Discuție:olijf

A note on the gender of olijf (and similar nouns) in Dutch.

Originally olijf is a feminine word, just like in German. For most people in Belgium and the southern part of the Netherlands it still is. On the contrary, most people in the center (and the north) of the Netherlands now consider olijf as a masculine word. The gender system in Dutch is changing: many feminine words (especially things) have become masculine words, certainly in the so-called Randstad (the area including the main cities like Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague and Utrecht).

In older dictionaries the gender for olijf and similar words was indicated as f.(m.), indicating that the masculine was the newer gender and not accepted by all speakers. In newer dictionaries the gender for olijf and similar words is indicated as de, which is the Dutch version of the definite article the. Because in Dutch the definite article for both masculine and feminine words is de, both for singular and plural; just like English the or Afrikaans die. To complicate matters, de is also used for some person names that have the same word for the man and the woman, like dokter (doctor). Before they used m./f. for this gender category.

So, if you indicate olijf as m., this is not wrong, but somewhat incomplete, especially for the conservative speakers of Dutch. Better would be something like f./m.. Though you can argue on the order or the equality of both genders. But using a neutral indication like de probably doesn't say much to Romanians!

You see, the gender situation is rather complicated in contemporary Dutch.

Jan

Let me see if I understood correctly: when you use de, it's like the noun has no gender at all or the gender causes so many confusions (because there is no difference in their articles), they've dropped it? In this case, we could use the f./m. notation or create another template, to show that it has no gender. Anyway, we are interested in the correct form of the word, which is, probably, the last one established by your official institution (which does this - don't know it's name). Indicating de won't say much to Romanians, you're right, because not many speak Dutch. We could create the de template, which would have a span title="masculine or feminin". Let me know what your opinion is regarding the indication. --KlaudiuMihăilă ^Mesaj 9 iunie 2006 15:11 (UTC)

I think the use of de as a Dutch gender indication depends on an author's linguistic knowledge. It's a recent and neutral solution to deal with the gender problems in Dutch. A non-linguist from Amsterdam could have indicated the gender as m., a non-linguist from Antwerp (in Belgium) would indicate it as f.. People with more linguistic knowledge would indicate it as de (or as f./m. or f. (m.) if they follow the tradition). By the way, the newer indication for the neuter gender is het, which is the neuter counterpart of de (in the singular; in the plural the definite article is de for ALL genders). In principle every noun has a gender in Dutch! But some authors probably leave it out because they are in doubt. By the way, the official Dutch word list (newest edition: October 2005) is commonly known as het Groene Boekje (the Little Green Book). It gives the official spelling for some 100000 Dutch words, but it also mentions the gender(s) for the nouns. You can consult this word list for free on http://woordenlijst.org/, just try it out by typing a word in the field behind Zoek naar (Dutch for Look for) and then click zoek (Dutch imperative meaning search). If you typed olijf, you will find out that this word has de as its gender. If you look around, you'll discover the genders de[m.] (considered as masculine by almost all speakers of Dutch) and de[v.] (considered as feminine by almost all speakers of Dutch). The 4th gender you'll find is het (neuter). In some cases you will find something like de_het, which means that this noun can be f., (m.) and n.. Finally, do not use the template de, because this means German.

Jan