All Nordic Languages: Gender?

[mnl]

There was an interesting discussion about grammatical gender in Norwegian in one of the other threads, and I realised that things are not as simple as I thought.

Luckily, forums are just for that, so I'd like to throw the question out here: what are the grammatical genders in the various Nordic languages, both formally and in actual use?

Let me begin by sticking my neck out and say that in Danish there are two genders, common and neutral.

Common gender: En rød ko (a red cow)
Neutral gender: Et rødt hus (a red house)

How about the other languages?

 

[kepulauan]

Perhaps you can tell more about the situation in Denmark. What about ø-dansk vs jysk for example?

But as for Icelandic there are three. It might also interest you that masculine and feminine words usually have a "n" element in them while "t" is prominent in neuter ones. I guess that's the general trend, neuter being separate but the rest being either merged together or split but similar.

 

[mnl]

It would definitely be better if someone with real knowledge of the subject could speak to the difference between Jysk and other sorts of Danish. If I should put a name on the kind of Danish I know, it would be "Rigsdansk", so let me amend my above affirmation:

Rigsdansk has two genders, common and neutral.

 

[cocuyo]

Swedish generally has two genders, although pronouns have four. There are a few words where particularly feminine gender prevails, as "klockan" (the clock), which often is regarded as feminine and takes the feminine pronoun "hon" - Vad är klockan? Hon är åtta. Also ships are mostly referred to with the feminine pronouns. In some dialects feminine and masculine designations to some words still prevail, although they are lost in most dialects.

The two genders for nouns otherwise are neither feminine nor masculine, but neuter and "common" (utrum - den-genus).

 

[hanne]

It would definitely be better if someone with real knowledge of the subject could speak to the difference between Jysk and other sorts of Danish.

I'm not sure how many Jutlanders are browsing this forum, so in the meantime we can look to wikipedia:

Standard Danish has two genders, and Western Jutlandic only one, similar to English.

The figure in that wiki-article mentions 3 genders for the dialects of Funen, but unfortunately there's no mention of this in the text. (some googling gave e.g. this.) And then we should also mention that the position of dialects is much weaker in Denmark than it is in Norway and Sweden.

Also, to complete your answer to your own original question, we should mention that the two genders of Danish are both formal and in actual use. There are no remnants of the feminine gender that I'm aware of (like the Swedish "klockan"). Ships can be referred to as "she", but I think that has more to do with personification than with grammar.

 

[mnl]

Swedish generally has two genders, although pronouns have four.

How does that work (the four genders of pronouns?)

Ships can be referred to as "she", but I think that has more to do with personification than with grammar.

That's how I have always seen it, too, but maybe Swedish speakers perceive it as a grammatical gender?

 

[cocuyo]

As it makes no difference whether an object is female or common gender grammatically, it would not be perceived as a grammatical difference. A ship is a she, whether she has a female name or not. There are ships with male names, and they are also referred to as "she". If it were just personification, a ship with a male name would consequently be a "he", but it is not so. A ship, depending on what noun is attributed to it may also be common or neuter gender, but mostly we use "hon", female gender, for ships.

Pronouns are han=he, hon=she, den=common, det=neuter.

 

[kirsitn]

Norwegian has three genders (feminine, masculine and neuter), but some dialects only use two of them (masc. and neuter). Many people also tend to use only masc. and neuter in written language even though they use all three genders when speaking, perhaps because using the feminine article is sometimes associated with having radical political views.

 

[draugurinn]

I'm curious about gender related to adjectives... in Icelandic, if you are male you would use the masculine form when describing yourself. Female would use feminine, right? Does anyone ever use neuter, ever?

 

[j0nas]

Norwegian has three genders (feminine, masculine and neuter), but some dialects only use two of them (masc. and neuter). Many people also tend to use only masc. and neuter in written language even though they use all three genders when speaking, perhaps because using the feminine article is sometimes associated with having radical political views.

But never using the feminine gender in writing is sometimes associated with being 1. A snob or 2. From Bergen. Both things you should avoid.

 

[Sepia]

Norwegian has three genders (feminine, masculine and neuter), but some dialects only use two of them (masc. and neuter). Many people also tend to use only masc. and neuter in written language even though they use all three genders when speaking, perhaps because using the feminine article is sometimes associated with having radical political views.

In which direction, radical? Right wing? Is it something about using a more archaic language distinguish oneself from those with more modern and democratic points of view?

 

[kirsitn]

In which direction, radical? Right wing? Is it something about using a more archaic language distinguish oneself from those with more modern and democratic points of view?

No, left wing radical, but the rest of your assumption is correct regarding using only two genders. Using only two genders means that you're writing either conservative bokmål or riksmål, which was derived from Danish (and hence associated with royalty and wealthy people), whereas three genders means that you're writing either normal/radical bokmål or nynorsk (which was derived from the dialects of common people in the western part of Norway).

But of course it also depends on your spoken language - in my dialect we use three genders and -a instead of -et as verb ending in past tenses, so my "natural" written language is radical bokmål regardless of my political views, whereas someone from Bergen would have conservative bokmål as the natural choice of written language. (Assuming that you want to use a written language that's as close as possible to your spoken language.)

 

[Watoosh]

In Swedish it's also possible to distinguish expressly masculine words from feminine/neuter ones by using the ending -e in weak adjective forms.

For example:

den gamle mannen = The old man
den gamla kvinnan = The old woman

The -a -ending is the norm whenever the noun is definite, including neuter words (det hungriga djuret = the hungry animal), but many dialects use the -e -ending frequently with masculine words.

 

[cocuyo]

Getting into dialects complicates it a lot, and many dialects are now near extinction, particularly those that have old feminine and masculine forms for various nouns. Also the pronouns may be different in such dialects, as for example the pronoun "hon" (she) may be "a" in certain dialects. It does not withdraw from the fact that there are basically four genders, although those with distinction of masculine vs feminine nouns might basically have three like the Western Norwegian dialects, the "common" gender of mainstream Swedish divided into masculine and feminine.

 

[Silver_Biscuit]

I'm curious about gender related to adjectives... in Icelandic, if you are male you would use the masculine form when describing yourself. Female would use feminine, right? Does anyone ever use neuter, ever?

I can certainly think of one circumstance where you would use a neuter adjective to describe yourself in Icelandic. There are adjectives which you have to use as part of an impersonal construction. An example is 'kaldur' - if you want to say you are cold (meaning that you feel cold) you do not say 'ég er kaldur' if you're male and 'ég er köld' if you're female. Regardless of your gender, you say 'mér er kalt' - mér being the dative form of the first person singular pronoun and kalt being the neuter form of the adjective.
Also, you would use the neuter form if you were talking about a group containing males and females (not, as in a lot of two gender languages, the masculine form).

 

[Sepia]

I can certainly think of one circumstance where you would use a neuter adjective to describe yourself in Icelandic. There are adjectives which you have to use as part of an impersonal construction. An example is 'kaldur' - if you want to say you are cold (meaning that you feel cold) you do not say 'ég er kaldur' if you're male and 'ég er köld' if you're female. Regardless of your gender, you say 'mér er kalt' - mér being the dative form of the first person singular pronoun and kalt being the neuter form of the adjective.
Also, you would use the neuter form if you were talking about a group containing males and females (not, as in a lot of two gender languages, the masculine form).

That really does not hit the point I'd say: When "mér" is dative it can't be the subject any more. The unspoken subject is impersonal and together with "er kalt'" describes the general situation which has influence on the dative object (which is why he becomes the dative object). So "kalt" obviously does not refer to a M or F subject. I bet it works like that in all germanic languages or dialects that still have the option of clearly marking a pronoun as dative. That more or less excludes Danish and English. You can't say "mig er koldt" or "me is cold" because there is no way of telling what me/mig is supposed to mean because it does not change. It is the same in the A, the D and as a prepositional object.
In German you say "mir ist kalt". "Mir" is obviously D. (However, you can't tell the gender of "kalt" here).

 

[DieuEtMonDroit]

There are, as has been pointed out, two genders in Swedish. There are, however, subgenders.

The two principial genders are neutrum and utrum. Neutrum are all the nouns that take the article ett like tåg, hus, näste etc and utrum are all the nouns that take the article en such as åsna, blomma, syster.

The utrum gender is now divided into three subgenders, namely maskulinum, femininum and reale. Maskulinum are all utrum nouns that are of male sex, such as pappa, morfar, pojke, hingst, man, bror, farbror, kung etc and femininum are all utrum nouns of female sex such as flicka, tant, prinsessa, sugga, häxa, syster. Reale are the rest of the utrum nouns such asstol, skiva, dator, monark, sko, orm etc.

 

[sindridah]

I'm curious about gender related to adjectives... in Icelandic, if you are male you would use the masculine form when describing yourself. Female would use feminine, right? Does anyone ever use neuter, ever?

Hope I understand you right, at least I'm trying to -I tend to be little dull sometimes.

How about : The television is big? as in Icelandic : sjónvarpið (neuter) er stórt. This house is beautiful, as in Icelandic : þetta hús(neuter) er fallegt.

Regardless of describing myself in neuter form of adjective like silver_biscuit did excellent in describing, I would say yes "mér er kalt" and I would for example also say "mér er flökurt", and so on.

I have no idea how the third option would be regarding to your subject.

 

[Sepia]

hope i understand you right, atleast im trying to i tend to be little dull sometimes.

how about : the television is big? as in icelandic : sjónvarpið(neuter) er stórt. this house is beautiful as in icelandic : þetta hús(neuter) er fallegt

regardless of describing myself in neuter form of adjective like silver_biscuit did excellent in discribing i would say yes "mér er kalt" and i would for example also say mér er flökurt and so on.

i have no idea how the third option would be regarding to your subject

Did you read my post? You are not describing yourself in N in that phrase.

 

[Somethingsomething]

Danish used to have three grammatical genders, like other Germanic languages, but over time the feminine and the masculine gender has merged into the common gender. Only the Bornholmish dialect has kept the three gender structure, where "ejn" is used as the indefinite article for masculine objects, "en" for feminine ones and "et" for neuter.

 

[mnl]

This may amount to peeking into Pandora's box, but the fact that there are 3 genders in Norwegian, does it apply to both variants (nynorsk and bokmål)?

Nynorsk has 3 genders - masculine, feminine, and neuter.

Does Bokmål use the same genders as Nynorsk, or does it follow the Danish pattern of only two genders?

 

[mosletha]

Både ja og nei. Tradisjonelt bruker bokmålet eigentleg to kjønn, akkurat som dansk gjer. Det er likevel heilt opna for å bruka tri kjønn (som på nynorsk), og korvidt nordmenn faktisk bruker dei tri kjønna i skrift varierer svært kraftig. Nesten alle skriv "jenta" framfor "jenten", og "kona" framfor "konen". Når det gjeld andre ord, som boka/boken, sola/solen eller regjeringa/regjeringen, er dei to formene mykje jamnare brukte. Bergen, den nest største byen vår, bruker to og bare to kjønn i målføret sitt, medan mange andre frå heile landet står faste på at det er to kjønn som fungerer best i skrift.

På nynorsk skriv ein i tillegg om hokjønnsord som "ho" og om hankjønnsord som "han", men på bokmål fungerer det derimot akkurat som svensk og dansk. Altså:

Nynorsk: Eg ser etter boka mi, har du sett henne? Eg har kjøpt ny bil, vil du sjå han?
Bokmål: Jeg ser etter boka mi, har du sett den? Jeg har kjøpt ny bil, vil du se den?


Both yes and no. Traditionally bokmål uses only two genders, just like Danish. It is, however, fully open for free usage of the three genders (just like in nynorsk), and to what degree Norwegians actually do use this in writing varies greatly. Almost everyone writes "jenta" instead of "jenten", and "kona" instead of "konen". When it comes to other words, like boka/boken, sola/solen or regjeringa/regjeringen, the two forms are much more evenly used. Bergen, our second largest city, uses two and only two genders in its dialect, while many others from across the entire country still insist that it is two genders that works best in writing.

Also, in nynorsk we write about feminine nouns as "ho" (she) and about male nouns as "han" (he), while in bokmål uses "den" (the genderless form of "it"), just like Swedish and Danish.

 

[NoMoreMrIceGuy]

For the question about if in Icelandic you could refer to yourself in neuter: You can do it n a literary context, but I'm not familiar with it in actual spoken Icelandic except the examples Silver gave.

"Ég er svangt", sagði barnið.

This is something that only works in a narrative context since the child must have had a gender and not actually said it this way.

 

[NorwegianNYC]

This may amount to peeking into Pandora's box, but the fact that there are 3 genders in Norwegian, does it apply to both variants (nynorsk and bokmål)?

Nynorsk has 3 genders - masculine, feminine, and neuter.

Does Bokmål use the same genders as Nynorsk, or does it follow the Danish pattern of only two genders?

One common misconception is that Bokmål is Danish. Which it is not! One might argue that Bokmål is based on Danish, but again, the predecessor of Bokmål (i.e. Riksmål) was based on written Danish from around 1800, and not Danish as of 2011. In fact, Danish today is also very different from what Danish looked like 200 years ago.

However, no one speaks modern-day Norwegian Bokmål. Norway does not have a spoken standard, which has exercised tremendous impact on the written language, to the point where written Norwegian Bokmål today is actually as much an approximation of spoken Norwegian as is Nynorsk. By using the most liberal forms of both Nynorsk and Bokmål, you nigh well end up writing the same language.

While it is true that Bokmål's predecessor Riksmål started out with two genders, the 3-gender system has always been present in Norwegian, with a notable exception of the Bergen-dialect.

An interesting feature in Norwegian, is that there is but a fine line between Feminine and Masculine nouns, since they only differ in Definite Singular, and in terms of Possessive agreement. In the vast Norwegian depository of adjectives, only ONE adjective has a separate Feminine form. Which is why the Feminine/Masculine border is fluid, and a Masculine noun might well be rendered Feminine in the next town over (or v.v.)

In a study of 2004, it was shown that while Norwegians still prefer Masculine over Feminine in writing, the USAGE of Feminine in both spoken and written Bokmål is increasing, especially among younger users.

 

[Tech12]

I just wanted to add that for many Norwegians it would be natural (and correct) to use jenta, kona etc (instead of jenten and konen), but at the same time never use the feminine article ei.