouns with natural gender, such as "boy" or "girl," must agree in gender with any pronouns used to represent them. Therefore, "She is a nice boy" is ungrammatical in English. Other languages around the world have much more extensive and complex systems of gender.

In many languages, grammatical gender and natural gender correlate rather loosely, much to the frustration of second language learners. In French and Spanish, every noun is either masculine or feminine, so things that would seem to lack gender to an English speaker are assigned to one or the other class. In such languages, grammatical gender is often more morphological — related to the sound of the word — than semantic — related to its meaning. In Spanish, for example, words ending in -o are typically masculine and words ending in -a are typically feminine. One example of a word with a gender that differs from its natural gender is the German Maedchen, or "maiden," which is grammatically classified as neuter rather than feminine.

In some grammars, including those of many Native American and African languages, gender may refer to distinctions other than masculine and feminine. Many languages, for example, assign grammatical gender according to the categories animate and inanimate. Languages of the Caucasian family often have four genders - feminine, masculine, animate, and inanimate. Again, non-native speakers often find these grammatical distinctions unexpected; heavenly bodies and plants may be considered "animate" in some languages. Grammatical gender, for the most part, follows enough basic patterns that one can make an educated guess as to the gender of an unknown word, but some degree of memorization is typically necessary.

More unusual systems of grammatical gender can be found around the world. Dyirbal, an Australian Aboriginal language, notoriously includes a gender category for "women, fire, and dangerous things." Some languages have genders based on the physical shapes of objects, and some languages have over ten noun classes.

Share
Language & Humanities is dedicated to providing accurate and trustworthy information. We carefully select reputable sources and employ a rigorous fact-checking process to maintain the highest standards. To learn more about our commitment to accuracy, read our editorial process.
Niki Acker
By Niki Acker
"In addition to her role as a Language & Humanities editor, Niki Foster is passionate about educating herself on a wide range of interesting and unusual topics to gather ideas for her own articles. A graduate of UCLA with a double major in Linguistics and Anthropology, Niki's diverse academic background and curiosity make her well-suited to create engaging content for WiseGeekreaders. "
Discussion Comments
By Bertie68 — On May 22, 2011

Though it's really tough for you English speakers to learn grammatical gender in another language, it's really hard for we speakers of other languages to pick up the "a" and "the."

We must remember that the "a" and "an" go in front of nouns that we're not clear which one is being talked about. For example, - an apple on the table, or a pen on the desk. We don't have a clue what apple or what pen is being talked about.

But if the speaker said this - I see the dog in the street.

Or someone said, The tiny cat sat on the rug, or the black dog in the street. Then we know what cat and dog is being talked about. It's definitely "not a walk in the park" to learn a new language, but it can be done.

By Misscoco — On May 20, 2011

Anyone who's studied French knows what a struggle it is to learn the part about the le and la. Every name of someone or something has to have a le or la in front of them. The le is for masculine things and the la goes in front of feminine nouns. If you are talking about two or more of something, you use les. That's easy.

It might look like an impossible task to learn which noun is feminine and which is masculine. There's a little trick that works pretty well. Some syllables at the end of words go with the masculine le. For example, "age" in nouns like le fromage, le nuage and (eur) le bonheur make the word masculine. A feminine ending is (ade) like in la pronomade and limonade. Now, instead of having to sit down and memorize hundreds of nouns and their genders, you can learn some of them by using ending sounds. I wish I had known this trick when I was studying French.

Niki Acker
Niki Acker
"In addition to her role as a Language & Humanities editor, Niki Foster is passionate about educating herself on a wide...
Learn more
Share
https://www.languagehumanities.org/what-is-grammatical-gender.htm
Copy this link
Language & Humanities, in your inbox

Our latest articles, guides, and more, delivered daily.

Language & Humanities, in your inbox

Our latest articles, guides, and more, delivered daily.