# gender of rivers



## stevenvh

It seems rivers are either masculine or feminine:

*der *Rhein
*der *Nil
*der *Mississippi
but
*die *Donau
*die *Mosel
*die *Schelde
*die *Rhone
*die *Elbe
*die *Oder

I can't find any logic in it. Is there any? How do I know the gender of a river?


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## Gernot Back

It depends on whether people of former times thought the river was a god or a goddess, that's all there is to it.


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## wandle

Is it really the case that the gender of Mississippi in German is determined by the former beliefs of native Americans?


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## Frank78

wandle said:


> Is it really the case that the gender of Mississippi in German is determined by the former beliefs of native Americans?



Could also be taken from the French "le Mississippi". A lot of rivers in the new world are masculine: der Amazonas, der Rio Grande, der Yukon, der Rio Negro, der Ohio, der Missouri, der Sankt-Lorenz-Strom.


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## Gernot Back

Frank78 said:


> A lot of rivers in the new world are masculine: der Amazonas, der Rio Grande, der Yukon, der Rio Negro, der Ohio, der Missouri, der Sankt-Lorenz-Strom.


That's because it's *der *Fluss, *der *Strom. This had nothing to to with river gods or goddesses at that time any more.


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## Frank78

Gernot Back said:


> That's because it's *der *Fluss, *der *Strom. This had nothing to to with river gods or godesses at that time any more.



It was your statement, not mine. 

By the way, "goddess" with double D.


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## bearded

Gernot Back said:


> That's because it's *der *Fluss, *der *Strom. This had nothing to to with river gods or godesses at that time any more.


If that is true, then the correct reply to the OP would be: there is no rule for determining the gender of rivers:  In some parts of the world it depends on ancient gods, in other parts it doesn't....


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## perpend

stevenvh said:


> I can't find any logic in it. Is there any? How do I know the gender of a river?



Do you (not) have this difficulty/dilemma in Dutch? I think when cursing, you can change the gender of the river, for what it's worth. 

There's no logic behind the gender of a river.


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## berndf

Gernot Back said:


> It depends on whether people of former times thought the river was a god or a goddess, that's all there is to it.


_Danuvius_ is a god, yet we say_ *die* Donau_.


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## stevenvh

OK, so it seems there's no logic in it at all, like _perpend _says.

@perpend: No, I don't have much difficulty with it in Dutch. In Dutch the definite article is "de" for both masculine and feminine. It might cause trouble when you want to use the pronoun "zij/hij" ("she/he"), like in "De Rijn..., *zij *is lang.", but for all rivers I can think of, we use "*zij*", therefore all rivers seem to be feminine in Dutch. (As are the words for "river" and "stream".)


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## bearded

berndf said:


> _Danuvius_ is a god, yet we say_ *die* Donau_.


 Interesting, it has remained masculine in Romance languages (il Danubio, le Danube).


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## Schimmelreiter

bearded man said:


> berndf said:
> 
> 
> 
> _Danuvius_ is a god, yet we say_ *die* Donau_.
> 
> 
> 
> Interesting, it has remained masculine in Romance languages (il Danubio, le Danube).
Click to expand...

Simpleton's explanation: the gender follows _die Au _(cf. _die Donauau _).


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## bearded

Schimmelreiter said:


> Simpleton's explanation: the gender follows _die Au _(cf. _die Donauau _).


Do you sense that it is Don-Au(e)? A Russian river?


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## Schlabberlatz

Wer hätte das gedacht, vielleicht war es wirklich so:





> Der germanische Wortbestandteil _-ouwe_, eine Bezeichnung für Aue oder Flusslandschaft, kann ebenfalls zum weiblichen Geschlecht des Namens beigetragen haben. Wikipedia


Edit: Who’d have thought this – maybe this has really been the case: "-ouwe", a part of words in Germanic languages, which signifies the meadow of a river or a river landscape, may have been one of the reasons for the fact that the grammatical gender of this river is feminine [in German].


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## Scholiast

Gruss an alle!

Für wieviel es immer wert sein mag:

Lateinische Fluss- (sowie Orts-) Namen sind gleichmässig inkonsequent, z.B. _Rhenus_, _Tiber_, _Thamesis_ (männl.), aber _Garumna_, _Sabrina_, _Matrona_ (weibl.).

_Roma_, _Carthago_, _Gades_ (weibl.), _Mediolanum_, _Londinium_ (neutr.), _Berytus_, _Nemausus_ (männl.).

Σ

Nachwort: _Philippi_ (männl.), trotz Gr. _Philipopolis_, weibl. wegen _-polis._


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## Glockenblume

Zum Thema Donau habe ich folgendes gelesen:
_Donau_ sei, wie die meisten bedeutenden Flussnamen im süddeutschen Raum, keltischen Ursprungs. Wenn ich es recht in Erinnerung habe, spielt da tatsächlich die _Au_ eine Rolle.

Gelesen habe ich das in einem Buch, das in etwa den Titel trägt: "Ochsenschenkel un Mausgesäss. Kleine nordbayerische Namenskunde" - ich bin mir aber nicht mehr ganz sicher über den genauen Titel.


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## Sepia

There really isn't much to find in terms of grammatical logic in German genders at all. You are well advicet to look for patterns but not in the origin of the grammatical gender itself. You even see genders changing just because a compound word becomes an abreviation - like "die CD". It is not all about phonetics either. Sometimes it is a mixture of a whole lot of different factors like certain Endings of a word, etc. 

And sometimes you can only say, "most" words of this and this category are M - car brands as an example. Und Flüsse? Die Mehrheit von denen, die ich kenne, sind F. Aber das hat auch nichts zu bedeuten - nur, die meisten Leute kennen weniger Flussnamen als es Automarken/Typen gibt. Man kann die lernen. Aber eine durchgreifende Logik steckt kaum dahinter.


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## Frank78

Sepia said:


> You even see genders changing just because a compound word becomes an abreviation - like "die CD". It is not all about phonetics either. Sometimes it is a mixture of a whole lot of different factors like certain Endings of a word, etc.



What other gender would you use here? I only know "*die* CD/(Compact) Disc/Scheibe" analogous to "die (Schall-)Platte".


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## ablativ

stevenvh said:


> [...], but for all rivers I can think of, we use "*zij*", therefore all rivers seem to be feminine in Dutch. (As are the words for "river" and "stream".)


Your statement may be correct for Belgium - the grammatical situation in the Netherlands is different from that. http://www.vrt.be/taal/rivieren-genus


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## Schimmelreiter

Frank78 said:


> Sepia said:
> 
> 
> 
> You even see genders changing just because a compound word becomes an abreviation - like "die CD". It is not all about phonetics either. Sometimes it is a mixture of a whole lot of different factors like certain Endings of a word, etc.
> 
> 
> 
> What other gender would you use here? I only know "*die* CD/(Compact) Disc/Scheibe" analogous to "die (Schall-)Platte".
Click to expand...

_δίσκος_ _- discus - der Diskus - der Tisch



_But the gender change happened independently of the abbreviation _(__die Compact Disc)_, probably after _die Diskette._


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## berndf

Es hieß schon vor der Erfindung der Diskette "die Disk" in der IT, damals noch EDV.

In der Branche sind solide Latein- und Griechischkenntnisse nicht unbedingt die bedeutsamste Qualifikation.


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## GuyTritton

I have an idea. On the whole the Der- rivers are very large rivers whereas the Die - rivers are smaller. Men are longer/taller than women. This does not work for the Danube/Donau but maybe as not much of it is in Germany, it was not seen as large by German-speakers as the Big One - der Rhein. EVeryone knows that the Nile and Mississippi rivers are two of the largest rivers in the world so they are obviously "men"


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## Hutschi

Until now we considered only male and female rivers. I tried to find neuter river names, but I did not find "normal" ones.
However: Whenever it is a diminutive with "...lein" or "...chen" it becomes neuter, as all diminutives. This is also true for dialect versions, but usually the are normalized.
It does not really depend on the size but usually it is used in case of very small rivers. (Bäche)

Example, I know from my childhood: Das Steinbächlein

But this kind of names is seldom.
And  it may have changed the gender, die Börsel Hörsel – Wikipedia and fits the male/female rule, even as Diminutive.

Here is a source for male and female names. Wie kamen Flüsse zu Ihren Artikeln? Die Weser, die Elbe, der Main, der Inn, die Donau, der Nil. - Warum sind die einen weiblich, die anderen männlich und kein Fluss sächlich?
They confirm that some assumed that it depends on goddes and godnesses. Some supposed: In pregerman times names were mostly male -- in Germanic times they were female.
But due to language changes, some rivers changed their gender.

In the list of German rivers, I did not find an excetion to the male/female rule. Liste von Flüssen in Deutschland – Wikipedia


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## berndf

_


GuyTritton said:



			I have an idea. On the whole the Der- rivers are very large rivers whereas the Die - rivers are smaller. Men are longer/taller than women. This does not work for the Danube/Donau but maybe as not much of it is in Germany, it was not seen as large by German-speakers as the Big One - der Rhein. EVeryone knows that the Nile and Mississippi rivers are two of the largest rivers in the world so they are obviously "men"
		
Click to expand...

Die Weser, die Elbe, die Oder_. All important German Rivers.


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## Hutschi

In my source they stated that there was a gender change in case of Danube/Donau. (There should be more scientific sources, however).





> ... aus dem männlichen Danubius [wurde] heute die weibliche Donau (wohl in Angleichung an das Wort die Au(e)),



Wie kamen Flüsse zu Ihren Artikeln? Die Weser, die Elbe, der Main, der Inn, die Donau, der Nil. - Warum sind die einen weiblich, die anderen männlich und kein Fluss sächlich?

PS:
Here they gave a set of rules, it is too long to quote:
Grammatik in Fragen und Antworten

(German)

For example:
Names ending
...bach -> male
...ach -> female

The most of the (smaller) German rivers not ending with "bach" are female.


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## GuyTritton

berndf said:


> _Die Weser, die Elbe, die Oder_. All important German Rivers.


But in Germany, are these rivers seen as important as the Rhine? Not saying that they are not important but is not the Big One, the Rhine?


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## Frieder

The Big Ones are der Rhein, die Donau, die Elbe, die Weser, die Ems, die Oder (sorry if I forgot one). 

Only the river Rhine is male – and some minor streams like der Main, der Neckar, der Inn, der Lech (sorry again for calling them minor). So I don't think it has to do with importance.



stevenvh said:


> I can't find any logic in it. Is there any? How do I know the gender of a river?


No, you can't, there isn't, you don't.


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## GuyTritton

Frieder said:


> The Big Ones are der Rhein, die Donau, die Elbe, die Weser, die Ems, die Oder (sorry if I forgot one).
> 
> Only the river Rhine is male – and some minor streams like der Main, der Neckar, der Inn, der Lech (sorry again for calling them minor). So I don't think it has to do with importance.
> 
> 
> No, you can't, there isn't, you don't.





Frieder said:


> The Big Ones are der Rhein, die Donau, die Elbe, die Weser, die Ems, die Oder (sorry if I forgot one).
> 
> Only the river Rhine is male – and some minor streams like der Main, der Neckar, der Inn, der Lech (sorry again for calling them minor). So I don't think it has to do with importance.
> 
> 
> No, you can't, there isn't, you don't.



If there are small ones which are male, that does screw up my theory! Time to drop it


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## DerFrosch

I remember learning that rivers outside the German speaking countries are masculine, with the exception of those ending with _-a_ or _-e_, which are mostly feminine. Does anyone know a foreign river with a different ending than those mentioned that uses feminine? I don't.


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