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GracchusBabeuf wrote: ↑

Thu Apr 28, 2022 1:34 am

gimix wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 27, 2022 2:21 pm

@native speakers... someone once told me that all country names are feminine in English (this is not the case in other languages: in Italian for instance Galles [Wales] is masculine while Scozia [Scotland] is feminine).

Nouns aren't really gendered in English. Even if they have a technical gender it doesn't have any effect on speech, since "the" is the same no matter what.

I agree. In my native English, I normally hear the "neuter" pronoun 'it' for all countries. I have heard "she" used for countries, cities, and states, but very rarely, and there's always an emotional or poetic context. I've never heard a country referred to as "he".

Another place gender creeps into my English is with some animals. I often hear (and say) the pronoun "he" for a dog when I don't know the dog's actual gender, and similarly "she" for a cat. Maybe that's just me.

MerryBBuck wrote: ↑

Thu Apr 28, 2022 2:00 am

GracchusBabeuf wrote: ↑

Thu Apr 28, 2022 1:34 am

gimix wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 27, 2022 2:21 pm

@native speakers... someone once told me that all country names are feminine in English (this is not the case in other languages: in Italian for instance Galles [Wales] is masculine while Scozia [Scotland] is feminine).

Nouns aren't really gendered in English. Even if they have a technical gender it doesn't have any effect on speech, since "the" is the same no matter what.

I agree. In my native English, I normally hear the "neuter" pronoun 'it' for all countries. I have heard "she" used for countries, cities, and states, but very rarely, and there's always an emotional or poetic context. I've never heard a country referred to as "he".

Another place gender creeps into my English is with some animals. I often hear (and say) the pronoun "he" for a dog when I don't know the dog's actual gender, and similarly "she" for a cat. Maybe that's just me.

Definitely a poetic context for countries being "she", and also boats for some reason. Some countries are referred to as the "fatherland" (e.g. Germany), while for others it's the "motherland" (e.g. Russia, but I've also seen that referred to as the fatherland).

I have had a similar experience. I find that it is common for people over the age of ~50 to refer to dogs as "he" and cats as "she" no matter what their actual sex is. It is interesting to hear that this is something you've experienced as well.

In Greek, the countries are female too. We'd say her army or her capital city etc. Cities and states too but rivers are males!
Now, in Greek dog is a male, and the cat is a female. In ancient Greek was the same.