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Word Gender
By ArabicTree | July 7, 2007
In Arabic, all nouns fall into one of two genders: masculine (muthakkar): مُذَكِّر or feminine (mu’annath): مُئنِّث. There is no other possibility.
This is different from English–in English, we have both categories (”priest” is masculine, while “nun” is feminine) but we also have a third, gender-neutral category. This includes words like “it”, “house”, “car”, “waterfall”, and so on.
So how do you express words like it, house, and car in feminine? These words have genders in Arabic! House is bayt (بَيت) which is masculine; car is sayaarah (سَيَارَة) which is feminine; and it can be huwa (هُوَ) if it’s masculine, or hiya (هِيَ) if it’s feminine.
This illustrates an important point–in many cases, there are two (or more) words for a concept–which includes masculine and feminine versions–like shaqqah (شَقَّة), which is a feminine word for house.
Topics: Beginner, Grammar | No Comments »