Category talk:Dutch nouns with incomplete gender
It is wrong to call Dutch a brew between English and German. The German, English and Dutch language are all primarily derived from the same Indo-European language (I'm Dutch, I got no idea if that's the right translation) and those tribes who started to settle all trough Europe have had the same language for ages untill the Romans invaded the most of Europe, so a Dutch words has either a Roman origin or the same origin as it's English and German equivalent. Same goes for the grammar all the same origin, but trough the ages it developed differently. Don't shoot me if I made a little mistake but my point stays the same: English, German and Dutch are derived from the same shared language; What is stated on the first line would be the same as saying that humans are derived from primates, which isn't true; humans and primates also have shared ancestors. I wouldn't be surprised if English is derived from Dutch! Why would settlers cross a sea (without a boat, unless they carried them) if they didn't know they would find an island? They probably settled along the shore first.
Anyway, unless I'm completely wrong I'd like to see that first line altered into something like this: "The Dutch language strongly resembles a combination of the English and German language at various areas, such as the gender system."
Like it is written there now it sounds as if the Dutch language is 'just a pathetic imitation of the great English language'. "some sort of a cross-bred": as if it's a bastard, hybrid language; very tactful — This unsigned comment was added by 80.200.219.220 (talk) at 16:28, 18 March 2009 (UTC).
Vandale[edit]
Vandale does make the distinction v/m, it's just presented differently in different products— This unsigned comment was added by Grytolle (talk • contribs) at 13:21, 13 September 2009.
- Yep, even the site vandale.nl does. Joepnl 02:32, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
- Sites like woorden.org simply leaves the gender out completely for words whose gender the Dutch can't even agree on. Vandale.nl presents those entries with v(m). On the English wiktionary, the standard practice should be to include both genders: as g1=f, g2=m. Note that vrouwelijk comes before mannelijk. For certain words such as professions (besteller comes to mind), it should be edited as g1=m, g2=f to distinguish them from words with undetermined common gender. Again note the order. Most professions were originally masculine, but with the advent of sexism theories and feminism, they are now defined as both masculine and feminine. Jamesjiao → T ◊ C 04:58, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
Trees[edit]
At least one tree is feminine (common gender in Holland): linde. --Erik Warmelink 02:43, 10 March 2011 (UTC)
The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for cleanup (permalink).
This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.
An awful mess, sadly. Mglovesfun (talk) 20:45, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
- Hi Mg, if you are referring to the bulk of 'introductory text' in the beginning (, middle and part of the end :-)), then I think I agree with you. This is simply a (temporary) category for nouns that don't currently have a gender assigned to them; ergo, there is no need to introduce people, especially editors like me, to a lesson in the Dutch gender system, before getting to the relevant content.
- I think, however, that this whole essay is in fact invaluble information for learners of Dutch. Maybe we could consider moving it to wikibooks while removing it from the category? Jamesjiao → T ◊ C 05:14, 26 January 2010 (UTC)