Any guidelines on how you would know the gender of a particular noun? Do the names of countries have a gender, as they do in some languages?

Give it a squeeze!

All nouns have a gender. How do you know? Most of the time, you can't know, it's just as in German or French, have to learn the gender of every noun. But just have a look at a dictionary... (an online one, it's quicker) when you're writing :-)

See Graiméar Gaeilge na mBráithre Críostaí, 8.3 - 8.12

Lughaidh is wrong. Most of the time you can know the gender of a noun! There are rules as outlined by the Bráithre.

Most of the time? There are a couple of rules that almost always have exceptions... so you can't know for sure...

Teachdorcha, do you have the infamous Ó Siadhail textbook? He gives a nice run-down of the endings of nouns that give you a clue of what the gender is- exceptions are always a given! I can post them up in a bit if you don't have the book.

To Lughaidh: 97% of the time you will know what gender the noun in question is. Of course there are exceptions but they do not negate the general rules!

quote:

97% of the time you will know what gender the noun in question is.

Not 97% of the time. Actually when I see a new word, if there's no clue (like a lenition after the article etc), most of the time I have to check it in the dictionary to know what its gender is. Agus ta's agad nach toisitheoir mé!

Of course for most words in -acht, -og, -in, -an etc you may guess (but again there are exceptions and unless you've learnt all of them by heart, you can't know), but there are many words, like those that end with a broad consonant or with a vowel, you can't know, and there are really many of them...

Funny, I seemed to be able to know/remember the gender for nouns i French when at school. Don't think I was even aware there was gender in Irish until quite recently.

Sineadw, níl an leabhar sin agam, so a post would be appreciated.

It amazed me to hear from an Irish friend that they were never actually taught about grammatical gender in school. He just learned that some nouns lenited in certain circumstances and others didn't, and never really knew why until he took French and then a light went on. Is mór an náire sin!

Here it is, focal ar fhocal.

i. General principles

There is no absolute rule for determining gender. There are, however, some general principles:

A. Nouns describing males (of humans and, where the distinction is made, of animals), e.g. Máirtín, uncail, tarbh, and occupations originally associated with males, e.g. sagart 'priest', are all masculine

B. Nouns describing females, e.g. Cáit, bean, cearc 'hen'. and names of countries and languages, e.g. Éirinn, Gaeilge are almost all feminine

C. Otherwise, nouns ending in a broad consonant tend to be masculine, e.g. gasúr and those ending in a slender consonant are feminine, e.g. muintir, 'people'.

ii. Apart from those general principles:
a. nouns with the following endings are consistently masculine:

-án
-ín
-úr
-ún
-as
-ar
-(ái)ste
-óir/-eoir
-aire
-éara
-aí
-adh
-amh
-a (with two syllables, e.g. cóta)
-ach (derived from noun, e.g. Éireannach)
-cht (with one syllable)

b. Nouns with the following endings are consistently feminine

-óig/-eoig
-áil
-aíl
-acht (more than two syllables e.g. Gaeltacht)
-ach (mass nouns)
-seach

My mother and her siblings learnt Irish in west Cork in the 30s and 40s.They were never taught about grammatical gender.Yet they were/are réasúnta líofa.Is it maybe easier just to learn lenition through practice and talking?

It depends how you learn. Certainly, I find it easiest to remember gender when I've learnt it in context. A memory of Kraftwerk singing "Wir fahren fahren fahren auf der Autobahn" is a surer way to fix in your mind that Bahn is feminine than memorising it from a list somewhere. But there are thousands of words in a language and not all of them show up in song lyrics or fixed phrases. Particularly when you're an adult learner, or you don't have a lot of opportunities for exposure, you need to find some shortcuts.

Moreover, we're pattern-seeking creatures. It's how we make sense of our world. And our reaction to variations that we can't find an reasonable explanation for (e.g. an seirbhíseach -> os cionn an tseirbhísigh but an chláirseach -> os cionn na cláirsí) can range from bemusement or indifference to deep-seated frustration. Do you remember what it was like as a child to be told that you were "saying it wrong" but no one could give you a satisfactory explanation why? It drove me mental.

yes and patterns are your friend when you're trying for the fluency! It's handy even if you just know about broad and slender consonants being a good clue. Is leor nod don eolach. Anyway you're still going to get it wrong sometimes when you haven't time or whatever to check it in the dictionary.

I stand by what I said to Lughaidh before about recognising up to 97% of nouns by their form alone. When I used to teach in UCD and St Pat’s Drumcondra, I put together a hand out on this topic for the students but I can’t find the damn thing anywhere now!. Anyway, here are the general rules on how to recognise the gender of nouns. One cannot list every single exception to the rules, so one would be advised to always check the gender of a noun in Ó Dónaill’s dictionary:

1) Countries, rivers and the names of languages are almost all feminine: An tSín an Fhrainc, Éire, an tSláine, an tSionainn, an Bhóinn, an Ghaeilge, an Ghréigis, an tSualannais. Exceptions: Béarla, an Sulán, an Lagán, Cúba, Angóla. Nóte Béarla comes from Sacs-Bhéarla ‘Saxon speach’. Béarla itself comes from béalra, ‘speach’, deriving from béal + ra.

2) Most polysyllabic nouns ending in -(e)acht are feminine: Gaeltacht, barbarthacht, saoithíneacht. Note that comhlacht is deceptive as it is actually a compound noun made up of comh + lucht. Lucht is masculine and so comhlacht must be masculine also.

3) Most monosyllabic nouns ending -(e)acht are masculine: reacht, ceacht, slacht, sléacht, dréacht, leacht, tocht, . There a number of exceptions: créacht, léacht, uacht, etc. which are feminine.

4) In general nouns referring specifically to male animals are masculine: tarbh, bardal, reithe. Nouns referring to female animals are normally feminine: bó, lacha, caora. An exception is stail which is feminine! The same is also true of names referring to humans; fear, buachaill, garsún, athair, deartháir, mac, sagart are all masculine. Deirfiúr, máthair, girseach, cailleach, bean, siúr, are feminine. Exception: cailín which is masculine!

5) Nouns referring to parts of the body are generally feminine: lámh, cos, súil, méar, aghaidh, ionga, srón, cluas. Exceptions: ceann, béal, croí, muineál, etc.

6) Nouns ending in a broad consonant are generally masculine, tost, loch, Gael, portach, portán, sionnach, gleann, cnoc, etc. Exceptions include nouns ending in as following which are feminine:
a) -óg/eog - bábóg, fuinneog, gráinneog, easóg, coirceog, scológ.
b) -lann - denoting a building of some sort: uachtarlann, piciúrlann, réaltlann

7) Nouns ending in a slender consonant tend to be feminine: scoilt, airc, cairt, cluain, pluais, gualainn, feoil, cistin, coill, etc. Exception droim which is masculine and the following which are masculine:
a) Nouns ending in -aeir, -éir, -óir, -eoir, -úir all of which describe either a person who performs a particular job or a thing which carries out a particular function: báicéir, bádóir, dochtúir, fiaclóir, léitheoir, múinteoir, Gaeilgeoir, aistritheoir, péintéir, ardaitheoir, seinnteoir ceirníní
b) Nouns ending in -ín: púicín, dailtín, cnoicín, cúilin, Seoinín, gráinnín. Exceptions: muinín, muirín, and feminine nouns with the diminutive suffix attached remain feminine: beainín, caillichín, muicín, bóín, etc.

8) Nouns ending in -(a)í which describe a person who carries out a particular job or function are almost always masculine: rúnaí, léasaí, cleasaí, rothaí, coisí, reathaí, ceardaí, gréasaí, etc.

9) Nouns ending -(a)ire which describe a person or thing which carries out a particular job or function are almost always masculine: ríomhaire, gníomhaire, cnóire, píobaire, fapaire, lúbaire, dréimire, aire (minister)

10) Most abstract nouns ending in -e or -(a)í are feminine: airde, aire (care), úire, sleamhaine, glaine, raimhre, amaidí, imní, etc.

11) All nouns ending in -seach are feminine: cláirseach, girseach, óinseach, gailseach, léinseach, minseach, etc.

12) All nouns ending in -(e)áiste are masculine: coláiste, coráiste, carráiste, oráiste, damáiste, etc.

Those rules apply generally to nouns in Standard Irish as used in Ó Dónaill’s dictionary and in An Caighdeán Oifigiúil and Graiméar Gaeilge na mBráithre Críostaí. The various dialects spoken in the Gaeltachtaí will have some variations to these which need to be borne in mind when examining local dialect forms.

Another important to thing to look out for is in compound nouns made up of two nouns joined together. Bear in mind that the gender of the word as a whole must obey that of the final element. A common mistake made by learners is in the greeting "Breithlá sona duit". Many say "Breithlá shona duit" as they see that "breith" is feminine. However, the final and principal element is "lá" and that is masucline so "breithlá" must also be masculine. If you can't figure out the gender of a noun, ask yourself if it is a compound noun, and if so what gender is the final element?

If you count all the nouns that don't fall in these categories plus all the exceptions of the rules you gave, you don't get 97% of the Irish nouns...

quote:

Funny, I seemed to be able to know/remember the gender for nouns i French when at school. Don't think I was even aware there was gender in Irish until quite recently.

It amazed me to hear from an Irish friend that they were never actually taught about grammatical gender in school. He just learned that some nouns lenited in certain circumstances and others didn't, and never really knew why until he took French and then a light went on. Is mór an náire sin!

I'm not surprised. Now it's easy to understand why so few Irish people are able to speak Irish properly. If they open a dictionary to look for a word, they'll see "feminine noun" and they won't even deduce they have to put a séimhiú on it after the article... Looks like Irish teaching in Ireland is even worse than English teaching in France (so far I wasn't sure it was possible).

When I was at the university (in Ireland), many students of the first year didn't know what a noun, a verb or an adjective were. The teacher gave a sentence "Tháinig Seán aréir" and asked "what is the verb?" One answered "Seán" and another answered "aréir" and the teacher said it wasn't right, then they guessed it was "tháinig". Looks like there's a problem with the education system (an Roinn Éadóchais, as Aonghus says :-) )

quote:

"Breithlá sona duit". Many say "Breithlá shona duit" as they see that "breith" is feminine.

Many even say that "Breithlá shona" is right because they find it easier to pronounce. As if the grammar rules of a language depended on the pronunciation difficulties of its learners :-D

(Message edited by Lughaidh on October 05, 2010)

Maybe not 97%, Lughaidh, but 80% +.

As you like... but I don't agree. Everytime you know there are exceptions to the rule, you have to check in the dictionary. And since there are almost always exceptions... and since even if you learn the exceptions by heart, there will always be dialectal exceptions that can't be found in books... it's safer to check everytime...

Read what I wrote above, Lughaidh: "One cannot list every single exception to the rules, so one would be advised to always check the gender of a noun in Ó Dónaill’s dictionary". I have never said otherwise. But I stand by what I said. The gender of most nouns can be deduced from their form.

Probably a better way to calculate it is going by what percentage of words spoken would you have to look up related to the percentage that they are used. Since words like ceist, alt, or ceol are quite common, once someone gets them down they don't need to look them up. Most of the looking up would be for words used less frequently. These less frequent words probably are the more regular ones, since they'll have the suffixes, and be derived nouns, etc. While the rules given above by Carmanach are very helpful, I have found that looking up and memorizing (through usage) is easier for me. I think it has to do with learning style and memory capacity, frankly. You always have a 50/50 chance!

That was a very detailed explanation - and I did not know you used to teach at UCD. But here is my list of genders of nouns in Cork Irish that are difference to the CO. Note the following are all based on attestation in PUL's works.

ainm, f
aos, m (but na haoise, "age, century"; an aosa, "people")
beart, f
béile, f
breall, m.
bréid, f (or is it bréide?)
brí, m
buntáiste, f
céim, m
coicíos, m
ciscéim, m
deoch, m (masculine in PUL at least)
dlí, f
eagla, m (possibly na heagla)
earra, f
gainimh, f
ionadh, f
luaithreach, possibly f (the ds. is luaithrigh in PUL’s works)
Márta, m (but mí na Márta)
mí, m
naisc, f (probably feminine, but examples sought)
nead, m/f [both genders found in Séadna]
pluc, m
slua, f
srian, f
talamh, m (but an talaimh/an tailimh/na talún )
tréimhse, m
ubh, m

Many of the forms given by David above are also true for Corca Dhuibhne and Munster in general. Talamh in CD is masculine in the nominative but feminine in the genitive. The same is also true of eagla - an t-eagla, ach na heagla. Geimhreadh is feminine in the nominative but masculine in the genitive - an gheimhreadh but lár an gheimhridh!

Surely if nouns were taught along with their articles ((as in French) that would alleviate much of the problem...?

Dáithí