# Norwegian: Grammatical gender of rivers



## Schlabberlatz

What grammatical gender do rivers have in Norwegian? Is it one gender for all rivers, or does the gender vary? For example: What gram. gender does the "Tinne" have? Tinne - Wikipedia


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## JonTve

River (ei elv) is female in Norwegian as far as I know.


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## myšlenka

Schlabberlatz said:


> What grammatical gender do rivers have in Norwegian?


Proper nouns are generally not assigned a gender in Norwegian but I suppose you can, to a certain extent, classify river names ending with -_en_ as masculine and river names ending with -_a_ as feminine. Names with other endings, e.g. _Tinne_, are more difficult to classify.
Why do you ask?


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## Schlabberlatz

Thanks!

It’s for a translation (French to German; you can look here : Norwegian: Tyske(r) boderne ). Rivers always have a gram. gender in German, "der Rhein" (masculine), "die Donau" (feminine), etc.



> Tinoset est situé presque à l’extrémité du lac Tinn. De là, par une assez belle chute, *le Maan* se précipite dans la vallée inférieure, où il retrouve son cours régulier. Un billet de loterie/XVI - Wikisource





> Tinoset is situated near the end of Lake Tinn, and here the Maan plunges majestically into the valley below, where it resumes its former course. The Project Gutenberg eBook of Ticket No. "9672", by Jules Verne


But from Tinoset on, the river that Verne talks about is no longer called the "Måna" but "Tinne". I’ll leave the gram. gender of the Maan / Måna at masculine, since Verne chose that gender. I’ll assign the Tinne the fem. gender. I think it sounds better in German.


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## tewlwolow

Geographical names in general are rather compound in Norway, so you can get a "proper" noun + common noun (or simply several common nouns bundled together, ethymologically speaking). In this case, as always in Norwegian, the last piece of compound noun indicates its gender. Thus all names ending with _elv*a* (river)_ would be feminine (_Hallingdalselva, Tanaelva, Pasvikelva_ etc.), but those ending with _vassdrag*et* (_literally_: drainage system)_ will be neutral (_Arendalsvassdraget, Nea-Nidelvvassdraget, Drammensvassdraget_ etc.). 

As mentioned before, you can suppose that all ending with -a (_Glomma, Otra, Begna_) are "femininum", but this is not entirely true. These words do not usually change definiteness whensoever (which is rather typical for proper nouns), thus they never truly got fully integrated into the language's system of genders.

The only thing you can do is to trace the proper names to their Old Norse origin (could possibly work with German - try OHG?), thus determing whence the gender came. 

Beware though of natural changes and alterations in nouns throughout the ages: for instance,_ Glomma_ comes from Old Norse_ glaumr/raumr_, (which means _noise).._. everything seems fine unless you realise that the Old Norse root was masculine, though!


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## Schlabberlatz

Thanks a lot! This somehow reminds me of Latin "poeta" …

As to the "Måna" and the "Tinne", I think I’ll leave it at what I wrote above. Looking for Old Norse or OHG roots would in this case feel a bit like "shooting at sparrows with cannons", as we say in Germany ("use a steamroller to crack a nut").

But what you write is very interesting. Thanks again! ahvalj also told me some interesting facts about Norwegian: Norwegian: bod


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## tewlwolow

Yes, digging in etymologies can be a serious addiction! Especially when after some time you come to a conclusion that, for instance, Polish _wiara _(faith), French _vrai_ (true) and English _very_ all used to be one word! I hope it will also bring joy to you


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## Schlabberlatz

Verily I say unto thee
That it will bring joy to me


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## tewlwolow

Ungr var ek forðum,
fór ek einn saman,
þá varð ek villr vega;
auðigr þóttumk,
er ek annan fann,
maðr er manns gaman!


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