Interesting how those words are reversed as far as genders go in Spanish:
- Chemisier = Blusa, feminine
- Ceinture = Cinturón, masculine
Despite both languages having common Latin roots.
Comment on why
Hjalamanger@feddit.nu 2 weeks agoI only studied french for a short time, but I feel like that really doesn’t work for french:
- chemisier, blouse, is masculine
- ceinture, belt, is feminine
Those were the two onces I could remember like this half a year after ending my french studies, but could be that those are only two uncommon counterexamples.
Also, both of these are what you would “expect” in German (die Bluse, der Gürtel)
GissaMittJobb@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
djsoren19@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
Well it works for this example, because lave-vaisselle is feminine. The root vasselle (dishes) is feminine.
FundMECFS@anarchist.nexus 2 weeks ago
vaiselle is actually inhereting its gender in an unrelated manner.
It comes from Latin vāscellum which is a Neuter noun.
But the specific form that gave rise to vaiselle was the collective plural of that noun vāscella.
source
And it’s a common pattern that in vulgar latin, (what gave rise to french), collective plural nouns were interpreted as feminine. I think this is a general tendency and unrelated to the noun’s meaning. The reason often given is that neuter plural endings and feminine singular endings were the same in Latin.
BTW; this is also the latin route of the english word vessel.
(PS: I agree with you that gender in language is problematic and I prefer non gendered as well).
scutiger@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Vaisselle is feminine, but lave-vaisselle is masculine.
SorryQuick@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
Une lave-vaisselle totally does not work.