Some rules of thumb for the gender of modern loanwords in (European) Spanish:
- Words refering to people take the gender of the given person. For example, samurai is m, geisha is f, or hacker is m or f depending on the gender of the person.
Likewise for MoGr
- Words which come from other Romance languages preserve the original gender (élite f, from French; piano m, from Italian; paella f, from Catalan), with some exceptions (gofre m, from Fr. gaufre f).
Likewise for MoGr with some exceptions e.g
«πιάνο» [piˈano] or [ˈpç͡ano] (pronunciation depends on the region) < Ιt. piano (masc.), which is neuter in Greek, while
«ελίτ» [eˈlit] < Fr. élite (fem.), remains feminine.
- Words which come from other languages families (especially English) almost always take the masculine gender (fútbol, blog, chat, hobby, email, mitin (meeting, from English; sushi, sudoku, from Japanese...).
In Greek these words are mostly neuter and uninflected e.g.
«το μπλογκ» [to ˈblog] (neut. nom. sing.) -->
the blog,
«του μπλογκ» [tu blog] (neut. gen. sing.) -->
of-the blog.
- Borrowings which resemble existing words in Spanish usually take the gender of it: Bundesliga (liga f) is feminine, newsletter (letra f) vacillates.
Likewise for MoGr, these words are treated as inflected, patterned after existing, inherited, similar-sounding Greek words e.g.
«η Μπουντεσλίγκα» [ i bundesˈliga] (fem. nom. sing.) -->
the Bundesliga,
«της Μπουντεσλίγκας» [tis bundesˈligas] (fem. gen. sing.) -->
of-the Bundesliga, patterned after the inflection of the fem. Gr. nouns
«λύσσα» [ˈlisa] or
«λίγδα» [ˈliɣða] (that's the grammar rule, but unfortunately in reality one ofter hears (especially by "respected" anchormen/-women) on TV solecisms of the kind
«η Ευρωλίγκα» [i evroˈliga] (fem. nom. sing.) -->
the Euroleague,
«της Ευρωλίγκα» [tis evroˈliga] (fem. gen. sing.) -->
of-the Euroleague, treating the word as if Greek is an uninflected language).
- Sometimes the current borrowings are abbreviations, like web, which is either masculine or feminine because it can mean both "website" (sitio web) or "webpage" (página web).
The same happens in MoGr.
- Words like Gestapo are associated to a more general word (policía f), and take its gender (feminine here). Selfie is sometimes feminine because I guess people associate it with foto f.
«Γκεστάπο» [ɟeˈstapo] is feminine in Greek too, because "Police" =
«Αστυνομία» [astinoˈmi.a] is also feminine. The same for
«σέλφι» [ˈselfi] =
«η σέλφι» [i ˈselfi] (fem.), associated with
«η φωτογραφία» [i fotoɣraˈfi.a] (fem.) -->
the (fem. def. artcl.) photograph.
- Words ending in -a vacillate (masc: vodka, manga, pijama, burka, karma; fem: katana, sauna, sharia, ikastola). Some seem to be simply random, but others may have some logic behind: manga (cómic m), katana (espada f "sword"), ikastola "Basque-speaking school" (escuela f).
Words ending in
«-α», or
«-η» are 99,9% feminine in MoGr. e.g.
«η Σαρία» [i saˈɾi.a] (fem.) -->
(the) Sharia,
«η σάουνα» [i ˈsa.una] (fem.) -->
(the) sauna.
«Κατάνα» [kaˈtana] on the other hand, although grammatically resembles a feminine noun, I've seen it written a neuter one.
In this case I'd guess the writer took is as a stranded adjective, which modified the implied, generic MoGr word for "sword" = neuter
«σπαθί» [spaˈθi] < Byz. Gr. neuter diminutive
«σπαθίον» spathíon < Classical fem.
«σπάθη» spắtʰē possibly related to Proto-Germanic *spadǭ > Ger. Spaden, Eng. spade and from a possible PIE root *sph₂-dʰ(h₁)-
blade, spade.
Thus,
«το σπαθί Κατάνα» [to spaˈθi kaˈtana] -->
the (neut. def. artcl.) Katana sword >
«το Κατάνα» [to kaˈtana] (neut.) -->
the (neut. def. artcl.) Katana (sword is implied).
- Acronyms usually take the gender of the most important word: Unesco, OTAN (organización f), sida (síndrome m), PSOE (partido m), CIA (agencia f).
These words in MoGr are taken as stranded adjectives, thus
«Ουνέσκο» [uˈnesko] -->
Unesco is feminine,
«η Ουνέσκο» [i uˈnesko] because the feminine noun
«οργάνωση» [orˈɣanosi] (fem.) -->
organization, is implied,
«ΝΑΤΟ» [ˈnato] is neuter,
«το ΝΑΤΟ» because the neuter noun
«σύμφωνο» [ˈsimfono] -->
treaty, accord is implied etc.
NOTE: Bravo
@Dymn a very thorough post.
