# Hindi: Gender of some city names



## Anatoli

Hi,
Can someone suggest what the grammatical gender is for some city names:

वाशिंगटन, न्यूयॉर्क, अंकारा, अबू धाबी, मेलबोर्न, एथेंस, ऐम्स्टर्डैम, ऑकलैंड, ऑक्सफ़ोर्ड, ओटावा, ओसाका, क़ुस्तुंतुनिया, कार्डिफ़, कुआला लमपुर, केपटाउन, कैंब्रिज, कैनबरा, कैलगरी, क्योटो, क्राइस्टचर्च, गोल्ड कोस्ट, ग्रोनिंगन, ग्लासगो

Most will be masculine but are there any feminine city names among these?

If you don't know all, please let me know, which ones you're certain of!
If you worked it out, please also share your trick how you found out!

Thanks in advance


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## littlepond

I don't think all these city names have any gender assigned to them: if someone were to say "merii aabuu dhaabii," nothing would be wrong! It's just that since "shaihar," "nagar," "kasbaa," "gaaoN" are all masculine words, people often use place names with masculine particles. Not always: people fondly say "merii dillii" for Delhi (maybe having the word "nagrii" in mind), though of course "meraa dillii" also exists and is not wrong.


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## Anatoli

littlepond said:


> I don't think all these city names have any gender assigned to them: if someone were to say "merii aabuu dhaabii," nothing would be wrong! It's just that since "shaihar," "nagar," "kasbaa," "gaaoN" are all masculine words, people often use place names with masculine particles. Not always: people fondly say "merii dillii" for Delhi (maybe having the word "nagrii" in mind), though of course "meraa dillii" also exists and is not wrong.


Thanks but I have specifically asked for those names, which are not easy to determine. I know that दिल्ली should grammatically be feminine. "मेरी दिल्ली" is much more common but I can't easily remove cases where "मेरा" in "मेरा दिल्ली" refers to something else in longer sentences.

City names derived from पुर, गढ़, आबाद should all be masculine, do you agree? Like जोधपुर is undoubtedly masculine, isn't it?

Would it be fair to say that many are dual gender, like अबू धाबी?

Is there any grammatical reference (in Hindi or English) I could use supporting the opinion that many city names can be either masculine or feminine?


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## littlepond

Anatoli said:


> I know that दिल्ली should grammatically be feminine. "मेरी दिल्ली" is much more common but I can't easily remove cases where "मेरा" in "मेरा दिल्ली" refers to something else in longer sentences.



I don't know "grammatically," but yes because of phonetic association (ending with -i), it is used often as a feminine noun.



Anatoli said:


> City names derived from पुर, गढ़, आबाद should all be masculine, do you agree? Like जोधपुर is undoubtedly masculine, isn't it?



Yes. Similarly city name ending in "nagar" or "shaihar."



Anatoli said:


> Would it be fair to say that many are dual gender, like अबू धाबी?



I would say that going by the phonetic associations, it should again be feminine. But because it's a foreign city (with the words not meaning much in Hindi), many probably assign it as masculine.



Anatoli said:


> Is there any grammatical reference (in Hindi or English) I could use supporting the opinion that many city names can be either masculine or feminine?



Probably other foreros could help you.


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## aevynn

I suppose the grammatical gender of a city name is fairly unlikely to show up in the syntax of most sentences that use city names. The most natural clause that I was able to come up with that would show the gender of a city name X is something like: _us zamaane ke/kii _X_ meN_. 

I would probably have used _ke_ rather than _kii_ in this setting for all of the X's in your list, which suggests all of them masculine for me. But it's not a terribly strong preference, and I'm not sure but I suspect it would have passed under my radar if I heard someone use _kii_ instead for any of them.

I couldn't come up with any feminine city names besides_ dillii_ (there's also _naii dillii_, _puranii dillii_, ...). That being said, even with _dillii_, I at least don't have strong unacceptibility feelings about masculine usages outside of fixed phrases like _naii dilli_ (ie, I do feel like *_nayaa dillii_ would be a little unusual, but I don't feel so strongly about ?_us zamaane ke dillii meN_).


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## Alfaaz

Information from the perspective of Urdu:

Two different opinions are given:


> *مذکر غیر حقیقی کی پہچان*
> ...
> 4. ملکوں اور شہروں کے نام مذکر ہیں، بشرطیکہ ان کے آخر "ی" نہ ہو، جیسے ایشیا، افریقہ، عرب، ہندوستان، کلکتہ، ڈھاکہ وغیرہ۔ اور جن کے آخر "ی" ہو وہ مؤنث ہیں، جیسے دہلی، راولپنڈی وغیرہ۔


_Transliteration: muzakkar Ghair Haqiiqii kii pahchaan_
_..._
_4. mulkoN aur shahroN ke naam muzakkar haiN, bashartekeh un ke aaxir meN "y/i" nah ho, jaise eshyaa, afriiqah, 3arab, hindustaan, Dhaakah, waGhairah. aur jin ke aaxir "y/i" ho woh mu2annas haiN, jaise dillii, raawalpinDii, waGhairah._


> *تذکیر و تانیث - **مذکر اور مونث کے بنیادی اصول*
> 
> تمام ملکوں، شہروں اور براعظموں کے نام مذکر ہیں جیسے پاکستان، لاہوراورایشیا البتہ دلی کو مونث بولا جاتا ہے لیکن دہلی کو مذکر ہی بولتے ہیں۔


_Transliteration: tazkiir-o-tanees - muzakkar aur mu2annas ke bunyaadii uSuul

tamaam mulkoN, shahroN aur barr-e-a3zamoN ke naam muzakkar haiN jaise paakistaan, laahaur, aur eshiyaa. albattah dillii ko mu2annas bolaa jaataa hai lekin dehlii ko muzakkar hii  bolte haiN._

Based on observation, all names of countries and cities seem to be treated as masculine. Other forum members could hopefully share their experiences as well.


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## marrish

While _dillii_ (f.) "Delhi" has been mentioned several times as feminine, what about Chennai, Ranchi, Jhansi, Puri, Amravati, Shivpuri? Which one do they follow, Delhi (f.) or Mumbai (m.)?


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## littlepond

marrish said:


> While _dillii_ (f.) "Delhi" has been mentioned several times as feminine, what about Chennai, Ranchi, Jhansi, Puri, Amravati, Shivpuri? Which one do they follow, Delhi (f.) or Mumbai (m.)?



Mumbai both m. and f. I have never heard feminine usage for cities such as Chennai or Puri, but if someone uses it, I wouldn't find it odd or wrong.


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## desi4life

Alfaaz said:


> _dehlii ko muzakkar hii  bolte haiN._



This is interesting. Per forum members’ experiences, is the pronunciation “dehlii” usually masculine and is it usually “nayaa dehlii” and “puraanaa dehlii”?


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## aevynn

marrish said:


> While _dillii_ (f.) "Delhi" has been mentioned several times as feminine, what about Chennai, Ranchi, Jhansi, Puri, Amravati, Shivpuri? Which one do they follow, Delhi (f.) or Mumbai (m.)?



@marrish saahib, kyaa aap in shaharoN ko muannas bolte yaa muzakkar?


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## Dib

Alfaaz said:


> ..._ dehlii ko muzakkar hii  bolte haiN._



Like desi4life, I am also surprised to read this. I used to catch trains from New Delhi railway station to Calcutta (2005-2012), and I distinctly remember that on many of the display boards, including in big letters at the entrance, the Urdu version of the name used the form "dihlii" while other boards used "dillii". It must have been "na'ii dihlii", because I'd remember if it was "nayaa dihlii". Unfortunately, it seems, the spelling has been made uniform in recent times to "dillii", because google image search throws up only that version.


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## marrish

littlepond said:


> Mumbai both m. and f. I have never heard feminine usage for cities such as Chennai or Puri, but if someone uses it, I wouldn't find it odd or wrong.


Great, and I didn't know Mumbai could be either gender.
What about "_Shivpurii_"? Like, "_shivpurii rahne ke liye _[insert here "_achchhaa/achchhii"_ in the right gender]_ hai_?


aevynn said:


> @marrish saahib, kyaa aap in shaharoN ko muannas bolte yaa muzakkar?


aevynn SaaHib: in kaa zikr karuuN to inheN iHtiyaatii taur par _muzakkar_ hii kahuuN gaa – lekin agar Hindi meN ba3ze _mu'annas_ bhii aate  hoN to ma3um ho saktaa hae kih Alfaaz SaaHib kii pesh kardah do muxtalif aaraa' meN kaun sii SaHiiH hae.


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## Alfaaz

desi4life said:
			
		

> This is interesting. Per forum members’ experiences, is the pronunciation “dehlii” usually masculine and is it usually “nayaa dehlii” and “puraanaa dehlii”?





			
				Dib said:
			
		

> Like desi4life, I am also surprised to read this. ...


 Here are a few examples of both masculine and feminine: 


> *دُلاّبھٹی، ساندل بار کا جھومر*
> از، ڈاکٹر شاہد صدیقی
> 
> ... ساندل بار سے کئی کوس دور دہلی *تھا *جو مغلوں کے سب سے طاقت ور بادشاہ جلال الدین اکبر کا دارالحکومت تھا ۔ ...


Transliteration:

_Dulla Bhatti, Sandal Bar kaa jhuumar
az: Dr. Shahid Siddiqi_

_... Sandal Bar se ka'ii kos duur dehlii *thaa *jo muGhaloN ke sab se taaqat-war baadshah jalaal-ud-diin akbar kaa daar-ul-Hukuumat thaa. ..._

Quotes from this (Iqbal Academy) article's references section (_nayaa dehlii_ and _na'ii dehlii_, respectively):



> اقبال بھارتیرکوی (اقبال بھارتی شاعر): سیّد مظفر حسین برنی، ترجمہ دیوی پراشاد بندوپدہیائے، *نیا دہلی*، شاہتیا اکادمی، ۱۹۹۸ء





> ۲۱۔مقالہ    :     اقبال کا کچھ غیرمتداول کلام
> مقالہ نگار    :     اکبر حیدری کاشمیری
> مجلہ    :     سہ ماہی ’’فکر و تحقیق‘‘ جنوری تا مارچ ۲۰۰۵ء
> قومی کونسل برائے فروغِ اردو، *نئی دہلی*
> صفحات    :     ۲۱ تا ۴۰


​


			
				marrish said:
			
		

> ... to ma3um ho saktaa hae kih Alfaaz SaaHib kii pesh kardah do muxtalif aaraa' meN kaun sii SaHiiH hae.


 Apart from Dehli (which seems to be a possible exception), what are you views on the other example given in the quote (Rawalpindi) regarding city names ending in ی? Which would you prefer in the following?

_kuchh hii der meN Rawalpindi/Karachi/Tripoli/Cincinnati/Helsinki/Nagasaki/Djibouti/etc. aa *rahaa *_or_ *rahii *hai._​


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## Dib

Thank you, Alfaaz saahib, for the interesting examples. However, I think, there is a problem in the "nayaa dihlii" example from Iqbal Academy:



Alfaaz said:


> اقبال بھارتیرکوی (اقبال بھارتی شاعر): سیّد مظفر حسین برنی، ترجمہ دیوی پراشاد بندوپدہیائے، *نیا دہلی*، شاہتیا اکادمی، ۱۹۹۸ء
Click to expand...


You probably didn't pay a lot of attention to it, but the line is actually about a Bengali book (translated from Urdu, I suppose). In Bengali, "nayaa dilli" is _a_ standard name for New Delhi. Bengali, after all, has no gender distinction. Of course, the text writes "dihlii" à la Urdu, rather than "dilli" as is proper in Bengali, but the transcription of the other Bengali names/words is also pretty approximate and somewhat Hindi/Urdu-influenced, like "kavii" for "kobi". So, I think, this "nayaa dihlii" is most likely just an ad-hoc transcription of Bengali "nayaa dilli".


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## Alfaaz

Dib said:
			
		

> Thank you, Alfaaz saahib, for the interesting examples. However, I think, there is a problem in the "nayaa dihlii" example from Iqbal Academy: ... You probably didn't pay a lot of attention to it, but the line is actually about a Bengali book (translated from Urdu, I suppose).


 Thanks for this additional information! (I wasn't able to recognize many of the words and names, which is why I did not provide a transliteration. Your explanation that it is in Bengali explains the difficulty.)


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## littlepond

marrish said:


> What about "_Shivpurii_"? Like, "_shivpurii rahne ke liye _[insert here "_achchhaa/achchhii"_ in the right gender]_ hai_?



I would say "achchhaa" only, but as I said earlier, I wouldn't find any fault with someone's "achchhii."



Alfaaz said:


> Apart from Dehli (which seems to be a possible exception), what are you views on the other example given in the quote (Rawalpindi) regarding city names ending in ی? Which would you prefer in the following?
> 
> _kuchh hii der meN Rawalpindi/Karachi/Tripoli/Cincinnati/Helsinki/Nagasaki/Djibouti/etc. aa *rahaa *_or_ *rahii *hai._​



I think the question was meant for @marrish jii, but if I may add my answer, too, for me, all of them would be "aa rahaa hai," but again, no problem if someone were to use "rahii," especially for Rawalpindi and Tripoli (which somehow sound quite well with feminine, but Karachi doesn't!).


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## marrish

Alfaaz said:


> Apart from Dehli (which seems to be a possible exception), what are you views on the other example given in the quote (Rawalpindi) regarding city names ending in ی? Which would you prefer in the following?
> 
> _kuchh hii der meN Rawalpindi/Karachi/Tripoli/Cincinnati/Helsinki/Nagasaki/Djibouti/etc. aa *rahaa *_or_ *rahii *hai._​


I will definitely use a masculine verb, on the pattern of "_raaste meN_ _dihlii_ _pahle *aataa* hae_." The same with, _Italy achchaa hae yaa France_?

But echoing littlepond jii I must say I wouldn't be surprised about feminine for Rawalpindi as "_pinDii merii jaan_" comes to mind. But a feminine marker for Karachi would catch my attention for sure.

How interesting it would be to know how such names are treated in the local languages or varieties of cities/villages ending in -_ii_ !!!


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## MonsieurGonzalito

For what is worth, the Spanish substantive for "city" is "ciudad", which is feminine.
And _Lima_ is the capital city of Perú.

For us Spanish speakers _Lima_ is feminine, doubly so because words ending in _-a_ are overwhelmingly feminine, and because the category that comes to mind is "ciudad".

But some years ago I asked and Indian friend visiting Lima if he considered "Lima" being feminine or masculine, and he said masculine.

My take of all this is that cities have no inherent gender, and that the speaker will assign one guided both by the ending, if it helps, and by the gender of the encompassing substantive.


Furthermore, I would assume pretty much the same would occur for any object having a proper name so well known, that can be named without its categorizing substantive, and said categorizing substantive has a gender different from the proper name.

For example, assuming that he word for a painting is _tasviir, _feminine, but the name for a watch is _pahraa_, masculine.
How would you say:

_Rembrandt painted "The Night Watch"._





(_"De Nachtwacht", in _English "The Night Watch") -

raimbraaNRT ne "raatrikaaliin pahraa" chitrit .... ?


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## littlepond

MonsieurGonzalito said:


> For what is worth, the Spanish substantive for "city" is "ciudad", which is feminine.
> And _Lima_ is the capital city of Perú.
> 
> For us Spanish speakers _Lima_ is feminine, doubly so because words ending in _-a_ are overwhelmingly feminine, and because the category that comes to mind is "ciudad".
> 
> But some years ago I asked and Indian friend visiting Lima if he considered "Lima" being feminine or masculine, and he said masculine.



What "ciudad" is in Spanish wouldn't matter to the speaker of another language! Moon is feminine in French but masculine in Hindi-Urdu ("chandramaa, chaand, chandaa," etc.). Again, words for a city such as "shaihar," "nagar," and "pur" are all masculine, and Lima is a "shaihar" for us, not a "ciudad"!



MonsieurGonzalito said:


> ... the speaker will assign one guided both by the ending, if it helps, and by the gender of the encompassing substantive.



Not really: see all the posts above. If the ending were to guide it, for both me and @marrish jii, Karachi would have taken a feminine gender only.



MonsieurGonzalito said:


> For example, assuming that he word for a painting is _tasviir, _feminine, but the name for a watch is _pahraa_, masculine.
> How would you say:
> 
> _Rembrandt painted "The Night Watch"._
> (_"De Nachtwacht", in _English "The Night Watch") -
> 
> raimbraaNRT ne "raatrikaaliin pahraa" chitrit .... ?



Well, "tasviir" is feminine (which is a word I would use for an image or a photograph, not a painting) but "chitr" (which is the usual word used in Hindi for a painting) is masculine, so your question is flawed. And so it is for all such examples: some synonyms are masculine, some are feminine, and the speaker may have anything in their mind. So, I don't see anything right or wrong here: any gender could be used in your sentence (and that has nothing to do with the painting's name). I personally use the English word _painting_ as a feminine noun in Hindi (just like all the -ing words), and hence I would use "... chitrit kii" (regardless of what the title of the painting is).


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## MonsieurGonzalito

littlepond said:


> Karachi would have taken a feminine gender only.


Well, Karachi's name seems to have been originally _Kolachi-jo-Goth, (the "Village of Kolachi", some sort of local heroine).  _

From Wikipedia:

_Modern Karachi was reputedly founded in 1729 as the settlement of Kolachi-jo-Goth.[27] The new settlement is said to have been named in honour of Mai Kolachi, whose son is said to have slain a man-eating crocodile in the village after his elder brothers had already been killed by it.[27] The name Karachee, a shortened and corrupted version the original name Kolachi-jo-Goth, was used for the first time in a Dutch report from 1742 about a shipwreck near the settlement.[49]__[50]_

"goTh" is masculine, it means "village, settlement"


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## littlepond

MonsieurGonzalito said:


> Well, Karachi's name seems to have been originally _Kolachi-jo-Goth, (the "Village of Kolachi", some sort of local heroine).  _



I don't think people think about etymologies, even if they were to know them, when feeling something instinctively as masculine or feminine!


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## MonsieurGonzalito

littlepond said:


> I don't think people think about etymologies, even if they were to know them, when feeling something instinctively as masculine or feminine!


I am not sure what "feeling something instinctively as masculine or feminine" means, but if so many people consider Karachii masculine, as opposed to many other cities ending in -ii, there has to be historical reasons, and I think I offered a plausible one.

Also, it is the gender assigned by the language to the object what shapes our perception of the object, not the other way around.
I recommend to watch the short and very interesting Ted talk "How language shapes the way we think", by Lea Boroditsky. 
(@Dib especially might enjoy it, since it has many examples in German).


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## littlepond

MonsieurGonzalito said:


> I am not sure what "feeling something instinctively as masculine or feminine" means, but if so many people consider Karachii masculine, as opposed to many other cities ending in -ii, there has to be historical reasons, and I think I offered a plausible one.



One, me and marrish jii are not "so many people." Two, I (and maybe marrish jii) will use the masculine for Puri, Bareilly, Chennai, etc. There are no historical factors at play, especially given that I don't even have any consciousness of why Karachi is named Karachi! Using masculine with any city name - even Delhi - is instinctive: one does hear feminine being used with certain city names, such as Delhi or Rawalpindi, and hence tolerates them too.



MonsieurGonzalito said:


> Also, it is the gender assigned by the language to the object what shapes our perception of the object, not the other way around.



Irrelevant, since there is no clear-cut gender "assigned" to any of the cities: if you had read the thread so far, you would've known it.

(Also, gender is assigned to an object based on its sounds -- phonetics -- except those cases where one has to distinguish between words having different meanings [e.g. le livre -- book -- and la livre -- pound -- in French] -- you cannot have something "-aiyaa" as masculine, for example; and rather than "gender," it is sounds -- how the word sounds like -- which shape perceptions of an object, including the object's gender. The sound of "kuTil" produces a sensation in the universe of a Hindi speaker which corresponds to a certain roughness or sharpness ("k" and "T" close by) -- it was not some out-of-the-world coincidence that a film was titled "Kerry on Kutton.")


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## aevynn

littlepond said:


> you cannot have something "-aiyaa" as masculine



rawaiyaa, bhaiyaa, kanhaiyaa


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## littlepond

aevynn said:


> rawaiyaa, bhaiyaa, kanhaiyaa



Good exceptions!


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## Dib

littlepond said:


> Also, gender is assigned to an object based on its sounds -- phonetics -- except those cases where one has to distinguish between words having different meanings [e.g. le livre -- book -- and la livre -- pound -- in French] -- you cannot have something "-aiyaa" as masculine, for example; and rather than "gender," it is sounds -- how the word sounds like -- which shape perceptions of an object, including the object's gender.



While both of these factors are true, etymology is also a very strong reason, e.g. that is why Hindi "motii" (pearl) is masculine, despite its very feminine-y phonetic shape (and even possibly nice rounded smooth "feminine" feel to the object too). It's simply because it comes from Sanskrit "mauktika-" (neuter). For the same reason, "raat" (< Skt. raatri-, feminine) and "baat" (< Skt. vaartaa-, feminine) are feminine but "paat" (< Skt. patra-, neuter) is masculine. The speakers, of course, do not know the etymology, and they do not need to. The grammatical gender (i.e. grammatical agreement and declension class) of the "old" words like these got determined thousands of years ago, and the language simply preserved them - except that in case of Hindi, neuter and masculine genders became identical in their grammatical behaviour, and are thus now considered a single gender, called "masculine" by convention.


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## marrish

Dib said:


> The grammatical gender (i.e. grammatical agreement and declension class) of the "old" words like these got determined thousands of years ago, and the language simply preserved them - except that in case of Hindi,


except that the common Urdu-Hindi language *has adjusted* the gender at times and differs from the Hindi in this respect, see recent Hindi,Urdu: dhaare, other, _maalaa, rachnaa, ma(a)mtaa_.
_dahii (m.) _to the contrary follows the old gender in Urdu whereas in Hindi I think it can be feminine, perhaps additionally to (m.), am I right?


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## desi4life

^ _dahii_ can be masculine or feminine in Hindi as well as Urdu. It’s a regional variation. The Sanskrit and Prakrit etymon is _dadhi_, which is neuter in gender.


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## marrish

desi4life said:


> ^ _dahii_ can be masculine or feminine in Hindi as well as Urdu. It’s a regional variation. The Sanskrit and Prakrit etymon is _dadhi_, which is neuter in gender.


Thanks a lot! That explains my confusion about Hindi but I am yet to come across (f.) _dahii_ in Urdu. Must be regional indeed.


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## littlepond

marrish said:


> That explains my confusion about Hindi but I am yet to come across (f.) _dahii_ in Urdu. Must be regional indeed.



I am yet to come across (f.) _dahii_ in Hindi too!


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## Dib

marrish said:


> except that the common Urdu-Hindi language *has adjusted* the gender at times and differs from the Hindi in this respect, see recent Hindi,Urdu: dhaare, other, _maalaa, rachnaa, ma(a)mtaa_.



Well, phonetics is a powerful factor, as I also mentioned. Therefore versions of Hindi-Urdu with less "systematic" Sanskrit-influence may treat borrowed -aa words as masculine according to their inherited patterns, though there are exceptions like "adaa". On the other hand, Sanskrit feminine ending -aa, which was lost in Hindi through its normal evolution (like vaartaa > baat), has been reintroduced directly from Sanskrit "systematically" by Sanskrit-savvy authors/speakers. This is now well-established in standard Hindi, and has trickled down to spoken Hindi to varying degrees. In either case, I'd argue that there was no "adjustment" of gender in Urdu-Hindi, it was rather a matter of *assigning* gender to borrowed nouns.



marrish said:


> _dahii (m.) _to the contrary follows the old gender in Urdu whereas in Hindi I think it can be feminine, perhaps additionally to (m.), am I right?



This is truly a matter of power struggle between phonetics and history - so to say.



littlepond said:


> I am yet to come across (f.) _dahii_ in Hindi too!



I have heard this - I am not absolutely certain from whom, but I think, from someone from Indore.


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