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Gender in Arabic

1. Introduction to gender in Arabic
2. Characteristics of Arabic feminine nouns
3. Arabic gender chart
4. Masculine nouns with ة
5. Nouns with common gender
6. Feminine gender formation from masculine
7. Vocabulary building
8. Exercise

Introduction to gender in Arabic

Gender in Arabic is called جِنْس or with the definite article اَلْجِنْس .

Gender plays a very important role in Arabic sentence construction. In English we use the same verb for male or female, i.e. he does or she does but in Arabic the verb inflects according to the gender of the noun. Similarly, pronouns and adjectives also decline according to gender.

This is a man.

هٰذَا رَجُلٌ.

This is a woman.

هٰذِهٖ اِمْرَأَةٌ.

The demonstrative pronoun هٰذَا is used for masculine and هٰذِهٖ for feminine.

Like English, Arabic has masculine and feminine nouns. The biological gender (that occurs naturally in form of male and female pair) is easy and the same in English or Arabic. Confusion may occur in establishing genders of objects that have no biological gender, i.e. chair, pen, etc. Luckily in Arabic, the recognition of non-biological gender is easier for new learners when compared to many other languages.

Masculine in Arabic is called مُذَكَّر and feminine is called مُؤَنَّث . The Arabic masculine noun has many characteristics. However, Arabic feminine nouns have only a few characteristics and can easily be differentiated from masculine nouns based on these characteristics.

Characteristics of Arabic feminine nouns

Following are the steps involved in establishing the feminine gender of an Arabic noun.

1. First, we will look at the meaning of the noun to find if it's a real gender (biological male or female) or formal gender (non-biological gender).
   Real genders are those which exist in biological pairs, mother, father, brother, etc. If the meaning of a noun indicates it's a real gender, then the case is solved and we don't need to look further. Real gender has priority over all other gender rules.


2. If the doesn't fit in the category of real gender then the biggest characteristic of the Arabic feminine noun is ta marbootah ة. About 90-95% of feminine nouns have ة at the end. Like, سَيَّارَةٌ (a car), شَجَرَةٌ (a tree).
   Please see this earlier discussed topic, if you want to read more about ة.


3. Two rare characteristics of Arabic feminine nouns are the nouns ending in ( ـَ اء ) and ( ـٰ ى ). For example, صَحْرَاءُ (a desert) and بُشْرٰى (a good news).


4. In the end, be ready for an exceptional case. A few Arabic nouns don't have feminine endings ( ـَ اء  , ـٰ ى   and   ة ) but still fall in the category of feminine nouns because locals use them as feminine nouns. These are:
   
   
   1. Names of cities and countries, بَغْدَاد (Baghdad),   مَدِيْنَةُ النَّبِي (City of the Prophet), which is normally called 'Madina' in short form.
   
   
   2. Names of a few natural elements like,   سَمَاءٌ (sky),   شَمْسٌ (sun),   اَرْضٌ (earth),   نَارٌ (fire),   رِيْحٌ (wind), and also, names of different wines.
   
   
   3. Body parts which are in pairs like,   عَيْنٌ (eye),   اُذُنٌ (ear),   يَدٌ (hand),   رِجْلٌ (foot), etc.
   
   
   4. There are about 20 exceptional nouns in Arabic that do not fall into any of the above categories but are used as feminine. Among these, three are used in Quran and Hadees.
      حَرْبٌ (War)
      دَارٌ (House)
      نَفْسٌ ('Nafs' is used in the sense of life, spirit, or 'self'.)
   
   
   5. Some broken plurals and collective nouns are feminines. We will read this topic in the next lesson. Here is just a hint and we won't discuss it in this lesson anymore.

Arabic gender chart

The following illustration shows the above-explained steps of identifying Arabic gender in form of a simple chart.

In this beginning course, we will use grammatical terminologies along with English translations. However, if you want to learn the original Arabic names of all the above-discussed grammatical terms, they are as follows.

The Arabic term for 'real gender' is اَلْجِنْسُ الْحَقِيْقِيُّ . The formal gender is called اَلْجِنْسُ الْمَجَازِيُّ . The exceptional feminine gender case is called اَلْجِنْسُ الْلَفْظِيُّ . The exceptional feminine noun is called اَلْمُؤَنْثُ السَّمَاعِيُّ .
سَمَاعِي literally means 'what has been heard'.
The exceptional feminine noun has no rules and because we hear a particular name as a feminine noun so we use it feminine.

تَانِيْث is the process of finding the feminine gender for a noun. عَلَامَاتُ التَّانِيْث means 'Feminine gender signs'. عَلَامَات means signs, which is plural of عَلَامَة .

Masculine nouns with ة (ta marbootah)

Some exceptional masculine nouns also end in 'ta marbootah' ( ة ). These are normally male personal names and professional designations.

Some personal names can be used for both genders. In these cases, the 'real gender' has priority over the feminine ending 'ta marbootah' ( ة ). Like, the name سَلَمَةُ is normally a male personal name but in some areas, it is adopted by females also. When adopted by a male it would be considered a masculine noun and vice versa in the case of a female.

Nouns with common gender

A few nouns don't end in 'ta marbootah' ( ة ) but can be used as masculine as well as feminine. The Arabic term for such nouns with both genders is اِسْمُ الْجِنْسِ .
Some such nouns which can be used both as masculine or feminine are:

Feminine gender formation from masculine

Most of the Arabic masculine nouns can be converted into feminine by placing 'ta marboota' ة at the end. This group largely consists of names of professions, names of religious beliefs, and animal names.

Adjectives in Arabic also have the division of masculine and feminine. Masculine adjectives are used with masculine nouns and feminine adjectives with feminine nouns. Like nouns, adjectives can also be converted into feminine by placing 'ta marbootah' ة at the end.
From earlier lessons parts of speech and Arabic nouns, we know that adjectives fall under the category of nouns. So, they follow the same pattern in gender formation.

A tall man

رَجُلٌ طَوِيْلٌ

A tall woman

اِمْرَأَةٌ طَوِيْلَةٌ

This (male) is tall.

هٰذَا طَوِيْلٌ

This (female) is tall.

هٰذِهٖ طَوِيْلَةٌ

We can now make simple sentences, but as mentioned earlier in the previous lesson we need four aspects of Arabic nouns to make phrases or sentences. These are:

1. Gender of the noun
2. Number (singular/plural) of the noun
3. The capacity of the noun (definite or indefinite noun)
4. Grammatical case of the noun (subjective, objective, or possessive case)

We have learned the gender of the Arabic noun. So, at the moment we can only make sentences or phrases with singular masculine or singular feminine nouns. It's better to first learn all four aspects of nouns and then start building sentences and phrases. The above examples of phrases and sentences are just to illustrate how genders of nouns, pronouns, and adjectives work in the Arabic language.

The following chart contains pairs of masculine and feminine nouns. All feminine nouns are formed by adding ta marbootah. At first, try to construct the feminine noun from its respective masculine by yourself then match it with the given in the chart.

Vocabulary building

Following are some close kinship ties (real genders), which we can later use in exercise.

Exercise

With the help of the steps described above, under the heading Characteristics of Arabic feminine nouns, try to find out the gender of following nouns. Answers are given below the exercise.

Answers

صَدِيْقَةٌ

صَدِيْقَةٌ (female friend) has a biological counterpart صَدِيْقٌ, so it's a real gender.

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دَرَّاجَةٌ

دَرَّاجَةٌ (bike) is a non-living thing and has no biological counterpart. So, it's a formal gender. Noun ending ة shows its feminine gender.

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بَيْتٌ

بَيْتٌ (house) is a non-living thing and has no biological counterpart. So, it's not a real gender. Noun endings that mark a noun as a feminine i.e. ( ة ), ( ـَ اء ), and ( ـٰ ى ) are absent. Also, it is not present in the list of اَلْمُؤَنْثُ السَّمَاعِيُّ. So, it is a masculine noun.

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دَارٌ

دَارٌ (house) is a non-living thing and has no biological counterpart. So, it's not a real gender. Noun endings that mark a noun as a feminine i.e. ( ة ), ( ـَ اء ), and ( ـٰ ى ) are absent, but if see in the list of اَلْمُؤَنْثُ السَّمَاعِيُّ, it is there. So, it is a feminine noun of type اَلْمُؤَنْثُ السَّمَاعِيُّ.

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قَلْبٌ

قَلْبٌ (heart) has no biological counterpart. So, it's not a real gender. Noun endings that mark a noun as a feminine i.e. ( ة ), ( ـَ اء ), and ( ـٰ ى ) are absent. Also, it is not present in the list of اَلْمُؤَنْثُ السَّمَاعِيُّ. It is a masculine noun.

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كَلْبٌ

كَلْبٌ (dog) has a biological counterpart كَلْبَةٌ, so it's a real masculine gender.

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فَرَسٌ

فَرَسٌ (mare) has a biological counterpart حِصَانٌ (horse), a real gender.

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سَرِيْرٌ

سَرِيْرٌ (bed) is a non-living thing and has no biological counterpart. So, it's not a real gender. Noun endings that mark a noun as a feminine i.e. ( ة ), ( ـَ اء ), and ( ـٰ ى ) are absent. Also, it is not present in the list of اَلْمُؤَنْثُ السَّمَاعِيُّ.So, it is a masculine noun.

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سَبْوُرْةٌ

سَبْوُرْةٌ (blackboard) is a non-living thing and has no biological counterpart. So, it's a formal gender. Noun ending ة shows its feminine gender.

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نَجْمٌ

نَجْمٌ (star) has no biological counterpart. So, it's not a real gender. Noun endings that mark a noun as a feminine i.e. ( ة ), ( ـَ اء ), and ( ـٰ ى ) are absent. Also, it is not present in the list of اَلْمُؤَنْثُ السَّمَاعِيُّ.It is a masculine noun.

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يَدٌ

يَدٌ (hand) has no biological counterpart. So, it's not a real gender. Noun endings that mark a noun as a feminine i.e. ( ة ), ( ـَ اء ), and ( ـٰ ى ) are absent, but in the list of اَلْمُؤَنْثُ السَّمَاعِيُّ, we see those body parts which exist in pairs are feminine in Arabic. So, يَدٌ is a feminine noun.

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