# Death - gender



## Setwale_Charm

Is Death a he or a she in your language when it is portrayed in a symbolic way, as a personality? Does its gender always correspond with the gender of the actual word: la mort, la muerte etc?
 I am not even sure what its gender is in English but I think, it is masculine.


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## Vagabond

In Greek it is ο θάνατος (o thanatos), and it is masculine. In Greek mythology, Thanatos was the twin brother of Hypnos (=sleep) and of course he personified death.


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## gao_yixing

I think it's....neutral in Chinese.


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## Abbassupreme

Spanish: la muerte

Persian:  Marg


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## alisha_miss_world

In french it is : " la mort " and it is feminine


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## OldAvatar

Romanian: moarte

It's feminine.


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## Ilmo

In *Finnish* the words do not have a gender, but the death (kuolema in Finnish) is always described as the "Grim Reaper", that is, an old and skinny man with a scythe on his shoulder.


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## Hakro

"Grim Reaper" or "Scytheman" is of course a man, but nowadays it would be politically correct to say "Scytheperson" (viikatehenkilö), wouldn't it?


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## jonquiliser

In Swedish, the word 'death' is gendered (there is no distinction between masculine and feminine any longer), but when you talk about the person Death, you say 'liemannen' and it's a he. It's a little like the grim reaper in English. 'Lie' means scythe, so he's the man of the scythe.


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## Tolovaj_Mataj

In Slovene: *smrt* (of feminine gender)



Ilmo said:


> In Finnish the words do not have a gender, but the death (kuolema in Finnish) is always described as the "Grim Reaper", that is, an old and skinny man with a scythe on his shoulder.


A personification here is Matilda (a skeleton dressed like a woman) with a scythe on her shoulder.


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## Krümelmonster

In German you say "der Tod" (male) and he is portrayed as Grim Reaper, too.


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## Outsider

Setwale_Charm said:


> Is Death a he or a she in your language when it is portrayed in a symbolic way, as a personality? Does its gender always correspond with the gender of the actual word: la mort, la muerte etc?
> 
> Does its gender always correspond with the gender of the actual word: la mort, la muerte etc?


No, it varies. Often, the gender isn't even clear...



Setwale_Charm said:


> I am not even sure what its gender is in English but I think, it is masculine.


Seeing as you refer to "death" as "it", I'd say it's neuter gender.


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## linguist786

In *Urdu/Hindi* and *Gujarati*, the word for death is "maut" (موت/मौत/મૌત) - borrowed from Arabic I guess - and it is feminine.


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## Thomas1

Setwale_Charm said:


> Is Death a he or a she in your language when it is portrayed in a symbolic way, as a personality?


It's feminine.


Setwale_Charm said:


> Does its gender always correspond with the gender of the actual word: la mort, la muerte etc?
> [...]


Yes, _śmierć_ is always feminie.

Tom


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## daoxunchang

Hmmm, in Chinese we traditionally do not personify "death", though we of course have our god of death. But now many people would use it personified, hmmm, and I think the pronoun for it in such cases is usually male"他".


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## irene.acler

*Italian*: la morte (it is feminine).


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## Setwale_Charm

Outsider said:


> No, it varies. Often, the gender isn't even clear...
> 
> Seeing as you refer to "death" as "it", I'd say it's neuter gender.


 
 This is not quite what I am asking. It is definitely "it" in grammar but in symbolic language it is usually refered to as "He" , I think. It is probably due to it being personified as "the King of Terrors" in some English-speaking traditions.


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## Frank06

Hi,


Setwale_Charm said:


> Is Death a he or a she in your language when it is portrayed in a symbolic way, as a personality? Does its gender always correspond with the gender of the actual word: la mort, la muerte etc?


In Dutch, the noun '(de) dood' is grammatically male/female. Our version of the grim reaper is called _Pietje de Dood_ (Pete, male), and not Marieke .

Groetjes,

Frank


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## Chazzwozzer

Azrail is what people call Death and it is usually considered as male, though not really portrayed or Turkish being a non-sexist language.

Erlik, however, is sure to be male. Though, not so many modern Turks know about _him_.


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## übermönch

The death in Russian, Ukrainian and Polish is *Смерть*/*Smerć  *- the grammatical gender is female in all three languages and so is the personification - a woman with a scythe. The Polish symbolist Malczewski illustrated the concept quite well - 1, 2.


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## Frank06

Hi,


übermönch said:


> The death in Russian, Ukrainian and Polish is *Смерть*/*Smerć  *- the grammatical gender is female in all three languages and so is the personification - a woman with a scythe. The Polish symbolist Malczewski illustrated the concept quite well - 1, 2.


Nice paintings, but I still prefer Boucq's representation in the comic strips _Les Aventures de *La* Mort et de Lao Tseu_, in which 'La Mort' tells us he/she is a hermaphrodite (sic!) ;-). But I guess that has more to do with the fantasy of the author than with the average image of the grim reaper.
Nevertheless, the promo-talk for the comic books says: "La Mort a-t-elle un sexe? feminin, masculin?"...

Groetjes,

Frank


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## Abbassupreme

My apologies.  I didn't read the starter of this threat properly.  I'm pretty that Iran uses the Islamic name of the angel of death:  Ezraa'il.


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## zúzmara

In Hungarian: "halál". It doesn't have a gender.


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## jazyk

In Portuguese: a morte. Feminine.


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## quesuerte

I agree that it is masculine in English, looking in an old English dictionary shows that the original word "Deaþ" was masculine.


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## elroy

The Arabic word الموت (_al-mawt_) is masculine (its grammatical gender).


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## Bienvenidos

Persian:

*marg*


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## Setwale_Charm

OK, some people have really grasped what I meant but some did not quite do. This is my fault, I should have probably addressed the thread into the Cultural Points, I was in doubt. What I was asking was not so much what gender this word is grammatically in your language but whether Death is culturally perceived to be a He or a She. So when in symbolic speaking, in fairy tales or archaic language would it be referred to as "He" or as "She", in which gender is it personified (and I believe, it is somehow in most langauges).


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## Abbassupreme

Oh, and Ezraa'il is the Arabic name for Azrael, the angel of death in the Judeo-Christian-Islamic monotheistic religions, who I'm pretty sure is personified as a guy, though I'd read somewhere that angels aren't supposed to have a gender.

And, in Persian, there are no gender specific pronouns/words, so death is really simply "marg".


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## jazyk

> What I was asking was not so much what gender this word is grammatically in your language but whether Death is culturally perceived to be a He or a She.


I think in many (maybe most) languages the concept of Death equals the gender that is assigned to it. At least that is the case in Portuguese.


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## Greenvampirekilts

I think it is safe to say that in English, figuratively speaking, Death is masculine; I always think of Emily Dickinson's poem: 
" Becuase I could not stop for *Death* -
*He* kindly stopped for me - "


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## suslik

In Estonian we don't have masculine or feminine words, death is just: *surm*


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## paranoid82

In TURKISH : Ölüm. It doesn't have a gender


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## Setwale_Charm

But does it have an image associated with it?


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## paranoid82

Setwale_Charm said:


> But does it have an image associated with it?


U ask me?


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## Setwale_Charm

Well, anybody here


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## paranoid82

Setwale_Charm said:


> Well, anybody here


Anyway!  Death means in turkish ' Ölüm ' That's all


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## Qcumber

Death only has a gender in languages that have a gender.
In Germanic languages (German, English, Dutch, etc.) death is masculine. In Romance languages (Italian, Spanish, French, etc.) death is feminine.

Although death has no gender in genderless languages like Chinese, Japanese, Tagalog, its modern representations may be influenced by the masculine gender of English due to the widespread English-related iconography.


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## Setwale_Charm

Qcumber said:


> Death only has a gender in languages that have a gender.
> In Germanic languages (German, English, Dutch, etc.) death is masculine. In Romance languages (Italian, Spanish, French, etc.) death is feminine.
> 
> Although death has no gender in genderless languages like Chinese, Japanese, Tagalog, its modern representations may be influenced by the masculine gender of English due to the widespread English-related iconography.


 

 Qcumber, read the first post again I am asking about literary and mythological perceptions.rather than grammar.


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## Frank06

Hi,


Qcumber said:


> In Germanic languages (German, English, Dutch, etc.) death is masculine.


Nope, as written before, in Dutch the _word_ 'dood' has two genders, masculine and female.

Groetjes,

Frank


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## awanzi

In Italian the word is "la morte", feminine. 
But I'm not sure that "La morte" is a woman... as it's a skeleton in a black dress! 
Anyway in Italian the "neutral" form  doesn't exist... (not for Death, not for  any other word).


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## Qcumber

Setwale_Charm said:


> Qcumber, read the first post again I am asking about literary and mythological perceptions.rather than grammar.


Perhaps you didn't realize grammatical gender reflects ancient mythological and modern literary perceptions.


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## doman

Vietnamese:

*Tử Thần* / *Thần Chết* / Dead Deity 

No gender


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## deine

Lithuanian:

death - mirtis

it's feminine


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## Frank06

Hi,


Qcumber said:


> Perhaps you didn't realize grammatical gender reflects ancient mythological and modern literary perceptions.


This would strike me as quite odd... Wouldn't this mean that mythology preceedes language? Which is quite contradictory...
Any which way, what are the arguments to state that grammatical gender reflects mythology? How does Fr. 'la chaise' (f) / Du 'de stoel' (m) fit in this theory?

Groetjes,

Frank


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## Outsider

Setwale_Charm said:


> Qcumber, read the first post again I am asking about literary and mythological perceptions.rather than grammar.


Not quite. You asked:



Setwale_Charm said:


> Is Death a he or a she in your language when it is portrayed in a symbolic way, as a personality? *Does its gender always correspond with the gender of the actual word*: la mort, la muerte etc?





Frank06 said:


> This would strike me as quite odd... Wouldn't this mean that mythology preceedes language? Which is quite contradictory...


Not to mention that word genders frequently change with time or dialect. _Il mare, o mar, la mer_...


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## Maja

Tolovaj_Mataj said:


> In Slovene: *smrt* (of feminine gender)


Same in Serbian: *smrt* /*смрт* (feminine).


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## cherine

linguist786 said:


> In *Urdu/Hindi* and *Gujarati*, the word for death is "maut" (موت/मौत/મૌત) - borrowed from Arabic I guess - and it is feminine.


Interesting! maut or mawt الموت in Arabic is a masculine word.


Chazzwozzer said:


> Azrail is what people call Death and it is usually considered as male, though not really portrayed or Turkish being a non-sexist language.


Interesting too !! 
Azrail is the angel of death in Islam. I don't know if Arab Christians use it as well or not.
So, when we "personify" death, we simply think of the angel of death, Azrail عزرائيل , who takes peoples' souls to heaven where they await the Judgment day يوم الحساب .
We refer to Azrail, as to all angels, by masculine.


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## silvester

In Mexico "la muerte" (feminine)


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## Qcumber

linguist786 said:


> In *Urdu/Hindi* and *Gujarati*, the word for death is "maut" (موت/मौत/મૌત) - borrowed from Arabic I guess - and it is feminine.


What makes it feminine? Its ending? What is the mark of the feminine in Urdu?


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## Qcumber

Frank06 said:


> Nope, as written before, in Dutch the _word_ 'dood' has two genders, masculine and female.


Wasn't "*de dood*" masculine in Old Dutch?


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## Frank06

Hi,


Qcumber said:


> Wasn't "*de dood*" masculine in Old Dutch?


I checked things out in an etymological dictionary, and all the oldest Germanic cognates are masculine indeed. I couldn't find the grammatical gender of the Old Dutch word, but I think it is quite safe to assume it was also male, indeed.
Oddly enough, in Middle Dutch the word '(de) dood' was (quote) mostly female (unquote), in modern Dutch both.
As for the gender of the Germanic words: it seems that the basis for the male gender has to do with... well, grammar, rather than with mythology (or iconography), since Proto-Germanic _*dauthu-_ is -- and here English fails me again -- a 'verbaalabstract' (lit. verbal abstract), roughly put, the nominalization of a verb. And those nouns, those nominalized verbs, were grammatically male.

Groetjes,

Frank


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## Setwale_Charm

What I am asking for is the cultural image which in turn often determines the gender of the word.


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## Outsider

Who said it's the cultural image that determines gender?


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## Setwale_Charm

I am saying that this often happens.
If in russian, for example, Death has been painted as a woman since the pagan times , it is logical that Death is feminine. In English Death was portrayed as the King of Terrors, so in literature , though the word is denoted with the pronoun IT in common language, Death is still most often referred to as He.


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## Outsider

Setwale_Charm said:


> I am saying that this often happens.


Based on what evidence?


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## Setwale_Charm

Outsider said:


> Based on what evidence?


Outsider, read my posts again and stop playing a grand detective


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## Outsider

I asked you for evidence of your claim that gender is "often" determined by cultural preconceptions. You have provided none. I conclude that you have never stopped to examine this proposition critically. It's just something you always assumed was true, because it "made sense" to you. Well, it makes absolutely no sense to me.

The fact that death is often represented as a female in Russian culture and that the word for "death" is feminine in the Russian language can just as easily be explained in the opposite direction: it is not culture which predetermines language, but language which has predisposed Russian speakers to personify death as a female. After all, if you are used to referring to death as a "she", it's simply _easier_ to depict it as a female character, since doing the opposite might confuse your audience.

Even so, I assure you that in Portuguese for instance I have seen death represented as a) female, b) male, or c) of indeterminate sex, and none of these three possibilities feels more or less natural than the others to me, even though the word _morte_ is grammatically _feminine_. Death is, after all, an abstraction, not a living being -- why should it be expected to have a fixed sex?


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## Setwale_Charm

Outsider said:


> I asked you for evidence of your claim that gender is "often" determined by cultural preconceptions. You have provided none. I conclude that you have never stopped to examine this proposition critically. It's just something you always assumed was true, because it "made sense" to you. Well, it makes absolutely no sense to me.
> 
> The fact that death is often represented as a female in Russian culture and that the word for "death" is feminine in the Russian language can just as easily be explained in the opposite direction: it is not culture which predetermines language, but language which has predisposed Russian speakers to personify death as a female. After all, if you are used to referring to death as a "she", it's simply _easier_ to depict it as a female character, since doing the opposite might confuse your audience.
> 
> Even so, I assure you that in Portuguese for instance I have seen death represented as a) female, b) male, or c) of indeterminate sex, and none of these three possibilities feels more or less natural than the others to me, even though the word _morte_ is grammatically _feminine_. Death is, after all, an abstraction, not a living being -- why should it be expected to have a fixed sex?


 
It is something that I have seen happening in numerous languages and therefore concluded that it often so happens.


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## Qcumber

Frank06 said:


> I checked things out in an etymological dictionary, and all the oldest Germanic cognates are masculine indeed. I couldn't find the grammatical gender of the Old Dutch word, but I think it is quite safe to assume it was also male, indeed. Oddly enough, in Middle Dutch the word '(de) dood' was (quote) mostly female (unquote), in modern Dutch both.


Thanks a lot, Frank. 
By the way, how is death represented in Medieval Dutch iconography and then by Flemmish painters?


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## Cepkah

In Bulgarian that's СМЪРТ and it's женски род/feminine...
but that's an exception. Actually in Bulgaria a word which ends with a voiceless consonant is masculin.


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## AkErBeLtZ

In Basque the concept of death is "heriotza", but the personification is "Herio" or "Balbe". Although these words have no gender (because in Basque genders don't exist), the Death is commonly represented as a ghost with a black cloak and a scythe, and its gender is masculine because of the special treatment people gives to him in ancient legends (in Basque, there's a way of speaking that you can change the verb forms depending on you're speaking with a boy or a girl).


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## nhv1121

In Dutch we also say "Magere Hein" or "Schele Piet", both male names, meaning Skinny Henry and Cross-eyed Pete"


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## panjabigator

Qcumber said:


> What makes it feminine? Its ending? What is the mark of the feminine in Urdu?



Qcumber, I believe its ending makes it feminine.  Words that in in the Arabic letter _te _or _toe _(I can't remember the spelling of the word right now) are usually feminine.  It's just a trend of the language.  I'm afraid I don't know why the gender is the way it is; it seems arbitrary to me.

Wait, I do remember something.  I think it has a loose connection to the way plurals are formed in Arabic.  I'll consult my books when I get a chance and add some more information.

The word for death in Hindi and Urdu, as linguist has correctly indicated, is _maut_.  There is, however a more _pure _ Hindi word, _mrityu_ (मृत्यु), which is also used.   I believe _mrityu_ is masculine.  The firgure of death in Hinduism is the God Yamraj, who is the leader of the underworld.  Curiously enough, his sisters's name is Yamuna, and if you bathe in her river, you get immortality.


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## min300

Abbassupreme said:


> Oh, and Ezraa'il is the Arabic name for Azrael, the angel of death in the Judeo-Christian-Islamic monotheistic religions, who I'm pretty sure is personified as a guy, though I'd read somewhere that angels aren't supposed to have a gender.
> 
> And, in Persian, there are no gender specific pronouns/words, so death is really simply "marg".



I agree. In Persian we don't usually consider gender for words, but just for a number of objects we consider gender.For example we consider sun as a lady.

In this case. I have heard ' *Elaheye marg*' which means '*goddess of death'.

*


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## Staarkali

In French _la mort_ and all his synonyms are feminine but the icon has no sex, probably as angels have no sex.


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## Earth Dragon

There is the Grim Reaper, who is mostly portrayed as a man without skin and a scythe wearing a black cape and hood. There is also a female specter who gives the "kiss of death."


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## Qcumber

panjabigator said:


> Qcumber, I believe its ending makes it feminine. Words that in in the Arabic letter _te_


Panjabigator, [mau] "death" is an Arabic term and is masculine in Arabic. The [t] at the end is not the mark of the feminine; it's part of the stem /mwt/.
If [maut] is treated as a feminine term in Urdu perhaps it's because the original Urdu term was feminine, and its gender was transferred to the loan word. What is the non-Arabic term for "death" in Urdu?


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## panjabigator

> What is the non-Arabic term for "death" in Urdu?



To my knowledge, there isn't another term as generic as "death" in Urdu that is not originally Arabic or Persian.  I am not familiar with any indigenous term which would cover its meaning.  Many Urdu speakers in the diaspora would use "death" as a calque in their speech, as I sometimes hear in my family.  They also assign a feminine gender to it.

_Mrityu_ would not be understood in Urdu.  Perhaps Linguist can shine more light on the topic.


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## Qcumber

panjabigator said:


> To my knowledge, there isn't another term as generic as "death" in Urdu that is not originally Arabic or Persian. I am not familiar with any indigenous term which would cover its meaning. Many Urdu speakers in the diaspora would use "death" as a calque in their speech, as I sometimes hear in my family. They also assign a feminine gender to it.
> _Mrityu_ would not be understood in Urdu. Perhaps Linguist can shine more light on the topic.


Generally, the concept of death is expressed by a term that belongs to the basic vocabulary of any language you may name.
What you say is very strange. This would mean the original term was replaced by a foreign term.
Do you know the percentage of Arabic terms in Urdu?


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## panjabigator

Qcumber said:


> Generally, the concept of death is expressed by a term that belongs to the basic vocabulary of any language you may name.
> What you say is very strange. This would mean the original term was replaced by a foreign term.
> Do you know the percentage of Arabic terms in Urdu?



I agree that the term is very basic and that it should be covered by the indigenous Urdu words, but I feel that the usage of an Arabic origin word in Urdu is similar to the usage of Arabic words in Spanish: unnoticable.  Most probably do not realize that words like ojala (I hope) and almohada (pillow) are Arabic origin, but they are very basic words to the language.

I have no idea why certain words were adopted and others were discarded.  Urdu is a very interesting language in that it started as a creole between the dialect around Delhi and the Turkic languages.  Words were imported to forge Urdu.  Wikipedia does a good job of explaining Urdu's origins.  

I am unaware of the percentage of Arabic in Urdu and would be interested to know myself.


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## Athaulf

Cepkah said:


> In Bulgarian that's СМЪРТ and it's женски род/feminine...
> but that's an exception. Actually in Bulgaria a word which ends with a voiceless consonant is masculin.



Actually, there's a whole bunch of feminine Slavic nouns of this form (ending with _-t_): _kost_, _vlast_, _čast_, _oblast_... as well a huge number of abstract nouns ending in _-ost_ (_mudrost_, _radost_...). The examples I'm giving are from Croatian, but I'm pretty sure most (if not all) of them also exist in Bulgarian in very similar forms.


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## Alijsh

min300 said:


> I agree. In Persian we don't usually consider gender for words, but just for a number of objects we consider gender.For example we consider sun as a lady.
> 
> In this case. I have heard ' *Elaheye marg*' which means '*goddess of death'.*


Thank you min300.

*marg* is Persian for death and we also have *dargozašt* as a polite/formal word; similar to English *demise*, *decease*. Persian doesn't have grammatical gender but in expressions death is associated with female: *ajuze-ye marg*: old woman of death (*ajuze* is a derogatory word for an aged woman but I don't know its English equivalent).


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## Eva Maria

In Catalan: "La mort", feminine. Her image is of a skeleton woman dressed in a black cloak with a hood and carrying a scythe ("The Reaper").

I've always thought about death as an old woman, like I think of nature ("life") as a young woman. Or like I see the moon feminine and the sun masculine (but not the Germans, who consider the moon masculine, "Der Mond", and the sun feminine, "Die Sonne").

Intuitively, I feel that a woman (the primigenial "goddess" mother) has given us birth, life, and a woman will be waiting for us with her arms stretched tu enfold us in the end.

EM


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## Geniuswolf

Thai : ความตาย


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## ccile_18

Hello in french, it's "_la mort_" . If you say "_la morte_", it's a dead woman, and "_le mort_" is a dead man(the body). And there is also a phrase to say it "*La grande faucheuse*" It's a kind of woman who comes to kill you, a kind of metaphor.


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## Kevman

In Greek, in addition to _thanatos_, Death is often personified (in Modern Greek literature and folklore, anyway) with another masculine: *ο χάρος*, a word which I believe is a modernized form of _Charon_ (ο Χάρων), the ferryman of myth who transported souls across the river into the world of the dead.


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## Kael

Latin:


Mors, Mortis

It's feminine, too.


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## Nizo

In *Esperanto*, there are three terms used to personify death:

*Morto* (or sometimes _la Morto_).  Also the word for death.  This comes from _Morta_, one of the _Parcae_ of Roman mythology.  She was the cutter of the thread of life.  Her Greek equivalent was _Atropos_.  Since there is no grammatical gender in Esperanto, it is undoubtedly the speaker's native language that would give the sense of whether _Morto—_as a personification—is male or female.

*Parco* (or sometimes _Parcino_).  This is the Esperanto singular of the Latin _Parcae_, mythological goddesses who spun, measured and cut the thread of life.  In the Spanish-speaking world, the equivalent _la Parca_, is sometimes used to represent death.  The form _Parcino_ is definitely feminine in Esperanto as it is the name of the goddess.  Therefore the user would imagine this personification as feminine.

*la morto-falĉisto*.  This means _the death reaper_ and is the equivalent of "the grim reaper."  This is a male in Esperanto.  Although I haven’t seen it depicted, he probably does carry a scythe (_falĉilo_).


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## Lopes

Frank06 said:


> Hi,
> 
> Our version of the grim reaper is called _Pietje de Dood_ (Pete, male), and not Marieke .
> 
> Groetjes,
> 
> Frank



In Dutch it is 'Magere Hein' (Skinny Hein), which is a male name too.


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## Outsider

In Portuguese, the Grim Reaper, just called "the Reaper" (_a Ceifeira_) or "the Reaper of Death" (_a Ceifeira da Morte_), is unsurprisingly female.


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## Babakexorramdin

Frank06 said:


> Hi,
> 
> In Dutch, the noun '(de) dood' is grammatically male/female. Our version of the grim reaper is called _Pietje de Dood_ (Pete, male), and not Marieke .
> 
> Groetjes,
> 
> Frank


 

It is masculine in Dutch. Because it is 'de' dood and not 'het'dood. hence not neuter.

And its old fashion genetivus is des dood. If it was feminine it would have been der dood, but it's not.


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## Babakexorramdin

Georgian Sikvdili. Persian Marg, Armenian Mah (somehow related to Persian marg)all three languages do not have genders.

But in some Iranian languages (e.g. Kurmanji Kurdish)the gender is still preserved  I ask if anyone knows the gender of this word in Kurmanji Kurdish?
Where as in persian the possesive construction or genetivus if you like is made by -e, in Kurmanji there is a distinction between -i and -a.


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## tanzhang

In Tagalog:

Death - kamatayan
from the root word patay - dead 

it is neither masculine nor feminine - it is neautral.


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## jana.bo99

Slovenian:  Smrt!

Croatian:    Smrt!


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## Velké-holky-nepláčou

in czech smrt


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## kusurija

In Czech:
Smrt. It's and gramatically and as personification feminine.
Other personifications:
Smrtka. Morena. Mora. Mára. Zubatá (=teethed). All are and gramatically and as personification feminine. (Almost all of these personifications are with a scythe). Actually, all losed gender as they losed any flesh. Remaining bones has unclear gender, though they originally was (maybe) feminine. 
Anděl smrti. In first sight it seems to be as personification masculine as anděl is gramatically masculine. But by meanings angel is no gender (but not neutrum!) or, rather feminine. (sic!) But this term in my humble opinion came from antic/biblic area (mediterrian). 
Obviously, many of personifications, which came from abroad can be of masculine gender, e.g. Charón...


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## AkashaLooksAtYou

in italian it is feminine. La morte
in swedish it is Döden and it hasn't a gender


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## Frank06

Hi,


Babakexorramdin said:


> It is masculine in Dutch. Because it is 'de' dood and not 'het'dood. hence not neuter.


Well, then I suggest you contact the people from Van Dale Dictionaries . It clearly indicates for the _*contemporary*_ word 'dood' *m&v*, i.e. mannelijke en vrouwelijk, i.e. masculine and femine. I also searched the _Woordenboek der Nederlandse taal__ (registration required, but free) and they give the_ same kind of information: 





> *Dood*: [Modern Dutch] znw., *m. en vr.*


 


Babakexorramdin said:


> And its old fashion genetivus is des dood. If it was feminine it would have been der dood, but it's not.


But you are correct in stating that the grammatical gender shifted over the ages.
From the same dictionary:


> _Mnl.[=Middle Dutch]_ _doot_, *m. en vr.*


But:


> _onfr._ [=Old Low Franconian] _dôt_, _mnd._ _dôt._, _ohd._, _mhd._ _tôd_, _hd._ _tod_, _os._ _dôth_, _ags._ _dêađ_, _eng._ _death_, on _dauþr_, _got._ _dauþus_, *alle m*.


 
By the way, I found quite some instances of 'der dood' as a genitive, at least, I think so  (e.g. here, here, and many many more).

Groetjes,

Frank

PS: My *stress* and additions
PPS: I just realise that we had this discussion already in this very same thread. See post: #*52*.


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## MarX

Setwale_Charm said:


> Is Death a he or a she in your language when it is portrayed in a symbolic way, as a personality? Does its gender always correspond with the gender of the actual word: la mort, la muerte etc?
> I am not even sure what its gender is in English but I think, it is masculine.


Indonesian don't have no grammatical genders. We even have the same word for _she _& _he_.


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## akedia

In languages of Latin origin or Romance languages like French, Italian and Spanish Death is feminine. 

By the way, I just found out Romanian belonged in this group too, so I guess it shoud be feminine as well. Any Romanian speaker here?


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## francisgranada

See post #6 ....


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