countries that can be referred to with "her"

    • It's fine. I believe the same female personification works for Britain and France-- and possibly even Mother Russia. Along with god herself alone knows how many others.
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    I think Bush actually said this today... which wouldn't necessarily mean it's correct...:rolleyes:

    But, yeah, this time the grammar gods were smiling on him.
     
    I believe someone told me once that only France and Russia can be referred to as "females" - if one might say so. I just read an excerpt that deals with the famous danish historian Saxo, and here my own country is referred to as "her":

    Saxo Grammaticus, or "The Lettered", one of the notable historians of the Middle Ages, may fairly be called not only the earliest chronicler of Denmark, but her earliest writer


    Which countries can be referred to as "women"?

    FX:
    Russia is my native country. SHE is good to me whenever I'm there..
     
    Any country, in fact any inanimate object, can be feminized if one wishes to express a doting affection for it. In English in any event, which lacks regular gender.

    Example: "America, are its best days behind it?" and "America, are her best days behind her?" have no real difference between them, aside from sentiment. One would suspect the framer of the second question is much more likely to say 'no.'
     
    We in Ireland have long referred to it in feminised forms such as Mother Ireland, Roisín Dubh (Dark Rosaleen), Caitlín Ní Houlihán, and any of Banba, Fodla and Eriu - three sisters and some our many ancient goddesses. Ancient Ireland was a very feminine-oriented society. Much of our mythology centres on powerful women, and our main heroic saga arose out of contention between a husband and wife about which of them owned the greatest bull. This is seen as the masculine side of Ireland's culture becoming dominant.

    Ireland is definitely a woman.
     
    Many people refer to their home country as their motherland. I don't know that I've ever given a gender to Canada when referring to it. It's always just Canada.

    I think mgarizona summed it up nicely.
     
    j3st3r said:
    As far as I know all countries can be substituted by "she". Is that wrong?
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    I don't know, but that's an interesting thing to hear from a German-- what about das Vaterland?.
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    j3st3r said:
    I don't understand. What does "das Vaterland" have to do with English? :confused:
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    Well, it's part of most Americans' vocabulary, as well as "Mother Russia." We aren't known for speaking other languages, but perhaps as a compensation for that trait, we (like our British forbears) tend to plunder other languages we come in contact with.

    How many American military families have been stationed in enormous garrison posts in Germany since 1945? As a military brat who spent my early teen years as a European (thanks to a NATO assignment in Naples), I can tell you the number is in the tens if not hundreds of thousands. Maybe not the "average American," but a good 20% of us, say, think of Deutschland as a masculine rather than a feminine entity-- yes, I know the word itself is neuter in gender.

    I don't mean anything offensive by this, in case you're wondering. And you have me on one point-- I can't imagine Bush saying "Germany has the right to defend himself."

    But I contend the same sentence with "herself" would be a real jolt to me, along with a lot of Americans, if we heard someone say it-- and I'm sure it's because "das Vaterland," for good or ill, is resident in our vocabulary.

    According to the last census, 40% of Americans identified themselves as ethnic Germans-- and digging for ones "roots" is an American passion, another factor I think is at work here.
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    j3st3r said:
    As far as I know all countries can be substituted by "she". Is that wrong?
    Click to expand...
    I'm not sure if in English all countries are females, when you actually need to use a pronoun to refer to them.

    In greek we have 3 types of genders for nouns (male, female and neutral). The vast majority of countries are female, few neutral (Irak, Iran, Kuwait, Mexico...) and I can right now think of only one male (Canada). EDIT: I thought of another one: Lebanon

    So I was thinking... If I was talking in english and I was refering to Irak for example I don't think I would use "she/her". I would definately use "it/its". So, in you example sentence: "Irak has the right to defend its freedom"
    I would never say "her freedom".
    But this could be an influence of me being a native greek speaker.

    What do the english natives say on this?
     
    skatoulitsa said:
    So I was thinking... If I was talking in english and I was refering to Irak for example I don't think I would use "she/her". I would definately use "it/its". So, in you example sentence: "Irak has the right to defend its freedom"
    I would never say "her freedom".
    Click to expand...

    Well, in AE you definitely have a tossup choice between her and its. The feminine pronoun carries a little more emotion, so I think Americans would be more likely to use it with countries we feel a certain affinity for-- and of course there's no unity on that topic!

    Knowledge of a language other than English is a factor, as you yourself demonstrate. "El Salvador has the right to defend herself" might be "correct," but it sounds awful odd to me.
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    j3st3r said:
    As far as I know all countries can be substituted by "she". Is that wrong?
    Click to expand...

    In older English, countries were always personified as feminine.

    Some quotes from Winston Churchill, 1941

    Britain with her Empire around her carried the weight of the war.

    the United States has entered the conflict, and ... for her there can be no withdrawal except by death or victory

    And something much more recent.
    A quote from an essay by a Neil Stockley, a Liberal Democratic politician in the UK, published 31 Jan 2006.
    [The] Liberal Democrats, as an avowedly internationalist party, can identify threats to Britain, her interests and security
     
    Well, at least as far as Russia is concerned, they refer to the country as the "Rodina" (homeland), and this is unequivocally feminine...
     
    Quote:
    How many American military families have been stationed in enormous garrison posts in Germany since 1945? As a military brat who spent my early teen years as a European (thanks to a NATO assignment in Naples), I can tell you the number is in the tens if not hundreds of thousands. Maybe not the "average American," but a good 20% of us, say, think of Deutschland as a masculine rather than a feminine entity-- yes, I know the word itself is neuter in gender.

    (...) For Schmidt this meant two things. First, as the largest contributor to the EC budget, [West Germany] was resistant to any proposal that would incur additional expenditure unless [it] was convinced that it was impossible to reduce the cost further or was persuaded that [it] would benefit from the proposal.(...)

    Could West Germany also be refered to with "she" in this case or would it sound odd?

    (from "history of european integration" Derek Urwin)
     
    Another quote from Winston Churchill
    31 March 1949
    Even when so much else had failed we could have obtained a prolonged peace, lasting all our lives at least, simply by keeping Germany disarmed in accordance with the Treaty, and by treating her with justice and magnanimity.
     
    andersxman said:
    Could West Germany also be refered to with "she" in this case or would it sound odd?
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    I think most Americans would use "it" instead of "she" with West Germany. Not that "she" sounds funny when Winston Churchill says it-- he was only half American.
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