# hermaphrodite



## Outsider

This started out as a joke, but why not? 

I would like to know what is the *gender* of the word for "hermaphrodite" in your language. I am interested only in languages with grammatical gender, of course, and especially in Romanian, Latin, and Greek, but other languages are welcome, too.


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## robbie_SWE

In Romanian (haha) it's both masculine and feminine. 

*un hermafrodit*
*o hermafrodită*

robbie


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## Alxmrphi

That fits so well!

Masculine and feminine in Italian:
 la ermafrodita - the hermpahrodite
il ermafrodito - the hermaphrodite


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## betulina

In Catalan the noun _hermafrodita_ is both masculine and feminine.


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## amikama

In Hebrew it's *הרמפרודיט* and it's only masculine (never feminine)!


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## ireney

In Greek, unless we are referring to the original unlucky, mythological person (a man), it has three genders masculine (ερμαφρόδιτος - ermafroditos), female (ερμαφρόδιτη - ermafroditi) and neuter  (ερμαφρόδιτο- ermafrodito)


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## Etcetera

In Russian, the word гермафродит is masculine.


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## Honour

In Turkish, it is *hermafrodit* and neither masculin nor feminen  because we don't associate genders with words


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## anthodocheio

ireney said:


> In Greek, unless we are referring to the original unlucky, mythological person (a man), it has three genders masculine (ερμαφρόδιτος - ermafroditos), female (ερμαφρόδιτη - ermafroditi) and neuter  (ερμαφρόδιτο- ermafrodito)


 
I have to disagre with Irene. I don't know the story of the mythological person BUT in modern Greek is neuter. Like "the" in English. 

Greek words are in three genders 
without this meaning that 
what they refer to is more feminine or masculine or neutral.


Or...
I know undertant that I'm wrong.
Since the word is an adjective, changes depenting to the noun.
So if it is "an hermaphrodite butterfly" it has to be feminine as the butterfly is feminine (η πεταλούδα).


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## Frank06

Hi,



Outsider said:


> I would like to know what is the *gender* of the word for "hermaphrodite" in your language. I am interested only in languages with grammatical gender, of course, and especially in Romanian, Latin, and Greek, but other languages are welcome, too.



In Dutch:
de hermafrodiet (m./v.) (both male and female)

Groetjes,

Frank


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## linguist786

In *URDU*, the word is: هيجڑا (Heejraa) and it is masculine.

We use the same word in *GUJARATI* and *HINDI* too. (also masculine)


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## Alxmrphi

So, the word is either mixed, or masculine, I don't think we've come up with anyone who has a language where it is just feminine, that's also quite interesting.


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## ireney

Well the original mythological person called so was a male so that may have something to do with that.

Anthodocheio, the wod has a neuter meaning but three grammatical genders; since we're talking about that it does have 3 genders


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## Outsider

anthodocheio said:


> Since the word is an adjective, changes depenting to the noun.
> So if it is "an hermaphrodite butterfly" it has to be feminine as the butterfly is feminine.


Yeah, I should have clarified that what I wanted was the gender of the noun "hermaphrodite". Adjectives, of course, can be inflected to agree with any gender.


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## ireney

Outsider "hermaphrodite" exists as an adjective only in Greek therefore it has 3 genders


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## parakseno

ireney said:


> Outsider "hermaphrodite" exists as an adjective only in Greek therefore it has 3 genders



That's strange, my dictionary says it's both noun and adjective. And on in.gr it says the same: 
"hermaphrodite* [hermAfrodait] **ουσ*. & *επίθ*. ερμαφρόδιτος"*
ουσ*.=ουσιαστικό = noun
*επίθ*.=επίθετο = adjective

Or is it as in the case of "νέος" which is actually an adjective but one can use it as a noun by adding the article in front?


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## ronanpoirier

Portuguese:

O hermafrodita (masculine)
A hermafrodita (feminine)


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## jazyk

Eu não me pronunciaria tão categoricamente assim.  Meu dicionário diz que hermafrodito é adjetivo biforme e substantivo masculino: o hermafrodito, um homem hermafrodito, uma mulher hermafrodita; e hermafrodita é adjetivo de dois gêneros e substantivo do gênero masculino: o hermafrodita, um homem hermafrodita, uma mulher hermafrodita.

Pessoalmente tenho visto muito mais hermafrodita que hermafrodito.


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## Outsider

I'm going to have to disagree with *Ronan*. A hermaphrodite is neither a man nor a woman, and the common term I have always seen is "o hermafrodita".
I suppose you could refer to a male as "o hermafrodita" and to a female as "a hermafrodita" in some figurative sense, but in that case I would interpret "hermaphrodite" as an adjective, rather than a noun. Or am I splitting hairs?...


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## jazyk

> I suppose you could refer to a male as "o hermafrodita" and to a female as "a hermafrodita" in some figurative sense, but in that case I would interpret "hermaphrodite" as an adjective, rather than a noun. Or am I splitting hairs?...


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## ireney

parakseno said:


> That's strange, my dictionary says it's both noun and adjective. And on in.gr it says the same:
> "hermaphrodite* [hermAfrodait] **ουσ*. & *επίθ*. ερμαφρόδιτος"*
> ουσ*.=ουσιαστικό = noun
> *επίθ*.=επίθετο = adjective
> 
> Or is it as in the case of "νέος" which is actually an adjective but one can use it as a noun by adding the article in front?



Yeap, it's sort of like "νέος" I've checked both my dictionaries and it's really only an adjective even in Katharevousa 

in.gr is a wonderful on-line dictionary which I use a lot myself. It's not to be trusted in every single detail though.


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## ronanpoirier

Outsider said:
			
		

> I'm going to have to disagree with *Ronan*. A hermaphrodite is neither a man nor a woman, and the common term I have always seen is "o hermafrodita".
> I suppose you could refer to a male as "o hermafrodita" and to a female as "a hermafrodita" in some figurative sense, but in that case I would interpret "hermaphrodite" as an adjective, rather than a noun. Or am I splitting hairs?...


 
I was actually thinking of Biology, and I forgot the Portuguese 

A minhoca é HERMAFRODITA (minhoca is feminine noun) = The earthworm is hermafrodite.
O animal é HERMAFRODITA (animal is a masculine noun) = The annimal is hermafrodite.
I forgot that is vocative hehehe 

My dictionary says "hermafrodita" is an adjective of two genders and also a masculine noun. From Latin "hermafroditu" which came from Greek.
And it says the same for "hermafrodito", excepting the "two genders" thing.


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## ronanpoirier

And just to add Hungarian:

Hermafrodita


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## Maja

In Serbian, the word is *hermafrodit* (*хермафродит*) and it is masculine.


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## Negg

In french we say :
*un* (M) hermaphrodite 

and we can say *un* (M) or *une* (F) androgyne (synonym)


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## Whodunit

In German, it's only masculine: *der* Hermaphrodit (German word: *der* Zwitter).


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## LeMakiyo

In Chinese, it's either: 双性人 (double-sexed person) or  中性人 (middle-sexed person).


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## Mac_Linguist

Maja said:


> In Serbian, the word is *hermafrodit* (*хермафродит*) and it is masculine.



Same in Macedonian. The noun is _хермафродит_ (hermafrodit) and it's masculine. But when using it as an adjective it can be masculine (_хермафродитски_), feminine (_хермафродитска_) and neuter (_хермафродитско_).


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## Ellis

Azeri:

_Xonsa_, but the form that's used more often is _hermafrodit_.


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## SansVisage

In Spanish the word is "hermafrodit*a*" which is feminine itself. But it can be used in both men and women.


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## Rosomah

Slovenian - hermafrodit (masculine)


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## Zevzeksus

Honour said:


> In Turkish, it is *hermafrodit* and neither masculin nor feminen because we don't associate genders with words


 
In Turkish, the word "erdişi" is also used for hermaphrodite. The word itself doesn't have any gender associations (since this system doesn't exist in Turkish language); however, the word "er" means "male", and "dişi" means "female"; so "erdişi" is the juxtaposition of these words.


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## panjabigator

linguist786 said:


> In *URDU*, the word is: هيجڑا (Heejraa) and it is masculine.
> 
> We use the same word in *GUJARATI* and *HINDI* too. (also masculine)



Linguist, I've always spelled and pronounced the word with a short I sound and not a ye.  Are you positive of the spelling?

In Panjabi, we also use the word /khusara/.  Some people over there also call them "eunuchs," which sounds pejorative to me.  I'm unsure if Hindi and Urdu share the Panjabi word, but my supposition is that they do.


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## Tjahzi

In Swedish, the word belongs to the combined masculin/feminine aka common gender.


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## mataripis

In Tagalog most words do not have gender. But hermaphrodite or having both gender can be expressed as " Kabilaan" in Tagalog Meaning both ways. I can use also "Kapuwa mayron" meaning both have.


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