Gender in Hindi language
31 Mar 2015 16:23
Dipak785
New MemberFriends,
is there any specific rule to determine the gender of a word in hindi? For example, what is the gender of the word Sarkaar (Government) ?
Sarkaar anath ke liye anath ashram khulwata/khulwati hai.
which is the correct form ?
Regards
"Sakshi"
Moderator—Sarkaar anaatho ke liye anaath aashram khulwaati hai.
gvshwnth
ModeratorI have been trying to get a satisfactory answer to this question for several decades but have failed.
There is no rule or logic
Gender in Hindi is based on usage.
Someone who first introduces the word simply assigns a gender to the word arbitrarily.
If it catches on it becomes “usage”
Sometimes it is totally illogical.
Even words borrowed from English, which have no gender, are assigned genders.
Pant is feminine (मैने पैंट सिल्वाई है)
Blouse is Feminine. (मेरा ब्लाउज़ फ़ट गया)
This is the main difficulty in learning Hindi for South Indians like me.
The most common mistake that South Indians make when speaking in Hindi is a gender mistake.
South Indian languages do not have this problem.
Coming to your question, “sarkaar” is feminine.
I cannot answer why.
It does not matter whether it is Indira Gandhi’s sarkaar or Narendra Modi’s sarkaar.
Regards
GV
"Sakshi"
Moderator@GV Sir,
Maine pant silvaai/silvaya hai.
—Okay.
Mera blouse fat gaya hai. okay
—fat gayi hai (DSG)
Meri pant fat gaya hai. (DSG)
—Meri pant fat gayi hai. okay
Mera pant fat gayi hai.(DSG)
—Mera pant fat gaya hai. okay
—Here (DSG) means Doesn’t sound good.
gvshwnth
ModeratorNow you have introduced one more complication!
The sound. IGood or not good?
Isn’t that highly relative? What sounds good to one ear may not sound good to another.
Actually it is not a case of sounding good . It is merely sounding more “familiar”.
I think instead of “sounding good” for gender it should “sound male” or “sound female”
While “aadmi” should rightly be male and aurat be female, for gender neutral words would it not have been simpler to have a rule that words ending in “aa” (etc) are masculine and those ending in i, or ee are feminine?
Words borrowed from other languages could be either masculine or feminine as long as the gender is consistent throughout that particular piece of text.
But this is merely wishful thinking.
No one will accept changes. Rather they will argue that it adds to a language’s mystique and charm.
The English will agree that theirs is an illogical language when it comes to spelling but they will not change.
So let Hindi also remain that way!
Thanks for this opportunity to debate and share thoughts.
Regards
GV
"Sakshi"
Moderator—I just tried to explain you, but I failed. Yes, I admit that there is no hard and fast rule for gender in Hindi, but it can be learned by observation.
Dipak785
New MemberDear GV and Sakshi
Many many thanks for your replies. Yes, it seems gender in Hindi does not follow any particular pattern which makes it really difficult for beginners.I guess it can be learned only through usage and observation.
Regards