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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 do
by 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 agoDon'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 agoThe 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 agoFunny 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.
- onli 8y ago> Funny enough I always use "der Log" and not das. People are nice to you if they don't correct that :) Das Log is pretty universal a neutrum. "Ich schreib das mal ins Log", if you are used to der Log that must be an individual mistake or a dialect far removed from Hochdeutsch.
- anoncake 8y agoApparently I'm not part of everyone else because "das Blog" sounds perfectly fine to me. And I do trust my language feel.