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> Somehow, they tend to all place the noun in the same gender. That's not generally true, especially for German. I've heard "der Blog, das Blog," "die, das Ema

> Somehow, they tend to all place the noun in the same gender. That's not generally true, especially for German. I've heard "der Blog, das Blog," "die, das Email" "die, der, das Factory" … etc. Loan words undergo an integration process, which is more of a sociolinguistic concept, I guess. At the end of the integration process, the word becomes an integral part of the language, with a fixed gender. For example, "Manager" is integrated, and it's clear its' "der Manager," same for Computer. Some words do seem to evoke a certain gender (I've never heard anything but "der Podcast") but you shouldn't assume your personal preference extends to all (native) speakers ("das Podcast" would easily be possible.) But how do people assign gender during the integration process? It's a consensus process, but there are several factors: lexical similarity (Computer denotes the same concept as "der Rechner" so it becomes masculine. Same for City/Stadt (feminine)) or lexical analogies (this loan word denotes something we already have a category for) morphological analogies (words in -er are likely to become masculine, as many German masculine words already have that ending, same for nouns ending in a vowel and feminine.) Sometimes it's chaotic, but that's the nature of consensus. This process is much easier in Slavic languages, where gender assignment follows stricter morphological rules. German, on the other hand is chaotic. Note: German is not chaotic for the reasons given in TFA, because formations with -chen -keit -heit -ung etc. have fixed, regular gender. But words which did not undergo a morphological derivation process, but are instead atomic nouns are very haphazard in their gender assignment.

Double_a_92 8y ago
What I've also noticed in myself and other people is that seemingly weird German genders come from not saying the second part of a compound word. I.e. "das Factory" which does sound somewhat weird (because I would think of "die Fabrik" instead), comes from "das Factory-Pattern" where "Pattern" ("das Muster") was omitted for brevity.
- GarvielLoken 8y ago
  Yeah like in Spanish "la moto", which would make you think that's wrong because moto ends on o and should be masculine. But turns out it is actually a short for "la motocicleta", which ends in an a.
ascar 8y ago
Some words are also officially recognized with different genders. E.g. it's "der oder das Ketchup". [1] I argued multiple times with my girlfriend that "der Ketchup" doesn't sound right at all, until we looked it up. My best guess is this comes from different dialects that associate different genders with certain sounds. She comes from Schwaben, while I'm from Franken, which speak very different dialects. I had never heard "der Ketchup" before. [1] https://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/Ketchup https://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/Ketchup
- adimitrov 8y ago
  It doesn't have to be recent English loan words for German dialects to make things weird. http://www.atlas-alltagssprache.de/runde-5/f15a-f/ http://www.atlas-alltagssprache.de/runde-5/f15a-f/ (fyi: Butter is a loanword from Greek. I've heard "das Butter" as well.)
  - usrusr 8y ago
    Kitchen terms are generally crazy. Do other languages also have hundreds of different terms for the last piece of a loaf of bread that is too thin for further slicing, but too thick to be considered a slice?
    - indigo945 8y ago
      I just call that the Endstück, have never heard anything else. What other terms are common?
      - xaedes 8y ago
        "Der Kanten". German wikipedia on "Kanten" gives many more local variations.
      - heeen2 8y ago
        http://www.atlas-alltagssprache.de/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/10_03h.jpg http://www.atlas-alltagssprache.de/wp-content/uploads/2014/0... It's up there with potato with the most local variations I think
onli 8y ago
What happens often here is that a word has a clear gender that just feels right to basically all germans. But an alternative gender gets used by a group that does not trust its language feel and instead relies on logic to derive the gender. Blog is a good example: It's obviously "Der Blog", but because some people think "blog is short for weblog, and log is neutral" they use "das Blog", though that just sounds wrong to everyone else. But you're right: It's a consensus process and with time words can get completely integrated and then tend to have only one gender.
- EdwardDiego 8y ago
  Don't loanwords auf Deutsch tend to end up with "das" as the prefix? Das Restaurant etc. I figured blog would be a loanword in German also?
  - onli 8y ago
    The moment a word is used as a german word by a german it does not really matter anymore where it's from, the usual mechanisms that specify gender apply. Which are the few fixed rules, then mostly "how do others speak", maybe a bit "how does the word sound". That's how foreign words become german words. There is no rule that loanwords end up as neutrum: Die Allee, die Paella, der Computer, der Laptop are just a few counter examples.
  - wolfgke 8y ago
    > Don't loanwords auf Deutsch tend to end up with "das" as the prefix? Das Restaurant etc. No. For example "Kiwi" originally comes from Maori language. In German, it is "der Kiwi" (the bird) and "die Kiwi" (the fruit). No neutral genus. In this case, the genus even has importance what the word means - it is not uncommon in German that using different genera for the same noun is there to distinguish different meanings. On the website https://www.cafe-lingua.de/deutsche-grammatik/nomen-mit-mehreren-bedeutungen.php https://www.cafe-lingua.de/deutsche-grammatik/nomen-mit-mehr... some further examples for this are listed. So always learn the genus properly.
- ascar 8y ago
  Funny enough I always use "der Log" and not das. Though Das is usually the go to gender for foreign words that don't feel German enough, when you say them in a German sentence. In my experience that feeling largely depends on your expectation to be understood. I.e. mixing German with tech terms with a tech coworker is far more acceptable than mixing it with a coworker from accounting.
hutattedonmyarm 8y ago
Most famous example: Der/die/das Nutella. Some of the ambiguousness with technical terms come from older people I think. I've never heard anyone below 50 saying "das Email", but a lot of elder people saying it that way. Might be regional though.
usrusr 8y ago
Good examples for some of the different ways gender can be derived. Going deeper into blog, people who still remember "weblog" as the full form of "blog" will call it "das Blog" (because "das Log" is a well established German term, gendered from "das Logbuch" perhaps), whereas people who were introduced to "blog" when it already felt like a standalone term will tend to use "der Blog", perhaps for to phonetic similarity to "der Block".
- Semaphor 8y ago
  That's funny because I'd say "das Blog" precisely because I remember weblogs and I'd say "das Log". Duden agrees with me [0] Oh and "Das Logbuch" has nothing to do with "log" but everything with "Buch". When you have compound words only the last word matters for gender. [0]: https://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/Log_Logdatei_EDV https://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/Log_Logdatei_EDV
  - wolfgke 8y ago
    > Oh and "Das Logbuch" has nothing to do with "log" but everything with "Buch". "das Log" is a device for measuring the speed of vessels: > https://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Log_(Messger%C3%A4t)&oldid=184060985 https://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Log_(Messger%C3%A... So of course a "Logbuch" has a lot to do with a "Log".
    - onli 8y ago
      Not with the gender of the word. The last noun counts.
      - wolfgke 8y ago
        > Not with the gender of the word. The last noun counts. OK, then I misunderstood - you were talking about this elementary grammatical rule and I was talking about the origin of the word "Logbuch" (the latter is something that even many native German speakers do not know).
    - 8y ago

Double_a_92 8y ago

What I've also noticed in myself and other people is that seemingly weird German genders come from not saying the second part of a compound word. I.e. "das Factory" which does sound somewhat weird (because I would think of "die Fabrik" instead), comes from "das Factory-Pattern" where "Pattern" ("das Muster") was omitted for brevity.

GarvielLoken 8y ago
Yeah like in Spanish "la moto", which would make you think that's wrong because moto ends on o and should be masculine. But turns out it is actually a short for "la motocicleta", which ends in an a.

ascar 8y ago

Some words are also officially recognized with different genders. E.g. it's "der oder das Ketchup". [1] I argued multiple times with my girlfriend that "der Ketchup" doesn't sound right at all, until we looked it up. My best guess is this comes from different dialects that associate different genders with certain sounds. She comes from Schwaben, while I'm from Franken, which speak very different dialects. I had never heard "der Ketchup" before. [1] https://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/Ketchup https://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/Ketchup

adimitrov 8y ago
It doesn't have to be recent English loan words for German dialects to make things weird. http://www.atlas-alltagssprache.de/runde-5/f15a-f/ http://www.atlas-alltagssprache.de/runde-5/f15a-f/ (fyi: Butter is a loanword from Greek. I've heard "das Butter" as well.)
- usrusr 8y ago
  Kitchen terms are generally crazy. Do other languages also have hundreds of different terms for the last piece of a loaf of bread that is too thin for further slicing, but too thick to be considered a slice?
  - indigo945 8y ago
    I just call that the Endstück, have never heard anything else. What other terms are common?
    - xaedes 8y ago
      "Der Kanten". German wikipedia on "Kanten" gives many more local variations.
    - heeen2 8y ago
      http://www.atlas-alltagssprache.de/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/10_03h.jpg http://www.atlas-alltagssprache.de/wp-content/uploads/2014/0... It's up there with potato with the most local variations I think

onli 8y ago

What happens often here is that a word has a clear gender that just feels right to basically all germans. But an alternative gender gets used by a group that does not trust its language feel and instead relies on logic to derive the gender. Blog is a good example: It's obviously "Der Blog", but because some people think "blog is short for weblog, and log is neutral" they use "das Blog", though that just sounds wrong to everyone else. But you're right: It's a consensus process and with time words can get completely integrated and then tend to have only one gender.

EdwardDiego 8y ago
Don't loanwords auf Deutsch tend to end up with "das" as the prefix? Das Restaurant etc. I figured blog would be a loanword in German also?
- onli 8y ago
  The moment a word is used as a german word by a german it does not really matter anymore where it's from, the usual mechanisms that specify gender apply. Which are the few fixed rules, then mostly "how do others speak", maybe a bit "how does the word sound". That's how foreign words become german words. There is no rule that loanwords end up as neutrum: Die Allee, die Paella, der Computer, der Laptop are just a few counter examples.
- wolfgke 8y ago
  > Don't loanwords auf Deutsch tend to end up with "das" as the prefix? Das Restaurant etc. No. For example "Kiwi" originally comes from Maori language. In German, it is "der Kiwi" (the bird) and "die Kiwi" (the fruit). No neutral genus. In this case, the genus even has importance what the word means - it is not uncommon in German that using different genera for the same noun is there to distinguish different meanings. On the website https://www.cafe-lingua.de/deutsche-grammatik/nomen-mit-mehreren-bedeutungen.php https://www.cafe-lingua.de/deutsche-grammatik/nomen-mit-mehr... some further examples for this are listed. So always learn the genus properly.
ascar 8y ago
Funny enough I always use "der Log" and not das. Though Das is usually the go to gender for foreign words that don't feel German enough, when you say them in a German sentence. In my experience that feeling largely depends on your expectation to be understood. I.e. mixing German with tech terms with a tech coworker is far more acceptable than mixing it with a coworker from accounting.

hutattedonmyarm 8y ago

Most famous example: Der/die/das Nutella. Some of the ambiguousness with technical terms come from older people I think. I've never heard anyone below 50 saying "das Email", but a lot of elder people saying it that way. Might be regional though.

usrusr 8y ago

Good examples for some of the different ways gender can be derived. Going deeper into blog, people who still remember "weblog" as the full form of "blog" will call it "das Blog" (because "das Log" is a well established German term, gendered from "das Logbuch" perhaps), whereas people who were introduced to "blog" when it already felt like a standalone term will tend to use "der Blog", perhaps for to phonetic similarity to "der Block".

Semaphor 8y ago
That's funny because I'd say "das Blog" precisely because I remember weblogs and I'd say "das Log". Duden agrees with me [0] Oh and "Das Logbuch" has nothing to do with "log" but everything with "Buch". When you have compound words only the last word matters for gender. [0]: https://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/Log_Logdatei_EDV https://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/Log_Logdatei_EDV
- wolfgke 8y ago
  > Oh and "Das Logbuch" has nothing to do with "log" but everything with "Buch". "das Log" is a device for measuring the speed of vessels: > https://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Log_(Messger%C3%A4t)&oldid=184060985 https://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Log_(Messger%C3%A... So of course a "Logbuch" has a lot to do with a "Log".
  - onli 8y ago
    Not with the gender of the word. The last noun counts.
    - wolfgke 8y ago
      > Not with the gender of the word. The last noun counts. OK, then I misunderstood - you were talking about this elementary grammatical rule and I was talking about the origin of the word "Logbuch" (the latter is something that even many native German speakers do not know).
  - 8y ago